Water Has Its Followers
Water has its followers
but the wind is free of an audience.
It doesn't encourage cults of wild irises and daylilies
along the flowing of its banks.
It sows the orchards with the pollen of stars
it kicks up like dust at its heels.
But my voice isn't the larnyx
of windmills and waterwheels
and when I speak
I'm always one among the crowd
that's listening at the same time
to a conversation with themselves
that took the words right out of my mouth.
My voice is a seance.
The dead use it like a bus stop.
The swallows and the pigeons
drink from it as if it were a public fountain
efflorescing like an Easter lily in Florence.
It's a guitar. But I am not
the medium, the message, or the master.
Sometimes my voice comes in the mail
like a self-addressed suicide note
I wanted to take a cheap form
of copyright out on. Be dead
by the time it got here
like the light of a star that's gone on ahead
so I won't need to open it to the public.
No echo. I know it's a black hole
with nothing to say to anyone
who isn't as singularly empty as it is
cowboying aeons of dark matter into galaxies
that won't stray from the herd like starfish.
Still life with clown, sometimes
it finds me meditating among the pears
or half-lotus in the nunneries of the waterlilies
praying for something important to come down
like Jesus or a ufo and take me away
just take me away for good from this alien place.
When it talks as if it's been insulted
I'm the one who loses face when it decides
it would be more honourable for me to die
facing in the direction of my chi,
gutting myself on a compass needle
that's been in the family ancestrally,
than waste my death as I have my life on poetry.
And when it's in a less ceremonious mood
it holds a broken beer bottle up to my throat
and threatens to cut my heart out
like a bird stuck in a chimney
putting wings on its jugular like a one-stringed harp.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Ellens' Story-Almost Dead
Suicide, will that happen to me? It is not I, who will
cause this final act in life, it is the dark side of
who I am. I want to live, however, the monster, who
resides inside me...wants to commit suicide.
Everything I do...everywhere I go, blackness, inevitable
doom, trails me. I hear his voice,
'Do it...commit suicide. You have nothing to live for...do it! '
Alone, I sob. 'What about the people that love me?
I don't want to hurt them.' His voice again...
'Do it. Kill yourself. You'll be doing them a favor.'
I stare at the bottle of sleeping pills. Suicide...suicide,
it seems a way to solve all my problems.
'YES! The voice blared! Suicide is the answer! '
Suicide? No. Yes.No...what...what to do?
I need to talk with someone. Who? No one!
God...if you're up there, help me. Give me
a sign. I wait...Nothing. No word. No sign.
Slowly, I move to the closet, remove my clothes
and slip on my favorite robe. Tears roll down
my cheeks, as I turn on some soft music.
The voice again: 'That's it. Make yourself comfortable,
then...do it! '
I move to the bed, sit down and reach for the glass
of water. With one hand, I snap off the cap on the
bottle of sleeping pills. Slowly, I move the bottle
toward my mouth.
''Ellen...Ellen? '
From outside my bedroom door, I can
hear my little brother calling me.
'Ellen....'
I hesitate, I don't want him to be the one
that finds me. Quickly, I place the pills
on the nightstand, and replace the cap.
I move to the door and open it.
My brother, is standing there, smiling at me.
'Ellen, watcha ya doin''
I couldn't say committing suicide.
'Just watching a little t.v.'
'Can I come in, ' he said.
I thought about how much he and my family
loved me. I thought about a bunch of other
things I had to be thankful for. I gave serious
about life, and I treasured it. Suicide?
Not tonight.
I look at my little brother and never loved
him more.
'Sure...come in, we'll watch t.v. together.'
Committing Suicide.
Suicide, will that happen to me? It is not I, who will
cause this final act in life, it is the dark side of
who I am. I want to live, however, the monster, who
resides inside me...wants to commit suicide.
Everything I do...everywhere I go, blackness, inevitable
doom, trails me. I hear his voice,
'Do it...commit suicide. You have nothing to live for...do it! '
Alone, I sob. 'What about the people that love me?
I don't want to hurt them.' His voice again...
'Do it. Kill yourself. You'll be doing them a favor.'
I stare at the bottle of sleeping pills. Suicide...suicide,
it seems a way to solve all my problems.
'YES! The voice blared! Suicide is the answer! '
Suicide? No. Yes.No...what...what to do?
I need to talk with someone. Who? No one!
God...if you're up there, help me. Give me
a sign. I wait...Nothing. No word. No sign.
Slowly, I move to the closet, remove my clothes
and slip on my favorite robe. Tears roll down
my cheeks, as I turn on some soft music.
