#poetryelixir

[aatifameer]

You saw my skin and flesh,

tasted it, consumed it, liked it.

Will you say the same about my rotten bones?

.

You dive into my eyes,

Can you see your reflection?

.

A filthy, cursed, rotten animal like me

shouldn’t be seen,

shouldn’t be touched,

shouldn’t receive affection.

But you saw beyond these things.

.

You kissed this ugly face

like you had waited for centuries,

as if it wouldn’t poison you,

even if it kills you.

.

Where am I now?

The folds on the sheets,

your hair on the bed,

our clothes on the floor.

I see your eyes, your smile.

Oh!!, I am in your arms.

Raw. Naked. Exposed.

.

Your warmth makes me drunker

than the whiskey on your breath.

Even if you bury me six feet deep,

I will crawl back to you,

so you can touch me,

make me alive again,

kill me with your hands,

and give me the death I crave.

~Aatif Ameer

[tomalbon]

Poem #89

Groves have yet to burn, a deep red ocean

Unswept. Sedge rise in coils of gorgon splendour

For the earthworks’ watch; statues with open

Mouths bare knots of cowslip. I stand

Before such alters soaked by language

Whose trespass is the origin of water.

I drift in pollen, light as laments

For dragonflies made resurrected angels

Of silt, sand in the wind budded to winged

Fissures, sprout and dart, lancing half-shadow

Strands to obelisk amongst buttercups.

Pre-human yellows are shrived of minnow-green

Forces. Each confession elegiac

By the moorhen’s sable knell; the moorhen

Blear that holds my folded body, shade-like:

Supposable gloss of grass-blown incense.

My eye is a season of geese alighting

Suggestions of lakes; my tongue a canopy

Heavy with baptismal dew. Rushes wear

My ancestors’ throats to speak in shapes

Of marsh-fowl. Each scent is eggshell pink.

Each syllable a monasticism.

Each name an epitaph before its time

Lifted from the moorhen’s strobed reflections,

Hidden, surged then again concealed

At tangled boundaries. Mother of Water,

No imperial edict holds your ending

In the poverty of words. I walk

Into the river to wash away my names.

Hear the silence that follows acceptance.

A shape sheds translucence in the reeds.

-

[getcareless]

Triolet Poem #51

Building a place where I won't weep. Me and my hands endure the pain. Somewhere I can call safe to sleep. Building a place where I won't weep. - A place that people die to keep- castles of sand in pouring rain. Building a place where I won't weep. Me and my hands endure the pain.

"Endure The Pain", JEP

[followcb]

Like a lovable friend, this poem has come back around life's bend..... and how it's tale continues to transcend. ❤️ 😍 💖.

Her Favorite Chair

she unlocks secrets

parlays rainy days

plays hide and seek

with clouds and sun

perhaps an unexpected, overcast past

taught her how to interpret

shadows and storms

and how moods intersect

today, she now finds

a sense of contentedness

inner bliss and happiness

home peering out her windows

watching gray skies arrive

she grabs a book, pops open a beer

excited about inclement weather

reclined and relaxed, she's ready

to watch tv and watch it rain

as she settles into her favorite chair

(c) @followcb | October 26, 2019

[fantodsdhrit]

few know that while asleep you sometimes dance sometimes

croon

and sometimes weep and sob softly but uncontrollably: then advance your

glassy cheek toward me

for that warm sea taste:

often i have thought about

seasons going haywire or vanishing altogether: so no poet could create

within you dipped in

dante's bear ink: that

twenty first century sallow still life which portrays only your hands: in

blue darkness

faultless

as i rake: tragic fragility

for mortified magnolias

laughing and over-wintering your pleasing cell organelles in genteel

herbarium

bequeathed to you by

the apparition of someone who made mounds on your body while you

slept through the dispatch:

of bare maple shadows

[quiet-storm132]

Lost and found

I lost something dear to me, something irreplaceable it seems

A smile, the object of my grief

Contrary to my belief, it's something that I actually need

But more so, a reason for it to be kept continually.

