Bursley-Baits Bus

Sometimes you just need to alliterate the fuck out of some verse:

In yore-days came hither the Bursley-Baits bus, human-heavy;
the steersman stopping that I might mount, murder on my brow outwrit.
Fool-filled was that iron-steed, its seating scarce;
my steel-sword strong, 'mongst startled seat-sitters
I upraised calumnious keening: cried they oft of my man-mace's might.
Ragefully ravaged I those wretches, fell threats roaring,
balefully blasted I their bones, brain-broth drinking.
Sometime a loathsome lout the stop-string smote, anon was he swiftly slain.
“Hark!” blaired I, “No-man disembarks ere we CC Little!”
I a marauding murder-maker, a transport-terror hailed.
Soothly, all submitted to my awesome strength!

Any comments on how to make this poem more badass welcome!

A Dream Within a Dream

Cold rocks
Warm, cinnamon-scented air wafts past
The clitter-clatter of the busy workman,
aluminum keys a soft reminder of life beyond my mind.

The familiar weight presses on my throat
It crushes my windpipe in pain and shame.

“Hey, are you alright?”

A fat woman looks over her gigantic,
frothy mountain of colored ice.
A wild and beautiful thing tamed for
her flabby mouth.

“God, think she’s got enough whip cream?”
It was an agitated whisper,
something I thought another had said.

“What?”
“Ohh, nothing…” I mutter again.

I was a puppet for my thoughts.
Control was slipping,
They always seemed to have that effect.

Clictity-clack

The metal minutes tapped nicely by,
the vice squeezing my breath.
Stop staring. Say something clever.

“You look great”
I leaned slowly,
my heart re-arranging the organs in my chest.

So close the breath was warm
A tropical breeze of mint and creamy-dark coffee.

Their blue-tinted windows were dark,
So dark and enticing. They begged me.

I reached forward and stopped just short.
The annoying woman slurped the empty cup
The sound of type ceased.

Their eyes were on us.

I looked back into the universes of heaven.
I saw the same longing.
I couldn’t breathe.

Fuck this.
Did I say it aloud?

I drew us close
Our lips merged in flawless unison

Our muscles flexed,
suspense and surprise knotted in sinew.

The tension waned,
melted into time;
The strain unraveled

There, the universe in a moment.

No more cold rocks.

Read some Al Purdy, it's healthy

Clumps of Brown Hair


When it's late
And I remember her face,
Excited, flashing under
The come-and-go streetlights
Flaring past
At one hundred miles per hour
As I try to rush her home on time,
What am I supposed to say to her now?
A cold handshake and wish her the best?

Those kind words
Would come out layered
Thick in honey and venom,
A spit in the face wrapped
With a crinkled red bow,
An offered hand, septic.

That would be a disservice
To the years that slipped down
The drain, staring in the mirror
And cutting my hair
at one in the morning,
Trying to get each trace of
Months-old smell gone
With the buzz of a razor.

That ride to her house
I lied to her and said
That desk clerks die.
Clumps of brown hair
On white tile floor
And the clerks still
Have their wooden desks.

Very, Very Hungry

Last revision made at 3:51 AM, Tew's Day the thirtieth.
---
There was a time, perhaps half a century ago, though to me it sometimes seems as long ago as when the simurg ruled Sky and wyrms Earth, when visitors would come to my room late at night and dance and feast with me under the moon. This was the time when there were seasons besides winter, if only in my mind, and when I filled the night sky with singing.

That time ended for me when the visitors stopped coming, though for those others who never had visitors I think summer must have ended for the last time when the Green seized power.

I do not know what life was like before the Green, I know only that it could not have been as it is now. I do not know what it was like because I trust no one to tell me, and no one trusts me enough to tell me, and books are full of lies. The Judges (whom some call executioners when they think, foolishly, that no one is listening) have rewritten them all, as they have blocked radio signals from outside. They are fighting a war of attrition with our memories. One day all those who know what we have lost will be gone and those remaining will be as I am, orphans who remember their parents only from dreams. Then they will forget even that.