The voice again: 'That's it. Make yourself comfortable,
then...do it! '
I move to the bed, sit down and reach for the glass
of water. With one hand, I snap off the cap on the
bottle of sleeping pills. Slowly, I move the bottle
toward my mouth.
''Ellen...Ellen? '
From outside my bedroom door, I can
hear my little brother calling me.
'Ellen....'
I hesitate, I don't want him to be the one
that finds me. Quickly, I place the pills
on the nightstand, and replace the cap.
I move to the door and open it.
My brother, is standing there, smiling at me.
'Ellen, watcha ya doin''
I couldn't say committing suicide.
'Just watching a little t.v.'
'Can I come in, ' he said.
I thought about how much he and my family
loved me. I thought about a bunch of other
things I had to be thankful for. I gave serious
about life, and I treasured it. Suicide?
Not tonight.
I look at my little brother and never loved
him more.
'Sure...come in, we'll watch t.v. together.'
Every Morning Of The Moment, A New Creation
Every morning of the moment, a new creation,
the distillation of the dreams of the night before
when the moon was as fertile as the dew we were born from.
I start out each day with a new face. By nightfall
it's just another phase of the same old ageless deathmask,
heavier than a bell that's been talking through my mouth
for more light years than I've got tears to measure in mirrors.
That's usually when I start thinking like a potato about stars.
Blood sugars in my mindstream ripening me like a vision
I'll only ever get to see backstage like a forlorn clown
trying to hang on to his faith in laughter.
You can pursue happiness, but it will only
run from you like the light, or you can cover your eyes
and try to avoid it for fear of losing it like the last time,
but when you turn around, it's right behind you,
flirting with your shadow. Better to let it come and go
of its own accord, like a waterbird in a moonrise
reflected on a lake. Then when you speak of things
you increasingly know less about the more
you're intimate with them, your voice isn't
a bird net trying to cage words on the fly
but an aviary as open as the sky when
Cygnus and Aquila are up, and the Lyre's
a larynx for the asking. And you're free
to sing your heart out as if no one were listening
but you and the trees and the stars you hit like high-notes.
Or shriek like a rabbit seized by the coydogs
if you run out of lucky feet and that's what comes up
like snake eyes. Lap the experience out of the bone
until there's nothing left to eat but your appetite itself
and among the myriad flavours of life you've exhausted
that will taste the sweetest of all to that emptiness
that harvests the world like a blue moon that's never full.
Is the moon not the equal of its waxing and waning alike?
Is it trying to enlighten its dark side?
When the candle goes out, does the light have any trouble
handling it? Fear returns to what it knows the best.
It hugs the shore like a tidal pool beside the sea,
a dead starfish or two it can get its arms around
like a worm's-eye view of the galaxy, and the shell
of a red sunset in the morning on the carapace
of a crab that left its hovel for a house in
a more upwardly mobile zodiac. Sometimes
it comes down to that. Quantum level gravity.
A gravitational eye with myopia that bends the light
like a stick in the water, a mirage of sand in an hourglass
that's afraid of being swept out to sea
with nothing to hold onto but the lifeboat
of a shucked clam Venus just stepped out of onto land
to have sex in a new medium like an artist
who's just switched from water colours to oils.
You've got to accept the down times as all part
of the same wavelength you've been riding
like a snake scaled in white caps of light
that break on shore in a turmoil of kelp.
The cosmos doesn't need to be put in order
and chaos doesn't need any help. Listen to your sorrows.
Summon them to a seance of yourself
and apologize to their ghosts for not having the voice
to let them speak through you about
learning to swim with the stars further out of your depths
than you've ever been before. First you drown
in the fathomless immensities of even the smallest detail,
and then you bubble back up to the surface
of a multiverse with an oceanic awareness
of what's been hiding under every eyelid of a wave
like a overturned lifeboat that's waking up
to the fact that everything floats like the moon
in the reflection of its own mindstream.
And whatever sail you spot coming up over
your event horizon, whatever constellation
or black hole you take for a sign of salvation
or salvage, it first had to sink
before it could rise to the rescue.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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In You
In you I come to the end of roads,
and an alphabet of burning wings
falls from an indigo sky
like meteors trying to write
the unsayable in a slash of light,
in a language of luminous scars
the night beatifies with mystic knowledge
that wants to name you
so deeply in thresholds and stars
the charged silence
is giving birth to an indelible mouth,
a doorway of blood,
an ancient grammar of fire
the wind puts on like a robe
to scry the darkness for a voice
that could fill the goblets
of the moon's dead seas
with the wine of a radiant wound,
so much within me
already the tongue of a bell
that can taste you like blackberries.
The whole of you
in every single dropp of your eyes,
you are the black swan
of the eclipse that rares its reflection in water,
the dark orchid in the shadow of the dragon
that sways like a bell in the night,
even your absence a shape of cherishing,
a harvest of shadows beyond the light
of the lamp that burns for you.
