The Permanent Guest [16.08.24]

That place where I begin

that mystery

as it’s drifting in,

it’s somewhere else

than I’ve ever been.

It’s with someone new,

that mystery

as my lips go blue,

It’s with someone else

that I never knew.

I can’t remember

who it said it was,

something peaceful,

and convincingly

posing

as a meaningful cause.

That subtle spell,

that gathering smell

of the fear of depth,

that permanent guest,

sleep,

and its slippery prescription

for gradual death.

©cmd 2024 [aka o.monger]

When I Feel:Wordplay:H-DOT

When I feel defeated,

And I am all alone,

I use these words to comfort,

I'm finding my way home,

Was on a path to nowhere,

Was searching for the light

The promise of forgiveness,

Decisions wrong or right,

When I feel forsaken,

Mistaken and ashamed,

To raise my hands in triumph,

To cover up the pain,

Alluding to the process,

Transcending song or rhyme,

When I feel these feelings,

Search deep inside my mind,

For all the years forgotten,

These fleeting memories,

Proceed ahead with caution,

When I feel me be,

The monster in the closet,

Who hides behind closed doors,

That's peering from the shadows,

Beyond lost metaphors,

The lantern shining brightly,

Illuminates my psycy,

When I feel there is no way,

I feel a force that's mighty,

The winds of change can take me,

To somewhere distant place me,

When I feel me drifting off,

The moment overtakes me,

The only thing I'm craving,

But was it worth me saving?

Amazingly I feel alive,

The chains that bound me breaking,

Whatever problems facing,

I'll stand alone proclaiming,

No weapons formed will prosper now,

No drop of doubt is staying,

Enslaved to life obeying,

It costs to live still paying,

When I feel the end has come,

Flesh bones to dust remaining,

Kelly Ephraim Benjamin Jordan

Embrace of the Night

In a neon glow where the night unfurls,
Laughter and whispers spin like pearls,
A vibrant scene, a colorful swirl,
In the heart of a world where joy unfurls.

Twink faces shine, adorned with delight,
Dancing and twirling through the warm, buzzing night,
With pulsating beats that propel them higher,
Each moment a spark, each glance a fire.

In a celebration of bodies and souls,
A playful embrace where the spirit unfolds,
Connection ignites in this carnival space,
Every touch a reminder of love’s sweet grace.

With giggles and whispers, the air is alive,
In the dance of the night, together they thrive,
A tapestry woven with courage and pride,
In a realm where no secrets need to be hied.

So let the night carry their laughter like wings,
In the harmony found in the joy that it brings,
For in this wild dance, under starlit skies,
True beauty is found in the joy of the ties.

-Matthew Callies

Here I sit

Here I sit

On my assigned reservation

Waiting for a monthly allotment of whisky

With reluctance and hesitation

Waiting for moth-eaten blankets

And the Salvation Army clothes

How will my people survive this

No one really knows

What happened to our culture

What happened to our home

What happened to the time

When wild buffalo roam

They've stolen our waters

They’ve stolen our trees

They murdered our leaders

They put us down on our knees

They've stolen our lands

They’ve stolen our wives

They call it American

They've stolen our lives

© 2024 Jeffrey Pipes Guice

The Farewell…

Bringing Smiles to millions around;

Lifting Sagging Spirits from ground,

You are the Heroes of our Nation;

And the cause for the celebrations.

You chopped and minced the enemy;

With great precision and Solemnity,

You fought with the valor..exemplary;

And gave up your life with joy ‘n’ glee.

At prime of the life.. Death you chose;

In every heart…Sad wails ,cries froze,

With heavy hearts ..bid you farewell;

In our dabbling eyes.. Sadness swells.

By ,

Ashok Malli .

From “ Soul Stirring Sonnets “.

the ivory mask

We are both from broken-homes:

mine was built intentionally

from bits of things (defensively),

and yours took form organically

over years and years,

the way that nails grow, but

wildly and ghastly to entomb you.

What is

A Glass House

and

an Ivory Tower?

My Glass House is a greenhouse,

too, and

I can interact and see

beyond my windows,

willingly,

and creatures can look in on me.

So I made mine of glass for

its vulnerability;

because I am on a retreat

from the touch of society—

but, it’s a type of break.

I have not resigned.

I can break this house of mine.

Your Ivory Tower took

shape from inside

as a way to recoil completely

behind an unintentional

opaque design

to be your new exterior.

To this design

your ‘you’ is the inferior.

Subverted by white,

armored beauty,

hidden and stolen from

all that surrounds you:

Your new you

is a hologram slapped onto the face of

your self-grown Ivory shell.

Can a hologram touch things?

Do holograms breathe?

An Ivory that thick takes a whole lifetime

to grow…

It breeds and breeds and breeds and breeds.

And, yes, it makes you

somewhat mystical

to have the ability to manifest Ivory:

but it still entombs you/

still a tumor,

and now I know that you can’t see.

Your beautiful opaque is deceitfully fake

but there is no static cling

in our village,

because we’ve been earthing for 10,000 years

through a wire

in the wall

reaching out to the dirt:

it’s ionized in here

-just right.-

I thought I knew you through my window

but

now I know it was just a shadow

cast by a tower that obscures your intentions:

and your true intentions

hurt me.

Once I saw

a glimpse of the

Old you

Behind the mask and retreated,

hurriedly and safe

behind my Glass:

where I can both see,

and interact.

Thank God there’s no need,

then,

to go outside.

I cannot find the destination.

But I no longer breathe

the air you breathe:

Operation

Complete.

-clw

This Sense

“It’s friggin’ nuts, Thanksgiving is two 

weeks away,” he said as we drank coffee

waking up to hunt.  He’s thirty, I’m seventy-two.

My sense of time moving in seasons

and Thanksgiving and Christmas and 

Easter.  Those matters of return not in 

the linear realm of one year then another.

But therein lies the mystery of time 

and eternity, the Janus-faced god,

the one who looks behind-ahead simultaneously.

I am an old man, he a young man.

He hunts where I no longer go.

The body not matched to the desires of the heart,

dreams impossible to follow that still come

to me.  I suppose this is called aging,

this sense of time passing, the return of seasons,

this sipping coffee in the morning, 

the conversations in the dark before the hunt begins.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com