Prose
purgatory
You wake up with your head pillowed on something wet and cold Your nose scrunches uncomfortable Your eyes feel like heavy lead, and they valiantly try to flutter open You're unsure of how long it takes you to open your eyes When you do, the world around you is dream-like and hazy Soft, yellow light in the distance bobbing up, down, and up again A lantern, your mind supplies groggily still half asleep and wary You peel yourself off the- forest ground? Now that you look around, you realize you're surrounded by tall, lush pines The smell hits you first petrichor and half rotted leaves It was your favorite scent- was? is. Is your favorite scent your skin prickles in animal fear The lantern wielder is close now but you can't make out any distinct features He- She- They are wearing a cloak over their face Leather gloves that squeak against the silence you're now registering Where are the crickets? you think to yourself Where is the sun? you deliriously ask yourself Even with no sun evident, the sky you see peeking is mottled It almost looks like a bruise, you realize faintly Blues, and pinks, and deep purples so beautiful it makes your chest ache The crunching leaves stop and you can't help but feel like prey This stranger comes to a halt at your sodden, pititful self They extend a hand, and still you can't make out flesh You take the hand anyway and make a surprised noise as you're lifted It was October, you remember distantly samhain, to be exact The strangers touch is ice cold but feverishly, you think you're colder They tug you along, lantern bobbing up, down, side to side The yellow and red leaves are crunchier here where your body didn't crush them You think about apologizing but then think about your life before Always spent apologizing, never letting yourself take up space You stop and stumble as the stranger keeps going doesn't look back at your scared face Because you realize now, where you are Why it is eerily silent with nary a rustle You remember- an accident? Water, freezing water, so cold and biting You shiver in half remembered memory tugging weakly at the firm grip You stumble after it resigned to your fate
By Adora Aguirreabout a month ago in Poets
Dominance
Dissemble gives air to backgrounding lull, cha-chunk cha-chunk cha-chunk of motion falls her hair over my baron chest as light as air briefs moments in her pensive stares. Weight, coil, the silence of dominance as to a cogent narrow body. A sound between two masses, nary a ripple wakes as she slips in to water so convincing as a mothers gentle rinse swaddles a baby bare in a basin . A natural depression between two masses.
By Gerry Thibeaultabout a month ago in Poets
Blanked Verse?
Prologue: We are indeed fortunate to have discovered a long-lost poem by Mr. F. S. W. Stegalitz, one of the finest poets of the nineteenth century; a worthy rival to Dickinson, Hopkins, Whitman, Pushkin, or many of the modern poets of the last century. As those of you who read and love poetry know, Mr. Stegalitz was not a fan of the publication industry, feeling that they were ''vultures and leeches in bowties'' (a rare direct quote), so he kept his work close to home and would only allowed certain scholars and readers he felt worth his time see his work. Fortunately, one of those readers was able to acquire his work after his passing and save it for future generations. Unfortunately, it again became lost and hidden in a desk drawer that would have remained undiscovered were it not for the efforts of our investigators.
By Kendall Defoe about a month ago in Poets
Wet Pennies
wet pennies is what I really want to say, wet on a tongue maybe, or blood, the scent of wet pennies, a sensation of sharp metallics— short lived on a tongue like the live end of a battery—it wouldn’t be mine, its all been said before. These days many people will never know that scent of wet pennies. The courage it takes to leave one tails up on the ground, then wonder for days if good luck had been picked up. The hundreds of millions of hands they’ll never know. The hands that have freely touched a single penny or kissed the mouths of those who have once tried. Once, I stopped following, it didn’t matter I was locked in—the algorithm had me regularly sending your bullshit whether I liked it or not cursory scrolling time, there’s always trees I thought, there’s always the sky I thought too, a sky with an almost white moist lime ceiling trying to decide between dew or rain before dawn. Lime, the ceiling I used to lay beneath. Who for a minute would have ever thought a penny could become so cliché? A metaphor for value in 1989. On the ground you’d pick one up — Copper Lore mixed with dimes, nickels, and quarters for a cup of coffee. In line behind aged beauty with shaking hands counting out all the pennies to pay, sent from an angel, a god, to Love. 1989 a humble farmer from the Soviet Union refuses to send tanks to Bornholmer Straße a handful of peace held high—and hope. He then allowed the wall to come down.
By Gerry Thibeaultabout a month ago in Poets