Within the deepest abyss of myself
where the heart stands alone
like a single black pillar
in the twilight wasteland of the world,
a mysterious temple to the ultimacy
of having been here once
to suffer the passage of form and time,
everything a gesture of space
that thaws back into itself,
I have written your name
in the hourglass of my blood
like a whisper of secret ink
that once voiced the light to be
and shook the stars like wheat
out of its blind abundance
and will be remembered forever
as the first intimacy of the sea,
and there is the rumour
of a dream in the air,
the fragrance of an approach,
that out of an ocean of light
the tide will embody a woman
like the shore of an island
littered with fingertips and kisses
enmeshed like galaxies and starfish
in the exhalation of her veils
and our lips will meet like archers,
and our bodies will sing like arrows
sunk like orchards through the heart
and long after the last flame of life is shed,
the night will silence the birds
in the groves where we bled like poppies
to open the gates of the mystery
like keys and rain, or the rosary of black pearls
that chants its prayers to the night
like the slow alarm of autumn geese
in the eyes of a human face.
I try to say what can't be said,
pouring my spirit
into the wineskin of every word,
but my heart is a larger apple
than the bough of my voice can bear,
and the silence
that would erect temples everywhere like flowers
spun from the auroral silks of my soul
and perfume the air with the pollen of sacred fireflies,
every emotion a priest with a shaven head
to honour the moon
climbing the stairwell within me
of a million horizons at once
in every breathless step,
falls away behind me like the wake of a sinking ship
that lowers me into my coffin like a lifeboat
or a message in a bottle
that pleads like wine with the emptiness
for an alphabet that isn't in arrears to time
to say you to the night
in a lightning breath of life beyond
these elemental likenesses I carve
from a quarry of stars.
And I know I ask for immortal children
from a human womb,
and wide as my powers are
to exceed the sky with homing birds,
to adorn the dead branch with windows
that dazzle the roots of dawn,
I am the ashes of a black star in daylight,
a stone man with a chain for a tongue
when I try to swim like Atlantis
through the depths of your shining within
and the last word, the last life
to flash across my mind as I drown
again and again like a pulse
in the embrace of your beauty
is always the world as it is
before anything was said.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Living On The Cutting Edge Of The Lunar Waste
Living on the cutting edge of the lunar waste
I made of my last moonrise. A truce
with underwhelming circumstances for awhile,
no apparent pitfalls on a Saturday night in Perth,
too cold for snakes, and the leaves playing their cards
close to earth and the air a knife at your throat,
I can remember when I tried harder to exist,
and it's still a holy war every day just to subsist
and not let it scar your spirit into being cauterized
like a bad tattoo of the moon you had effaced,
but tonight I seek the ease of a solitude older than humans
down in the wetlands of the Tay River just off
Sunset Boulevard before you cross the first bridge.
Waist high in the broken antennae of the brittle grass
yellow as the fossils in a graveyard
of green praying mantes, decultified romantics,
I pad the skull of rock I usually sit on like a prophetic throne
with the old manuscripts of fallen maple leaves,
recalling lines from poems like lyrical snippets of chromosomes
I'd written many years ago to adapt my heart
to the changes it had to go through to recast
the cannon it was into the life of a shapeshifting bell
with the pulse of a nightbird lamenting the dead
instead of a twenty-one gun salute like a firing squad
aimed at the stars. Death is the saddest loss of discipline
the spirit will ever be called upon to master in order to survive.
It was sitting here one night, staring into the eye socket
bored into the albino nugget of a crow's skull,
the boney harps of its wings torn off their hinges
like gates that weren't strong enough to keep something out,
as the black flight feathers of a long eclipse slowly passed
across my eyes, that I realized, dead or alive,
existence is an interactive creative medium that doesn't care
whether you live it like a seance or an exorcism
and there are untold ages of the shining left
even in the oldest ashes of a star strewn on the path
of these long nocturnal firewalks through the mind
and that hello and farewell were the two wings
of the same waterbird, beating in unison
that empowered it to fly like a phoenix of imagination
out of an aviary of urns of its past lives
that might not sing for awhile but never lose their voice.
Cultivate the kind of spirit that can sing to you in the silence
when you're down, about the beauty of just being here
to live it, though you don't want to hear it,
you want to drown in your sorrow like a bell
but somehow the sound of life cuts through you
like a lunar blade with a growing edge
through wounded water and you can't help but wonder
what your ghost would give just to be here again
if only one more time, to resonate with the pain
like a back up singer to the universe,
who knows all the loneliest lyrics by heart
like a waterbird out on the river late at night.
