• Mystery –krista schwimmer
• Half Heartedly – hillary kaye
• House of Cards – Doug Eisenstark
• Breaking Free – Janet C. Phelan
• repeat after me – Rex Butters
••••••••••••
Mystery
Evenings when the birds
are still and i doze before dreams
the silence stirs up a kind of ache,
a presence that blows through me
like the sound through a shell
abandoned by its inhabitant.
What? i reply.
Who? i wonder.
We forge an alliance.
Words drag through me,
relentless currents pulling me towards
this ache & still i resist completely.
i know what it is not:
god or love. i have tested
both & ache returns.
Death lounges beside ache
amused by my own bewilderment.
Yet, it is not death either.
Empty, ache whispers, empty.
We form a strong alliance.
And out of us, suns are born.
–krista schwimmer
***********
Half Heartedly
By hillary kaye
The phone
rings
half way
between a talk show
half way
through a half baked article
I am half way reading
half way
to a hot bath
that is half filled.
Right between
a day dream
about the other half
of a night
that I didn’t stay to see
the other half of
I answer
the phone
half heartedly.
••••••••••
House of Cards
House of Cards
All fall down
Throw up your hands
Oh My God
What a surprise
who would have thought?
Who could have known?
Throw up your hands
OMG what a surprise
who would have thought
who would have known
House of Cards
House of Cards
throw up your hands
cover your mouth
cover your eyes
cover your nose
cover your ears
cover your butt
House of Cards
all fall down
OMFG !
What a surprise!
Who would have thought?
Who could have known?
–Doug Eisenstark
••••••••••
Breaking Free
It’s like diving into the sea
I explained to him
The icy shock
as the waters close over your head
your blood racing
to keep you warm
then the second shock
when you realize
that sometime/soon
you will need to breathe
and panic fills your lungs
It’s what you learn here
that changes you
You think you’re sinking
but you’re actually breaking free
Gravity becomes irrelevant
as you abandon the terra-bound rules
to their own complications
Movement is different here
slowed yet effortless
Grace settles into your limbs
and you begin to dance
The real epiphany
is when you realize
you can still breathe
you can breathe/underwater
you can breathe/water
against all preconceptions
against all scholarly proclamations
against the dictates of centuries of dogma
and then you know
the world you lived in
was a lie
It’s a matter of believing
I told him
as his eyes washed with terror
Breathe in
Breathe deeply
I did it
You can do it too
It’s so much easier
when you know the truth
–Janet C. Phelan
•••••••••••
repeat after me
the elites educate you
to stop thinking
the elites want you to believe what
their media tells you
the elites want tv to be
your reality
the elites want you to eat genetically altered
nutritionally empty food
the elites want you to suspect everyone
but them
the elites want unspeakable violence
as the norm
the elites fully support
toothless artistic expression
the elites want every movie to revolve around
who has the gun
the elites want music to suck
the elites want poetry to rhyme
all the time
the elites listen to your phone calls
the elites read your emails
the elites want you to work three jobs
die young, burnt out, and broke
the elites hate women and children
the elites waste limited resources
for profit
the elites want to privatize your water
after they fill it with toxic waste
the elites want impotent acts of radicalism
to passify your heart and mind
the elites destroy community and culture
by raising rents
the elites want you to shut up and stay home
before a flickering light
the elites want their religions
to kill your spirit
the elites throw out
your votes
the elites want the truth marginalized
the elites want the truth sanitized
the elites want the truth institutionalized
the elites depend on you
not believing me
–Rex Butters
Categories: Poetry
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