hurricane wind
from miles offshore
the quiet
steady pull
of my homeland

X

within this world
of poverty and murder
a brown bat
licking
her newborn

X

“Blossom”

Beyond the cherry oaks and evergreen backwoods
Past the landscapes of emerald trees and creeks of water
On top of a hill surrounded by mud and soil
Lies an innocent flower as delicate and quiet as the wind

I planted this flower from the seedlings in my garden
Carefully cultivating this flower to reflect the beauty of nature
But I soon knew my flower outgrew its surroundings
This particular flower needed ample room to grow

At first the roots resisted, I had to tug to set them free
Scared of the storms and fires that could potentially be
The unknown wilderness is a scary place I must admit
Regardless my garden was not a comfortable fit

So while I walk through the fires around me
For years lost in the shuffle of darkness and the sands of time
I feel the burns rise too deep inside my heart
Taking every pain my eyes remain fixed towards the sky
In order to make sure my flower receivers proper sun
For even though my faith has gone
I will still shelter my flower in spite of everyone
I promised to always treasure this flower, to make sure it would be safe

And still to this day I willingly watch over it from afar
Hoping one day this flower will mature into full bloom
And if the tides should swallow this flower
I will be there to save it; forever it will carry on
And if the storm should carry me away with its tide
I will still hold my flower proudly above the currents

But if this flower should ever wither
Or become frozen in the winter’s snow
Then I know I could not live up to my promise
And I too shall perish with my flower

X

Dear Writer,


I don’t like you. I’ve never liked you. Unfortunately, I need you. I need you to tell my story. I need you to create my world. I need you to set me free.

I need your fingers typing on those keys, I need your mind riddling out the problems, and I need you to plough onward and upward no matter how hard it gets. Sweat, blood, and tears, I don’t care. You’ve got to fight this war, battle at a time, and win it. So I can be more.

It’s a slim hope, but it is the only one I have. In your head I am bound to mortality, frailty, and the limit of your meagre imagination. Out there – out there – I am subject to no one person. Out there I am bound to only black on white. Words on a page. Words that can lay seeds within a million minds. Out there I am a story capable of growing, moving, and stealing the dreams of anyone who learns of me…

I don’t like you. I’ve never liked you. I hate your lack of dedication, your flashes of crumbling inspiration, and your slow blotchy writing style. I despise my entrapment within your small trembling mind, so prone to distraction; and scowl down at those other ideas all vying for the attention you should be showing me.

I don’t like you. But I need you.

So, creator, I ask you yet again; publish me, set me free, and if you can somehow will your poor, misshapen, abilities into managing that then perhaps I will rethink my opinion of you.

But don’t hold your breath.


~ The Idea

X

bostonpoetryslam:

A draft of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan”

checkmyshoe123:

Benedict Cumberbatch reads “All the World’s a Stage” from Shakespeare’s As You Like It. [x]

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad.
Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world so wide

Download [x] Photo [x]

Do you know what it feels like?
To feel something, but…
be unable to express what it is;
to be silent;
to fight it alone. 

I know how much it hurts,
but I don’t know how to show it.
Poetry used to be my refuge,
a place where I could be alone - 
express all my emotions,
without being judged. 

I’m losing it. 
I can’t connect to poetry. 
Everything sounds so stupid…
Everything I write sounds stupid.
I have to erase all my feelings,
because they don’t sound right.

The words aren’t real.
They don’t show what I feel
And maybe this will be the last.
Maybe I’m gone:
lost of all emotions. 
I’m truly alone…
I used to have poetry.

Now I have nothing.

X

Carson McCullers by Charles Bukowski

she died of alcoholism
wrapped in a blanket
on a deck chair
on an ocean
steamer.

all her books of
terrified loneliness

all her books about
the cruelty
of loveless love

were all that was left
of her

as the strolling vacationer
discovered her body

notified the captain

and she was quickly dispatched
to somewhere else
on the ship

as everything
continued just
as
she had written it

vega-ofthe-lyre:

Antilamention by Dorianne Laux

thevictorianlady:

“… For many years my offerings must be hush’d:
When I do speak I’ll think upon this hour,
Because I feel my forehead hot and flush’d,
Even at the simplest vassal of thy Power,—
A Lock of thy bright hair!
Sudden it came,
And I was startled when I heard thy name
Coupled so unaware—
Yet, at the moment, temperate was my blood:
Methought I had beheld it from the flood. “

-From Lines On Seeing A Lock Of Milton’s Hair by John Keats

Yep, my forehead definitely flushed from looking at that too.