If only to hit one perfect note of sadness, one tine
of separation and suffering like a phantom waterlily
adding its shining to the light like the art
of knowing how to paint starmaps on your tears
indelibly on water for light years to come
to let people know you were once here,
you listened as they will by the side
of this river of life to the same songs, hurt and alone,
as they must if they want to step out of the chorus
and sing solo through their tears in their own voice
before they're gone to a hundred billion stars
that are listening to the same echo
being whispered in their ears like the fires of life
carried away by the desire to live on
like the empty lifeboat of a song full of moonlight
drifting down river to an ocean of awareness
where the gateways of the crow are refeathered
like the exit and entrance of an eclipse of wings
still keeping time to the picture-music that shines
like a new moonrise in the voice of a mindstream that sings
its way through the woods at night alone like a wild grape vine
sustaining the tears of its spiritual high notes until they turn
into the euphoric lunacy of a poetic wine aged in an earthly urn.
poem by Patrick White
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Memory Of Suicide
I sit and think of the moment I shall have
The moment I leave this place to find what is truely mine
The moment I will soon have
I sit and think of the pain, the joy
Of watching myself go, as if in a dream
The moment I stop being time's toy
I sit and I wait for it to come; the freedom, the passion
As I watch the blood fall so red, so heavenly
The cuts and scars are my fassion
I sit and I stair in the eyes of death as life comes to an end
I shall be free, I shall have all I want
And then for you I shall send
Feel the breath of suicide
See it's face
Love it, charish the memory, suicide
As I sit and wait I feel her grasp on my soul, on my mind
I feel her voice chanting her name 'suicide.... suicide'
She is for me she is my love, she is so kind
I know I shall be with her for ever in eternity, in her home
I know how sweet her voice, her touch
You should follow you should come
As I sit and wait I know she will love me like her own
I know I have come home to her, and will stay with her
For my broken heart she has sewn
As I sit and wait she closes in on me so dark, so cold
I will join her in the dark in the serenity
And I know you will follow as you are told
Feel the breath of suicide
See her face
Love her, charish the memory, suicide
poem by Bethany Maxwell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Bring me to life
A bead of water glistens on my palm
As I stepped on watery fields of sadness
I’ m dying, like a flower
That longing for a little falls of rain
Frozen inside
I could hardly breathe
Bring me to life
Let you be my strength in the odd that never ends.
As I touched the sky I see, the angels smile
But my wings are broken
I am fallen
My soul is tracking against the wind
I can’t fly
I’m drowning in the ocean of tears
Just like broken dreams
That is turn into pieces
My voice echoed on the silence of a sea
My throat is parch
No words slip on my lips
Even the wind can’t hear my mournful grief
A tuneful poem that I am trying to sing
But nobody wants to listen
Bring me to life
Let you be my voice in this world of deaf
My heart melts
Like a candle, soften under the sun
My body shivers as I glance at the doom
A dark shadow surrounded on me
Here I am seeking for the light I wanted to see
I was so blind
Bring me to life
Be the light as the sun rises on east
poem by Cheryl Aldea
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Voice On My Tv
Its a familiar voice
Sometimes I wonder
If I have a choice
You give it everything
Youre selling god
But am I listening
I hear youve seen the light
Your message comes to me
By satellite
You say I must believe
I say its just another way
To deceive
If my salvation has anything to do
With your empty promises
And what you think is true
Well heres my donation
If its all the same to you
I am the voice on your tv
But I am one and I am free
Always to say what I believe
I know youre only
A voice on my tv
The numbers on the screen
Will help me get to heaven
So it would seem
The money flows and flows
And no-one cares enough
To know where it goes
Look at all the millions
That youve taken for a ride
With the warmest words
And the coldest heart inside
And how much longer
Can I listen to your lies
What are all the
Credit card believers gonna say
When they hear about the scandals
And the lovers that you pay
And all about the meetings
In your secret hideaway
I am the voice on your tv
But I am one and I am free
Always to say what I believe
Youre just a voice on my tv
Your powers strong but I am free
Always to say what I believe
I am the voice on your tv
But I am one and I am free
Always to say what I believe
Can you hear me
I am the voice on your tv
But I am one and I am free
Always to say what I believe
This is your conscience speaking
song performed by by Uriah Heep
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Hunger (John 6: 1-15)
I'm nobody
I'm just a child without family
I'm nobody
And I'm hungry
So I search for the crowd
To beg for mercy
May they have some food
Other than words of enemy
I'm hungry
And there's a crowd in front of me
They are walking into the same direction
To the mountain, near Tiberias I see
They are following for one man
He sits down and begins to tell a story
Story that I never heard in my life
