nomad. sometimes poet.

We've got a blind date with Destiny - and it looks like she's ordered the lobster. ~Mystery Men

[goneahead]

header pix by Dashi, avatar by generalgrevious

poetry reblogged at 9am and 5pm est. 🚌anything else depends on the wind and the road!🚌

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my poetry

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Links to other thing:

How to edit poetry

Favorite Poetry Books

How to write stronger poetry

A03

A03 Masterpost

Dreamwidth

Dreamwidth Masterpost

Dreamwidth - Poetry/Poetry Recs

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[thelostcanyon]

March evening facing west, J-Six Ranch, Cochise County, Arizona.

[apolladay]

Which notorious English class short story fucked you up the most?

* I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

*The King in Yellow

* The Lottery

* The Masque of the Red Death

* The Monkey’s Paw

* The Most Dangerous Game

* The Nameless City

* The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

* There Will Come Soft Rains

*The Yellow Wallpaper

* The Veldt

* “you think those were fucked up? What about [X]!”

Which notorious English class short story fucked you up the most?

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

The King in Yellow

The Lottery

The Masque of the Red Death

The Monkey’s Paw

The Most Dangerous Game

The Nameless City

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

There Will Come Soft Rains

The Yellow Wallpaper

The Veldt

“you think those were fucked up? What about [X]!”

Voting ended onApr 30

[it-grrl]

Okay I have things I should be seeing to but I couldn't help myself. In case you, like me, have not read all of these stories and would like to be amongst the lucky 10,000 today:

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison

The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers*

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson**

The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe

The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs

The Most Dangerous Game by Richard O'Connell

The Nameless City by HP Lovecraft

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K LeGuin

There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Veldt by Ray Bradbury

Honorable Mention from the comments/reblogs:

All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury

*note: this is actually a collection of short stories and clocks in at about 72k words

**Originally published in the New Yorker in 1948; interestingly, the New Yorker still has this story archived on their website BEHIND A PAYWALL. CAN YOU IMAGINE.

[athene-glaukopis]

Adding two other Honorable Mentions:

A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift

A Deer in the Works, by Kurt Vonnegut

[greater-than-the-sword]

All Summer in A Day by Ray Bradbury

[goneahead]

adding: Gestella by Susan Palwick. A friend read this for a writing class and then decided to inflict it on all of us.

trigger warnings: abusive relationship, unhealthy submissiveness, animal abuse, and a couple of other trigger warnings I can't add without spoiling the story. Link: Gestella

[biancacanlove]

Theatre.

Wake up, it's time

to put your mask on.

Who are you? Who are you

when the lights are off?

Forced to act like

somebody you are not-

I don't think you know it.

That mask has ingrained

itself on your face-

it hurts to pull it off.

You don't dare do it yourself

and you scream

when somebody else tries to-

you are afraid;

tearing the mask off your face

will leave your true self

scarred and bare.

The longer you leave it on

the harder it will be

to remove it, to heal.

But you don't care to do that;

to you all the world's

a stage-

you are content

being fake.

[i2-xmf]

“Adams Theater” (2005)

[noorshirazie]

APOLOGIES DON'T CUT IT

Fool me once, lesson learned. There will be no fooling me twice. You had your chance. The mask now slides across a face you'll never see again.

I have calculated the distance between us, and I deem it unsafe. Maybe it always was.

It will take a hundred summers to warm the shuddering earth between our feet. Even then, she is on guard. She knows nothing else.

[sittinginstars]

Day by Day

And I don’t think I can

but I know I must

exist second by second.

Drag myself through the day

with the mask on.

With all the hellos,

how are you?

All of it far too much

all the time,

but I let it grate on me

as it will.

Just get the day done,

another one ticked off

while I’m still here.

Crawl into bed after more meds—

are they helping?

Or just keeping me

in the land of the living?

With just enough of a boost

to see the reasons

to keep going.

I want the life I should have though,

with all that I’ve lost returned.

But I know I must have

a new life,

built on ruins

once more.

[ghostieblotts]

Objective and super-objective

Because maybe, if he can keep up the act even when there's no-one there to see it, he can convince that most sceptical of audience members: himself.

I wrote a poem in the tags of another post again, so this time I actually committed to the bit and edited it properly. This poem was inspired by this post with the poem 'hurry slowly' by Charles Bukowski, from Come On In!.

[justscribbledwords]

putting on a mask has always been easier when your reality scares the world but moreover when it scares you to look in the mirror

[libraryinthehut]

🚦Survival of night.

When my eyes get blurry and the little sound speaks on,

I want my skin to strip—like shedding what's gone.

Peel back the layers, the scars, the disguise,

Till only the truth stares back through my eyes.

I’m tired of the masks that smile through the storm,

Of wearing this body like it should feel warm.

It feels like a costume stitched out of pain,

A fabric soaked heavy with silence and shame.

Each whisper inside me is louder than screams,

Echoing fears that haunt all my dreams.

I want to be raw, be naked, be real—

To feel something deeper than what I conceal.

So let it all peel, let the armor fall slow,

Let the wind kiss wounds only I know.

Maybe beneath, I’ll find some small light—

A flicker, a flame, surviving the night.

[unexpected-error-occurred-deact]

Acting / Reacting

I feel truly alone

Even though a warm pulse

Knocks on my back.

I feel like I can't be me.

I'm just reacting.

I'm just acting like I enjoy this...

I don't.

I hear static on the other end.

I was ecstatic but I'm bent in half,

Over backwards and working my ass off

And throwing my clothes off into the corner.

Naked mess of appendages.

Vulnerable shoulders hunched in.

It rains all day and usually I'm emphatic.

But I wish I had an umbrella today.

© @parasomnambulist April 15, 2021

[maya-doolali]

carbon.

a face is the mask that was made of

me. and skin peels  with the compliance 

of clay. arching posture,  I hid in the neck of a

giddy smile, blushing under parallel guises

the mask has two eyes the face blinds three

- Maya Doolali

[witchrealms]

(x)

[enchantedbook]

"Cat Fancy" by Edward Gorey

[fullofreveries]

season by wave to earth inspired this loosely poem.

[seaanimalonland]

The Flower-Fed Buffaloes | Vachel Lindsay

The flower-fed buffaloes of the spring  In the days of long ago, Ranged where the locomotives sing And the prairie flowers lie low:— The tossing, blooming, perfumed grass Is swept away by the wheat, Wheels and wheels and wheels spin by In the spring that still is sweet. But the flower-fed buffaloes of the spring Left us, long ago. They gore no more, they bellow no more, They trundle around the hills no more:— With the Blackfeet, lying low, With the Pawnees, lying low, Lying low.

[joshuahollandphoto]