Click on "Post Page" below to see the rest! My parents were rarely at home during my younger years – away on business or pleasure, or hiding from the Green (as were so many in those years, when it was still possible to hide), or God knows. I did not. I still do not. Finally their visits dwindled away to nothingness. They had hired a wet nurse for me when I was still an infant and kept her on as a permanent nanny until her murder a decade later. If they had known that she was actually working two shifts in the City (presumably to support a family in her home country, a loving husband and laughing children and a wrinkled mother) and only ever came back to the house at three in the morning to sleep for four or so hours perhaps they would not have kept her on. Or perhaps they would have – how much, if at all, my parents cared about my wellbeing is another thing I have never truly understood.

I was thus largely alone in the familial manse for my entire childhood. Almost bereft of contact with adults, barring the few hours a day when Nana was at home, I held only a tenuous grasp on the normal and the possible. To me, thus, the first nocturnal visits were none too strange – indeed, my child's imagination conjured no less fanciful adventures during the daylight hours.

The visitors themselves were small and man-shaped, and very bright. They floated, invariably, through the window, and their own natural glow combined with that of the moon conspired to illuminate the entire room almost as well as during broad daylight, though the shadows cast by the furniture on the walls and floors were somehow thicker and blacker. They never came on cloudy nights, or on nights when the moon was not in the sky. Only later would I think to question them about this, after I had already begun to contemplate the answer. They spoke my language, albeit slowly and simply – perhaps the better to communicate with a child largely deprived of opportunities to improve his vocabulary. They had silver fur and golden eyes, and dog-like faces, and sharp teeth that glinted like rubies in the moonlight.

We would speak, as I have said, and play games – they would hide from me, or I from them, in the bowels of the house. It did not take me long to grow bored with hide and seek, as I learned quickly to identify their hiding spots from the strange, distorted shapes the shadows around them would take, like prehistoric paintings in some long-forgotten grotto. Then they would lead me outside, and these were the only times I would ever see my neighborhood, pale and shivering in the interminable winter, for Nana would not under any circumstances allow me outside of the house – perhaps in order to shield herself from suspicion that she had somehow abducted me from my real, native-born parents, but I think it more likely that the murders had genuinely caused her to fear for my safety. She loved me, I think, as I loved her, for she was the closest to a mother that I had, and I the closest to a child for her in this country.

I should speak of the murders. It is important you realize that these were not the mundane killings and disappearances that occur whenever the Green rule. By all accounts the first of the murders did indeed take place shortly after the end of the Civil War, and I am sure that most residents of the Town at first assumed them to be attributable to the change in government – the Town had changed hands many times over the course of the war, and its residents were by that time more than familiar with life under the iron law of the Judges.

Slowly, however, it became apparent that these murders were something else entirely. The Judges and their agents were clearly as baffled and frightened as the rest of the Town, seeing in the murders the last remnants of an insurgency, of resistance to God and Law. They responded as is their wont, declaring martial law or early curfews on days following attacks, and very occasionally (and for what reason save for sheer delusion I may never understand) they accused some poor migrant worker of the murders and executed him at sunrise.

I say murders, though from all accounts most of the victims were simply dogs and farm animals. What human victims there were seemed to have been selected at random, without any apparent motive or reason. Individuals out after dark, or who lived alone, or who slept near windows were the most frequent targets. None of the murders was committed with the aid of a firearm – the victims were instead eviscerated, their bodies rent open and their hearts torn out. So savage was the butchery that some suggested the murderer fed his victims to a large dog or even a tiger, though clearly this was not the case, as some of the victims were slain while their spouses slept on, oblivious until awakened by the birdless silence of morning.