Where the world is felt more joyful and merry
He doesn't shout or speak loud
But the wind carries His calm voice to every
As speaking to His children in their night bed
His face looks so bright and free
From a far distance
I continue to listen to His story
And slowly
I'm not anymore so hungry
His story starts to fill my heart with warmth
His presence covers my body with safety
And for the first time of my life
I feel more love and energy
And then suddenly
He raises His head and looking around of many
He talks to His friends about something
I hope it'll be soon or I will remember that I'm hungry
He comes again to the top
And blessing the bread and fish He carries
I'm not moved when the food is shared
I know it won't enough for any
I'm nobody
And no one will notice my small body
I keep watching from distance
Even though I'm very hungry
But then somebody comes closer
And drags me into the small circle
I don't know them and they to me
But strangely I don't feel lonely
I don't know when I'll eat again
I don't remember the last time I ate properly
But it doesn't matter anymore
At least now I won't be hungry
The food is keep coming from everywhere
They continually offer it to me
And for the first time of my life
Somebody really smiles to me
That moment I start to realize something
Many cheer and laugh heard in the party
How everybody eats and talks together
They are like in one big of family
Some people said it is miracle
Some other said God is there
I'm not truly understand
But I'm glad that I am here to see
Not because the food I get
But for the strength to live
Not because the vision I find
But for hope I allowed to have
And when the crowd starts to disappear
I still standing there like in trance
Maybe I won't see Him again
But I will keep this faith with me
I'm nobody
I'm just a child without family
I'm nobody
But now I won't be anymore hungry
poem by Maria Sudibyo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Blast Off
Blast off! Up to the stars we go
And leave behind everything I used to know.
Somebody's giving me a whole lot of money to do
What I think I want to
So why am I still feeling blue?
Oh what a time though...
Goddamn, get your head out of your hands.
Here's to all the times we're gonna have.
Cooped up for a year with the two best-looking babes I've seen all year
Get me another bottle of beer
'Cos I'm feeling fine
Go ahead, waste your head
We've got the time. I hope you don't object if I
Speak my mind
Don't forget the purpose of the mission,
Or Nomis will be swallowed by its sun.
Each one of you is a top graduate of the Star Corps Academy
It's up to you reach for a dream
Oh what a time though!
Go ahead and waste your life
I'm still in fear.
I hope you dont object if I
Crack another beer.
Hold on, who is it here that I see?
Wasn't she a she a favorite bitch in the Academy?
I don't know if I wanna lead on this woman,
You know I've done that before.
She's actually a good girl,
Or at least a cheap ho...
song performed by by Weezer
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Other Man
An urgent call in the dead of night
A voice that whispers now
A voice that trembles like a winter leaf
Before it hits the ground
She leaves a crack in the bedroom door
To slip the wire through
Her husband sleeping in a empty bed
No witness to the truth
Its a oneway conversation
I try to tell her no
But its a hopeless situation
I just cant let her go
And here she is another desperate night
In the arms of the other man
Another day in a double life
Every moment that she holds me tight
I know just where I stand
As I am the other man
She leaves my room like a criminal
To beat the morning light
Rehearsing ever little alibi
To get it water tight
Theres a note on the dresser top
Its the same old classic line
She says shes leaving him
Its just a question of time
Its a no win situation
cause I just cant let her go
And here she is another desperate night
In the arms of the other man
Another day in a double life
Every moment that she holds me tight
I know just where I stand
As I am the other man
As I am the other man
As I am the other man
As I am the other man
song performed by by Gino Vanelli
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Like A River In Its Running, Like Life, Like Time, Like Mind
Like a river in its running, like life, like time, like mind
no point of departure that isn't also a moment of arrival.
Toxic parasols and meteor showers shot precisely
out of the green radiants of the candling umbrellas
and half-hearted parachutes of the water hemlock.
Starbursts of flowers that scald like welding sparks.
Bouquets thrown backwards over the shoulders of mean brides.
Alone in the high, wild grass, I just want to lie down in the sun
until half of me leaks into my watershed and the other half
evaporates into the cerulean bliss of the oblivious sky,
just breathe myself out into unfathomable volumes of space,
a riff of sacrificial smoke from a guitar on a pyre
as unconcerned as fire about where I'm going from here.
I like the metaphors that spring up like wild irises
along the mindstream, so I guess this is flowing,
though I could as easily be walking down a dirt backwoods road
feeling many of the same things, as I exalted
in the early blossoming of the chicory as a cosmic event
with mystic implications for those who can see
eternity embodied in the earthly simplicity of flowers
and that time, in the long run, has nothing to do with enduring.
