ivory poems

i hold you, in the space between my ribs, vine growing among azaleas in full bloom

[the-sum-of-many-poets]

all work executed with neatness and dispatch

the coliseum’s achingly placative

a thousand things you must see before you die

is streaming free to air

humans in electronic headlocks

lost in the dementia of carousels

take the emoji high road

unicorns bound for nebbiolo

could be why

gravity is super heavy today

drunk mercurial jockeys cover the mountains like mukhwas

dreaming by the wildflowers

their petals form a pinch

a ruffle to the fog

& in their grasp

each flower holds a poem about the darkness

the world is in messianic famine

it calls from the equator of our guts

we follow animal tracks

for pantry demands

today’s pilgrimage is brought to you

by

jerky in the shape of political candidates

everyone’s eating their feelings

to make space

I jettison trivial cache

bespoke license plates & such

it plumes a mental steak

all the gulls take aim

disappearing in a feathered legerdemain

moses is in the gutter

the squeegee guy

spruiking traffic

swears he saw an arm

riddled with track marks

descend from the sky

wrote a name in the stone

& scattered sugar for the comedown

before the billion cameras

the squeegee guys were surveillance

scribes would pass through the night

remotely yelling their names from the hardened concrete

what are the statistics on lady vandals

I see displaced men

their spent feet delivering them to the streets of public grace

streets reckoned for heroes

holding signs we never seriously appraise

©️david sichler

[allnightsong2]

Let the day begin, let the day start.

[mbrinnon35]

I feel like if you can’t have the girl

The only riches are drugs

Healing ones

[melodic-chemical]

dance.

how can you not.

just move

as you like

to the music

that you love.

[purplemonkeysexgod69]

[madmansmisc]

[madmansmisc]

[ghostlyfeelings]

i put the recycling in the bin outfront my door alone and it feels like i just climbed to the top of everest. nobody really gets it but thats ok. growth feels painful and at times just overwhelmingly underwhelming. i have learnt to walk to my car and drive to my friends house alone and not freak out the whole way. i like to imagine theres angels dancing around me. maybe thats crazy but it helps a little. i have a seed of hope inside of me that one day ill be able to park and walk to my friends house without her getting in the car first. ive made it down the side walk before. add about 50 extra steps and ill have made it. i dont have the same goals as the people around me and thats ok too. i just want to feel safe moving through this life. i want to find joy in my accomplishments even if they are just things that come easily to others.

[the-hollow-quiet]

When I needed a hug this week I walked among the trees.

[the-hollow-quiet]

tell me, did you feel

your rib exorcised from your gut

when your love recreated me?

did you see the way it

formed me,

supple and red and pale and pink?

do you see how you love me

because, you see yourself in

the tragedy of my very existence.

It has nothing to do with me.

It was always about you.

****

tell me, did you feel

your rib exorcised from your gut

when your love recreated me?

did you see the way it

formed me, supple and red and pale and pink?

do you see how I love you

with warm whispers of your precious bones

your blood hot pooling into mine;

there is no me without you.

It has nothing to do with me.

It was always about you.

—The Hollow Quiet

One Rib, Two Loves

[serandori]

one nincompoop plus one nincompoop plus one nincompoop ad infinitum equals, you know …

[harrison-abbott]

You got back home from another country. The sleeping pattern was in disarray. You could sleep but you weren’t really rested. And it was odd heading back to work. You saw your colleagues; were friendly with them. Liked being around folks that you knew. Because there was something extra lonely about travelling alone. If that makes sense? There were many regrets from your younger days; relationships that turned askew. People who won’t be coming back. So when you return to your home town and the job, you realise that it’s impossible to be a loner your whole life. You should value other folks more than you do. The shift is fine. It’s not that busy. You tank through the work. It all goes fast. And, towards the end, you’d quite like to have a beer with the colleague. The chap who sometimes stays for a pint following the shift. Would like to stay and chat; to tell stories about the holiday. But … he always finishes before you. And you overhear him saying he’s getting the bus home soon. And so for twenty minutes in the joint, you’re on your own again. Then you walk home and don’t see a soul, save for those in their cars or on the buses. When you get back to the house everybody has gone to sleep. There’s nobody to speak to. So you turn some music on. Just for some noise, please, to try and face the solitary silence. And, this is just what life can be like. Sometimes you have to be on your own. That’s fine. The songs in the background are ample enough. You turn the laptop on and write out some sentences. To throw out on your blog, so that somebody else might see it in another part of the planet. Lots of other folks might feel a similar way. Loneliness won’t kill you. There’s another shift tomorrow and the colleagues like it when you come in. There’s something to lean on. You’re not totally on your own. Don’t fret.

[dnschmidt]

Captain Vast

Captain Vast sat on the hill, gazing at the city below. The giant monsters were all dead, crushed by his meteor hammer. The Army scientists had made him a hundred feet tall, but now that there was nothing left to fight, he had been abandoned. No more giant aircraft hangar to live in, and no enormous military budget to pay for the equally enormous amount of food a giant required every day.

"Can’t fit in my old apartment. Maybe I can find an abandoned football stadium to sleep in.” Even if such a thing were possible, he would have no way of getting there. He let out a sigh. “Really wish I hadn’t bought that Volkswagen Beetle.”

[kungpowpenis]

Camera lense eyes and Film reel hair

Consuming and projecting what is fair

Salesman and his Lego Lamborghini

A room full of plants that all love me

Even if it is conditionally

[mockpoet]

Your Gentle Gravity

You are the quiet hum before the world starts loud, the softest light unfurling from a passing cloud.

You are the steady rhythm beneath my restless thought, the peaceful, open space my worried mind has sought.

With you, the frayed edges of everything unwind, and suddenly, the chaos is something soft and kind.

You are the deep inhale when I forget to breathe, the quiet, certain anchor I will always believe.

[manderson1970060]

What if your words, your true meaning, were never really read or if no one even cared

[manderson1970060]

You hide behind the scars of your life not recognizing their beauty