Panic spread as the murders targeted humans with greater frequency. Fearing an exodus to the City or elsewhere, and the risk this would pose to the public order, the Green quarantined the Town and withdrew their Judges. I do not know what Nana did, then, to earn money, as she remained only a nocturnal visitor to the house. I suspect she may have turned to prostitution.
And I in all this? I, yet a child, remained unmindful of it all. It was at around the time of the first human murders that I stopped feeling the need to eat.

My moonlit fugues became almost a nightly occurrence, and slowly it came to pass that even on dark nights when the visitors did not come I dreamt of loping through the Town with the cold pricking my ears and tongue. Perhaps on some bright nights the visitors did not come, and I only dreamt they did. So much of what transpired on those nights belongs to the realm of dreams, who am I to begrudge it the rest?

The visitors would perch on my shoulders and whisper to me, their voices as faint as the susurrus of a tree roused by the wind from its winter's sleep (if only for a little while, for the wind is fleeting and winter long). I could never make out their words, and I suspect it would have made no difference had I been able to: they did not seem to speak so much as to breathe into me, the coolness of their breath through my ears seeming to settle upon my mind like a mist, a mist filled with images and feelings and colors, none of them coherent save the one in the back of my mind and in the pit of my stomach, the one urging me ever forward. The object of this compulsion emitted a smell that I began to scent as I neared it – of crushed grass and of forests, of citrus fruits, and honey, and flowers, and life.

The source of that aroma was always a tree, but they were trees like none I have ever seen in the waking world. Some of them were very large, others smaller than bushes. They were vibrant and luminous, brilliantly green with flowers of red and pink and white, as though they were misplaced flora from that lost summertime that had once been ours. Their branches were wild and thick, giving the impression that they were not branches so much as leaf-bearing roots thrust into the air to inhale the gleaming essence of an alien world. If I closed my eyes and listened, and I often did, I could hear from within them the slow crash of waves against some secret shore, as if there existed hidden in each tree an ocean of unfathomable vastness.

The first tree was outside, in a silvery pasture along the edges of the Town, but others grew indoors or on roads and sidewalks (such is the logic of dreams). I approached the tree and my friends, flitting as they were between it and my head, told me (though not in words) what I was to do. I reached my hand into its bole (how easily the bark parted!), and grasped the bright red fruit that rested there, and brought it to my mouth, and bit deeply.

I bit deeply, and suddenly I was elsewhere: in a field of green and gold, illuminated not by the sun but by the air itself, air so bright and clear it might have been a jewel. I saw sheep and dogs and humans, and I could not tell which I was (for I was no longer in my old body), and I did not care. I heard the gentle noises of the animals, and the laughter of the humans, and everywhere the crash of waves, and I felt happiness.

At length I came back to myself, and I was far from the pasture where the tree had been, and I was singing to the moon. My friends had gone, sated, I think, by the world contained within that glorious fruit. I continued to sing my song for many hours, for it seemed the natural thing to do, until finally I made my way back to my bed, and the next night was the same, and the next. Sometimes the fruit would transport me to cities made of sand along the beach, to a lover's embrace or a father's lap, to the midst of a crowd of laughing children or the bloody exaltation of a childbirth. And for a while I was as happy as any human has ever been.

It was the night (a moonless one) after I dreamt of laughing children that Nana did not come home, and the day after I realized that she would never return. I wept and in my grief I drove away my visitors, and that was the last I saw of them.

When the moon is full I lie abed and look to the window and hope to see those quicksilver shapes come to lead me out into the night. But I know now what they were, and I know that they are gone forever. I have lived for too long scouring in vain the dregs of what has become life for even the haziest reflection of what I felt on the cold nights of my childhood. I am able no more. I am old and my heart is empty, and winter reigns over us still. I will sing to the moon one last time, though with the voice of a man, before the end.