I'm going to trample out a deer bed and lie down here
sketching starmaps of this year's flotilla of waterlilies
until the light of the isoscelean Summer Triangle breaks
like chalk on a blackboard. I want to clear my mind
like the Nazca Plateau and let the fireflies build runways
like well lit jungle zodiacs for the extraterrestrials.
Not expecting the wind to whisper secrets in my ear.
The trees can keep their secrets to themselves.
I'm not here to read the private life of the moon
left open like a diary of telescopic wavelengths
too intimate to be revealed to the one-eyed peeping toms.
Just want to settle into my own wake awhile
like dust kicked up by a wheel, numb the turmoil
on the wonder of things that embrace me as if
I were a stranger to myself the same as them
and our chief function in life, if there's one at all,
were merely the expression of our presence here
arrayed in the eyes of all like moon rise in a dropp of water.
Things flashing into this openness like constellations
of fish and dragonflies in a mirror elaborating their ripples
into flying carpets of musical effusion
that are never out of hidden harmony with chaos
even when seeds are scattered like dice
on the ghost of a chance on the wind lamenting its luck.
Don't want to mean, or be, or do.
I've been through those doors so many times
I'm beginning to think my feet are retrogressive thresholds
or stone mill water wheels grinding out my daily bread
like a Mayan calendar with a new moon at harvest time.
Nothing's resolved except perhaps you perceive
how the sublimities of life arise like Arcturus
out of its utter insignificance through an opening
in the crown of the black walnut tree you're lying under.
Whatever I am, whether I bear a message or not,
or I'm just a witness that wasn't called upon to testify,
comes a time when it seems more fruitive to let
the medium adapt its grammar to me to say what it wants
than I should try to shape it to the unsayable
that always leaves the taste of abandoned books in my mouth.
It's possible to flute your emptiness through the top
of an empty whiskey bottle making nautical sounds below decks
like the s.o.s. of a lifeboat in distress. Or you can percolate
like a breakfast clutch of black-capped chickadees in the willows
trying to get them to take something seriously for once,
or mock the crows like lumps of coal too cynically short-sighted
to spot the diamonds in their soul. Or you can
stop imitating yourself as if you were the proto-type
of someone who hasn't made it to the showroom floor yet.
They're all feasibility studies in pragmatic absurdity.
Given time, any lifemask you've carved out of your unlikeness
will grow to resemble you as space
has become a similitude for the dead.
Me? I just want to lie here until all I've got left for a voice
is a bird homing in the twilight, and when I roll over
to look in the water and see what remains of me, is a face
as unrecognizable as the universe.
poem by Patrick White
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The Echo
I heard my voice come back to me.
The echo of it yearned to be
free to travel and be heard,
free to echo out each word.
I yelled some sounds and patiently
awaited their return to me.
All was fine until I said
words to turn my face quite red.
Racy words that I'd never say,
words that could be called risque.
When they came back it sounded worse
than if I yelled a blatant curse.
Embarrassed to hear my voice repeat,
I closed my mouth and did retreat
away from the place that echoed me,
praying these words would not be free
to travel anywhere.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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The Missing Puzzle Piece
I try to think
Of one reason you left me
And, I try to envision
Why you did reject me
Yet, I cannot seem-
To really place it
Or maybe I just can't
Really face it
How could I provide you-
With what heroin could?
How could I give to you-
What that drug, it would?
So seductive, so peaceful
Even graceful when dying
As we'd shoot through sky
So high we were flying
I think of your smile
I remember those eyes
So sad
And, so blue
A devil-
In disguise
YOU were my drug
YOU were my breath
And, now it is over
And, now I face death
So empty-I am
I feel as if I am dead
I now close my eyes
Because, I cannot look ahead
I remember the touch
-The touch of your hand
I remember those feelings
That I now know I can't stand
And, now part of me just
Wants you to bleed
To scream-and to cry!
To feel, and to need
To know what it feels like
To be abandoned
For you to do this to me
I could never even
Have Fathomed
Yet, there it is-
The writing's been written
Across the wall
And, I feel like I've been bitten
By something
That's powerful
And, deadly
And, raw
Like the bite of a viper
Yes, I freeze
But don't thaw
As the venom
Starts flowing
Right through my veins
I scream
And, I choke
As I now lie in pain
I try to get up
Yes, I try to fight
But, it doesn't seem worth it
It just doesn't seem right
So, I kiss you goodbye
And, then I spit in your face!
It is your existance
That I now dream to erase!