[nothingiwriteisforyou]

I let you in

As if it meant nothing

A passing thought

One shot ringing

Through the dark

You crept in

Wandering endlessly

Bleeding into my veins

Holding my heart

Hostage to your pain

Taking my life

As if it’s all

You ever wanted

As if it meant nothing

//to kill me slowly

[yoursdelilah]

escapril day ii: a separation

[daytim-e]

Dead on Arrival

Rehearsed incantations drip from your tongue,

oozing out bland and colorless.

Cookie cutter catchphrases,

that inspire like a funeral.

Words that are dead on arrival.

[goldenliessilvermoons]

one day my hands

will hold the flowers

of my mind’s garden

s.h.

[beforeyearning]

[Text Id:] I think of my hands as a tofu-press, and dig into your skin a smidge harder than I should – it quickly reddens to the size and shape of a cherry-tomato, before simmering away into silence. I’m sorry, at times I think of my existence being as small as to fit on the head of a pin – I know no other way to ascertain the fact that I’m alive except through you. 

[aatifameer]

I am already dead, yet you grow in me,

Like I am nothing but skull and bones,

And you, the flower blooming from this hollow shell,

Filling the emptiness with beauty and life.

.

You are perfect, everything I have ever wanted,

Everything I still want,

And yet, you shield yourself from hurting me,

"I don’t know how much affection and care you have for me."

.

And here I stand, repeating your words:

"Love is violence."

I turn that violence inward,

Inflicting it only upon myself,

But in doing so, I unknowingly wound you as well.

"I beg you, will you please forgive me?"

For I can’t find it in me to forgive myself.

.

I let myself drown in your ocean,

I let myself burn in your fire.

But all along, you were holding my hand,

Drowning, burning, suffering alongside me.

.

"How selfish I am"

To drag you into my chaos,

When all I ever wanted was to destroy only myself.

Unaware of the depths of my own cruelty,

I pulled you into my destruction.

~Aatif Ameer

[tomalbon]

Poem #88

On Saturn Devouring His Son (Francisco Goya)

Time has made a beggar of you,

Blown to ochre sandblast your

Divinity or draped monstrousness

Like a stormfront from your brow.

Grecian clouds mottle your skin

Like dusk on another planet

Or another age, ebbed and imposed,

Ranged, reaped, and again wandering

An impenetrable black.

That mouth could eat the godless world,

And would, with owlish famine,

Had the world inside the child

Not eclipsed such vital violence.

No wonder you lashed the head,

Raptorial rake at the spine

Laying bare river-red depictions

Of similar fell creatures,

Breached, plucked, and again sickled,

Knelt to its own sacrifice.

Could time alone have done this?

Could time alone unmake

Or inflict such celestial

Rage, incontinent rage, man stooped

To beast recalling godship’s light

As fathomless babbling spectres;

Ghostlight touching only cruelty,

Touching just the cinder-pricked

Red where his love destroyed you,

Where thrashed terror destroyed you,

Razed, restored and again ruined,

A simple and desolate reign.

-

[getcareless]

You Send Me

You send me chills. You send me shivers. To all the hills and all the rivers, you sent me. I'm full of flowers. How do I return from puzzles? Your words send me falling to my knees. Now just in case libraries die; I printed screenshots of the memories you sent me.

JEP

[mvrkling]

Tell me, Darling,

am I

are we

dreaming?

Hearts endlessly chasing stars

while the knife leaves us scarred

Could never hope to bleed

with you next to me

Clear the tears from my eyes

Wistful, wishful thoughts fading

Will I ever let you go?

[quiet-storm132]

I'm drowning, surrounded by despair

lost within time, thin becomes the air

I try to breathe to help set my mind at ease

But the sequence that I need sits beyond reach

Fragmented my mind is as my emotions mimic its appearances

I fade to black, hopefully never to be seen again

Hidden behind false walls, hallow and empty

Just like I am at this moment in time, praying that time day, I'll be seen.