Remnants

“We write to leave behind remnants of thought—fragments that outlive the moment, that resist forgetting.”

[shamanfox]

The Cosmic Play

In the grand illusion, all is true,

For reality’s a dance we construe.

Malleable, participatory, a lucid dream,

Consciousness at play, life’s vibrant scheme.

Truth isn’t fixed; it’s fluid, vast,

Infinite versions, each unsurpassed.

Nothing separate, time and space entwined,

Constructs dissolve when viewed with the higher mind.

Actors and playwrights, we take the stage,

Unique voices on the cosmic page.

Even illusions hold a sacred part,

Formless essence expressed through art.

Extraterrestrials, mystic realms, human strife,

All threads weaving the fabric of life.

The question isn’t what’s real or feigned,

But how we choose to play unchained.

Embrace the paradox, dance in the light,

Create, feel, love with all your might.

For in this cosmic, unfolding spree,

You’re both the dreamer and the dream, eternally free.

[brotherorpheus]

10:10 p.m.

it was somewhere

off of north monroe

beside the little gallery

some indifferent, nonsense name

evoking color or medium

where an outsider, on a stint

for possession with intent,

had painted his father again and again

an expressionless muse

in watercolors

in a cafe, laden with perfumes,

earthen darks and heavy cream,

the smoke-sweet of chilean red

a calming cling of herb on winter clothes,

where Either/Or was playing,

that sad and silken voice,

a grave accompaniment

for the college crowd, while we said

our piece in our brief hours,

a love, a death, an ache of isolation,

a congregation of verses

declared in many rhythms

and varying cadence

a song, sung by all

to no one

an occasional door chime sounded

revealing outside, where our words

were lost

in the penitent sigh of evening traffic

and footsteps, hastened by cold,

upon the sidewalk, blind

to our desperate meaninglessness,

another night in slow descent,

the city swallows us alive

[acklum]

Break

Heaven

to get outside

when the sun shines.

Rats scamper happily,

extractor fans whistle.

I listen.

No demands

just daylit reality.

Sand set in concrete sparkles,

a dandelion leans out

from beneath the wheelie bin.

Today the loading bay

feels like heaven

to me.

-acklum

[wordrummager]

to music nobody else heard he hesitated by the waterfall but she couldn’t help the dance and laughter that spilled out so she grabbed his lapel and laughed some more while kissing, which he didn’t argue being close was paramount more important than the sun and just as life-affirming they followed paths through the woods with no direction or destination noting rocks and birdsong along the way she babbled and he paid attention moving like trees in wind somehow more than the sum of their parts for a few moments every raindrop was part of their story falling just for them

[lemonthistlepennywhistl3]

the great detachment

you should see the wounds

holding on to thorny vines

to angry animals

i have learned

an open fist

is painless

little bird

you can leave

there is no cage here

the sky is endless

may the sun

light the way

[darlingdolly444]

someone must tend the garden of almosts,

the place where things that never happen go on pretending they might.

each morning, i water empty soil and watch silence climb the trellis until it covers everything i meant to become.

there are no roses here, only pale stems reaching for a sun that always seems to belong to someone else.

the birds refuse to nest, yet they circle overhead as though remembering a season i somehow misplaced.

i walk the narrow paths, counting unopened buds, collecting the names of futures that vanished before they learned my face.

by evening, the whole garden smells of rain that never falls.

still, i lock the gate gently,

convinced that tomorrow something impossible will remember the way back.

[brotherorpheus]

9:38 p.m.

could you be emptied

freed of the inertia

which took you?

the sun and the moon

who made us, and cradled

us between them, celestial bodies,

you of little griefs, of unsown

promise, of petty self-sacrifice

on an altar you built for yourselves

while you stared into our faces,

accusing, as though we held the tools,

as though we had demanded

this blood of yours which runs

through us, some stolen sacrament

an unknown prayer spoken

in the sounds of marshland insects

god, were you blind, you children?

are you numbed to the cries

of your own?

are you immune to the pull of us,

who never knew

your fathers?

and watched you weep

or stare in callous stillness

when your mothers died?