Your voice
And, your sorrow
Your anger
And, despair
Your need to keep using
The fact
That you don't even care
One time we lived,
United as one
But, that time has ended
Yes, we've come undone
And, like a puzzle that's missing
It's center piece
I'm left strewn and scattered
Overcome by defeat
Yet, you will be the one
To eventually LOSE
When you are the one
Who again starts to use
And you'll use 'till it's over
And, your RIPPED
And, your BROKEN
As you sit on the floor
Left rotting and CHOKING
And, then I will chuckle
Hell-I might even grin!
My life I'll renew,
A new life I will begin.
© copyright 2010 Nicole Settimi/Dark Lyric Poetry
Dark Lyric Poetry by The Dark Artist Nicole Settimi
poem by Nicole Settimi
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OH, Angel in Heaven Above
Oh, Angel Eyes One Day I heard an Angel's voice & I Said To The Angel I see Your Big Beautiful Eyes in The Haven's Above, OH, Angel in Heaven Above,
OH! Wont you Come Down here & Talk to me..I long to Hear your Soft Sweet Voice Sing to me, When you just Talk to me..When the Heaven above Had opened up & your wings stretched out so proud & wide with Your feathers unfolding, like a gentle
tide, Soring throw the midnight sky so Gracefully, Just like an Swan Swimming in a pond. & then
an Angel Appeared, Oh to my eyes My dearest Angels the most beautiful site, I have ever seen that has
just came from Heaven Above, Standing In front of me singing that never ending Sweet time Summer song So
Gracefully with your Angel's eyes, they shine so bright It, lights the darkness of a moonless
midnight sky. As you Talk to me with those Sweet worlds of Fraze in my Ear, Oh so sexy, soft &
sweet, Oh How I love it......I had such Fun hearing it. But now That I am down & out For Awhile.
Can you Repair my Broken Heart so I Can take control of my life again. That you Have Broke, For
Which You Don't Seem To Talk to Me any More Or is it like a beat that my heart is Missing.
Oh Angel Friend of Mine....... Can you restore Every thing That's Broken Does It matter If It's
black or white, Down & out for Awhile or Up & Running like A humming Bird............. But then
again I could be wrong. The words, they linger on the tip of my tongue Oh Angel My Dear.What have
I done wrong? In the heart My Darling Angel Friend.. A feather, A Feather Flowing in the Wind is
my Heart, Oh Please Cough that Feather for me my Darling Angel For Silence is Loulder Then THUNDER
& Talk to me Again....For It Been a Long Time For Thow Has Talked To Me........Oh Angel, Oh Angel
Where For Are Thow Angel...For Thow Has Gone Away & left Me In The Dark, Oh Angel Eyes, But, It's Not
That I am Sacred Of The Dark It's Because I Can't Sleep With a Light On..Or Is It Just That You've
Closed Your Angel Eyes For Awhile, Oh Angel friend Of Mine.So If That Is The Case Then Well you
Open Your Angel Eyes My Princess Darling To Me & Speak To Me With That Sexy, Soft & Sweet Voice That
You Sing To Me, When You Just Talk To Me. Oh Angel from Heaven Above......... Oh, I Long To Hear
Your Soft Sweet Sexy Voice Sing To Me Again Someday.... Because Your Voice Was Filled With
Sweet Melody, So Worm, Soft & Sexy To My Ear. Is It Really Good By For Ever My Princess Darling
To Me.......& For The Thunder Roll Again, Just As The Whisper From An Angel In Pain For Why Shall
Any Angel Be In Pain, Oh Angel, Oh Angel Wont You Opened Up Your Wings & Stetch Them Out, So
Proud And Wide With Your Feathers Unfolding, Like A Gentle Tide & Fly To Me & Tell Me What's
Wrong So May Help You Over Come This Pain In Your Heart & Be Free Again From The Pain That is
With In The, For I Have Looked To The Heavens To Find The, But Thow is No Where To Be Found, Oh
Heaven's Above Where For Art Thow Angel That Used To Talk So Sweetly In they Ear, But Now Has Gone
Away It Seems At Least For now, If Not For Ever, I Look In The Mirror & I Seen A Trace Of The One
That I Miss And Her Beautiful Face Be Bind Me But When I Looked Around There Was An Empty Feeling
Of The Love That I Once Made Is Now Gone Away..... Your Sweet Voice Warms Up My Soul & My Heart
Skips A Beat I Will Never Stop Looking For Her, You've Changed All Our Lives Every One That You
Meet OH Angel Eyes. Your Memory Will Last Forever, Forever And A Day, OH Angel In Heaven Above..
I live Without Her For So Long & now I Wont A Change.......I Live Every Day Now Just To Hear your
Sweet Soft Sexey Voice Sing To Me When You Just Talk To Me....But For Now I am Waiting On That
Sign I have Been Looking For All My Life...........1994
poem by Ronald Summerville
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I Hear
(diana ross/stan scates)
What is this i hear
Falling softly in my ears
Quietly telling me to wipe away my tears
Yesterdays are gone
And love has cleared the way
No matter who you are
You can touch the stars
Life's interactions can make you smile
Just listen to the voice in your heart
The voice is near you, it's never too far
The voice is with you, where ever you are
It's closer than close, calling to your heart
I hear the voice of love
I hear the voice of love
The voice will never leave you
It lives deep down inside
It's calling you, asking you
To open up your heart
All things are achievable
Nothing is impossible
You can reach your highest high
You can make it if you try
Life's interactions can make you smile
Just listen to the voice in your heart
The voice is near you, it's never too far
The voice is with you, where ever you are
It's closer than close, calling to your heart
I hear the voice of love
I hear the voice of love
Follow where it leads you in the dark
The voice will guide your heart
The voice is always near
I hear the voice, i found the voice
From the mountains to the sea
The voice of love is calling me
Where ever you are, the voice is near you
It's never too far, the voice is with you
I hear the voice of love
I hear the voice of love
I hear the voice of love
song performed by by Diana Ross
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I Know This Poor Bloke
I know this poor bloke in the mood for suicide
And he has felt heavy hearted since the day his wife died
Some five years ago his ache of loss from him not gone
And till the day of his death his grief with him will live on.
I do meet him often though not every day
And for words to him I always feel stuck to say
He always talks of his dead wife and the grief that he feel
And for him I feel sorry since his sorrow is real.
On his sense of loss with him I sympathize
And each time I see him he has tears in his eyes
My condolences to him I already did pay
But the grief that he feels it is with him to stay.
The price of true love it can come at a great cost
And he is left to mourn for what he has lost
One in his late sixties his hair silvery gray
And the clock on his life it is ticking away.
A man due to grief in the mood for suicide
Though he is one now I would rather avoid
Since each time I meet him he talks of his dead wife
And I am one who needs laughter in my life.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Her Bliss
Death is in the flower's heart –
Why to cry for life of any petal?
Death in purple ink of weary pens
Betrays the written yearnings
On her scented paper.
Death is laughing in her cry;
Her broken heart forlorn upon the sleeve.
Death ignores the plight of any purity –
He doesn’t care or seem to be aware of
What her dewy eye desires,
For Death beckoned:
'Embrace the jar! '
And yes, she did –
For Death, of course.
After all, no other man would
Open up her hand and bid her with a kiss,
So Death became her bliss.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2009
suicide suicide suicide suicide suicide suicide
suicide suicide suicide suicide suicide suicide
suicide suicide suicide suicide suicide suicide
suicide suicide suicide suicide suicide suicide
poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Leaving This Man Alone
I'm still working
Always working
For the next bill, no time for thrills.
Sir you must head in to those hills.
Mine till sun comes down.
Just to make it home in time to go to bed.
Far away is where I'm going again.
The benefits within.
The wounds are slowly healing.
Agony, I love it here and love it their.
Making a life out of despair.
Have to do what you have to do.
Surving just to make it through.
I got you, you, you, and you.
A million different conversations.
I smile with aggravation.
What a revelation
Look at me now.
Just keeping my head above the ground.
Anyway I know how.
With heaven, lord let me just make it to the skies.
Time just flies by.
With wings it soars.
Come on now.
I will march upon the fields like anyone else.
I am man and I don't give a damn.
Not cause I don't want to.
But sometimes you just have no choice.
Echo's, echo's, echo's my voice.
For life is precious, and sometimes their is no time to rejoice.
Let the heart beat, let the sweat pour.
It's the only way I like it anymore.
Another no reward.
A master of nothing falls on his own swords.
A little of this and that.
Always moderation.
Even on my own free time.
I trying to figure how to make the green.
Ugly as sin.
Where does it end.
A new job doing the same thing.
Sometimes it must be gained.
A man of the insane.
With no complaints.
Not a saint.
I know where I stand, and I know where,
Oh echo's echo's echo's my voice, 'you do'.
No argument here.
To each their own.
So just leave this man alone.
poem by Ace Of Black Hearts
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That Voice Of Choice Is Their Own
When a game of catch up,
Believed can be played to be done...
Is initiated by some who think,
This battle against time can be won...
Is a matter of choice?
Their minds are stuck!
Listening to one voice.
And that voice of choice is their own.
And there is nothing in this world,
To convince people like this...
That their resistance in a stubbornness,
Has nothing to do with enemies or terrorists.
The ones witnessed being victimized,
Are they who perceive doing what they please...
Ultimately results to their benefit.
And there is a mindset of folks who think life is a joke!
With a listening done to one voice!
Not yours or mine,
By choice.
Just one voice and that is their own.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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