we, unknown to permanence

unbound to home

a tether giving way

an escape velocity urged

by your indifference

we who loved, maybe once,

when our eyes were young

and unmarred by your erosion,

when the quiet that fell

in the melancholy dusk

was one of content surrender,

not a space inhabited by nothing,

the deafening unspoken,

not the hollow we have carved

with bladed silence,

not an us, unmade, unspooled,

a scatter of dust

flaring in light,

as though we lived,

and vanished into the darkened corners

of a vacant room

the starving roots of a dying tree

shedding what it has grown

[lebuc]

expansively

* absorbing what my eyes espy to what i’ve been exposed, when daunting doors are opened where one time they were closed

when i raise the window for air before i raise cain, or the roof

i realize it’s all experimental— the secret, the way, the proof.

we begin, wend and rend unto righteousness in our eyes, but it only serves to rule where or when we’ve been apprised

that there’s much, much more beyond, unreachable in actual fact  by a physical or mental wand or at least, with sanity intact..

still - it’s there for the seeking if only we’d adjust our aim, endure a little more tweaking, display a little more game it’s all hypothetical...

so try & adjust your perspective might help you to vault the collective; try to adjust your perception then trust in the world’s new reception.

as long as we’re willing to see a bit more expansively; it can all become a bit more - in our eyes - lo-ve-ly. * 3/15 - 6/26 - lebuc - expansively

[poppiesandpromises]

There's so much magic

Etched into mundane moments

Dripping in stardust

Indigo skies bleed silver

Wonder sewn into my skin

[takingstockofwhatmattersmost]

so you pack your bag in quiet hours before dawn leaving a debt you know you can never properly pay the threshold watches you with sadness of a tearful parent who gave you everything until they had nothing left to give you step into the dark carrying the heavy burden of abandoning the place the people that taught you how to

...live

[wordrummager]

shoe-horned into mindfulness glimpses into a past some of it taken, some of it taken away like a shred in the beak of a far-flung hawk comforting color combinations constant cravings rule waking afternoons strange silly sibilant calculating how many breaths are left if there’s time for another dance or do we bray at stars like aberrant wolves pinballing emotions over sunshine and campfires night comes no matter what

[takingstockofwhatmattersmost]

there is a particular guilt in looking at a savior ...finding only a shell you need to break apart to look at the hands that pulled you from the current realizing they are too small to hold who you are now

you walk through empty rooms an ungrateful ghost apologizing to the memories for needing more than a

...place

[syntaxandsemantics]

ties in the back, see how this sits (the contrast) - a stand- off, your dark look in this light, our twisting wrists and the stillness of a held hand caught unsuspecting. before it hits. it's a tangle, how you feel how i feel we feel some type of way, pushing against walls and each other until something gives or rips, or tranforms/mutes the way our bodies stare like a threat, how these lines lie up front then fall to the floor under scrutiny.

[shamanfox]

Ghosts of me

from placeholders

speak to me daily.

Sometimes they wear

the body

and say the words

before I can catch them.

Old reflexes,

stitched into muscle,

old griefs

with my fingerprints still warm.

They rise like dust

from rooms I thought I emptied,

calling my name

like it still belongs to them.

And I wonder,

am I haunted

or just unfinished,

dragging my former selves

like rattling keys

through the dark hallways of becoming.

[lullaby-blind]

The walk-through would have me naturally

impressed like another. It's a walk home from the

petals on a flower, notice me and count these

insights how you feel you want to. I tailor tonight's

soundtrack to your friend, they love to buy me

super cool cosmic arrangements and I tried to

reciprocate. Your month on earth will be discussed,

specifically this fine day before they make you

move away to somewhere she couldn't find you...

[mineralaccident]

searching for the same ache

the cursor blinked, (being used by a sudden coldness) itched by a memory (why do I want pain) of watching films together for the temporary godhood of a stranger’s gaze - the rush (what vibrates our teeth) of ignoring the hole in our hearts for a moment, in a flicker of pixels. a strange alchemy, thorned and persistent - a small thing, a dark shore that was never really there

[allnightsong2]

175/15(16)10

Linoleum floor as cold

as a can of frozen OJ concetrate

your voice a vibrating hum

buzzing through from the other side

of a box fan on a hardwood hallway floor

true dreams tell tales that collapse

in the face of the day just like

a card table with bent legs

these long crawling creeping days

of summers slipping away

in sweat and the condensation dripping

from plastic pitchers of lemonade

hear the song of leaves rattling

in a southwestern wind

look out through the screen of an open window

pretending you have fly's eyes

look up to dancing shadows

painting the ceiling with rippling color

and wonder what it would be like

to be a frog in a pond while

beneath you the linoleum reminds you

that imagination has limits

it gathers sweat in the outline of your supine form

and you accept that

winter is a long ways away