Ticks

One minute, ten seconds. Sit on the sofa, think about life for a bit. One and five, why live on with this shit? Why take all the squalor, and late rent, and 30% interest bills piling up with a dog that shits all over the newspaper that I'm not done reading yet. 57 seconds now, where did the cute little innocent tick magnet come from? Oh yeah! 53 seconds, that bitch's bitch who had four other blind-as-a-bat bundles of joyousness. Sarah wasn't all that bad, 42, at least she was hot. My friends certainly thought I had it made, 40. She just didn't respect me though, or my space. Shit! Dog left the paper, where's the Woolite?! There--crisis averted, 27, where was I? Yeah, she was great most of the time, like Fido here, but I needed my SPACE! She didn't understand, 20, and neither did my parents. I'm not going to die anytime soon, 15, but I mean come ON! it's like they expect magic to happen, and Sarah's not magic. I finally asked for space, 6, but all I'm left with now is this lousy fleabag dog and her shit that I still have to, 2, clean up and DING! Finally, my Hot Pockets!

My second attempt at flash fiction, also written at the meeting, this time in the last 10 minutes of the writing activity. I'm glad I tried my hand at the genre.

Commute

She drives all the time, at least two hours a day she makes the commute. She lives out of the city for the kids she'll have some day, for the PTA meetings at 6, after Jane's been dropped off to soccer and Ken, or John, or Ben, or maybe Dan, is at rehearsal for the 5th grade talent show. She'll only have a ten minute drive from her home to the school then, and another fifteen on the way home, because Jane will be done with practice by then.

Then, then she will have her family home, with husband showing up with Nate by 8, and maybe play a board game on the floor of the den by the fireplace that doesn't work because the chimney's dirty again. She and husband are too busy with the kids these days, they grow up so fast with the dates and the Proms and Joe getting his license while Jane's practicing her commencement speech, and "watch the road, Matt! don't worry, we're safe, you missed the deer and we're fine. I was scared too."

She drives for him now. He's not here, not yet, not quite. Jane will have to come first; She can practically feel her kicking now as her lights follow the curve of the old familiar back-country road she takes to avoid the highway. Those lights that turn with the steering wheel. Those lights that don't quite illuminate the outside curve of the road. And the deer.

This was the first flash fiction piece I had ever written, I wrote it during the exercise on Thursday in about fifteen or twenty minutes- the prompt came from the 'Writer's Block' and was a picture of an ambulance at the scene of a bad accident.

The Seven Chairs

This is from that prompt a long long time ago when we had that amazing creepy book with the pictures and one sentence. Mine was written after the one, if you remember, that was the picture of the nun sitting in a chair, levitated in the air above the altar in a cathedral while two clerics looked up at her. I'm posting this now because it's another piece of flash fiction, and it was written in 20 minutes, proof that flash fiction is excellent for WC activities.... :) However, it hasn't really been edited much, so anything that you can offer in the way of comments is greatly appreciated.

The fifth one ended up in France. The nuns thought it was a sign from God, a warning of the second coming, and they remembered Keats. Inside their walls, secluded and slowly being eaten from the inside by fear, they did not know about the others, and it was probably best.

The third caused not fear, but awe, placed as the central feature of the Greatest Show on Earth, and the audience applauded even as the actors became convinced they were going mad. The director, refusing to succumb to the disbelief of the others, was convinced he had stumbled upon a discarded item from another act, whose director was too stupid to know its real value. As his actors rose through the air, unhindered and unsupported, he smiled and went to look after the ticket sales.

The second and forth were gifts to the twin daughters of the Emperor of China from his trusted advisor and most powerful magician, who now had become deluded that he possessed real powers. He could command the Emperor’s daughters through the air at will; after the manipulation of natural laws, what was there left to conquer? It was when he failed to bring the smaller twin back from the dead after she fell from the chair that he was executed.

The sixth was never discovered, left as it was in the middle of the desert, and having lost patience with the earth, it began to rise unprompted, until only the vultures ever knew of its existence. But the first and the last of the seven chairs remained with their maker, for he could not yet decide where to leave them.

He though, perhaps, that to cause the most distress he should place the first in the Latin Quarter of Paris, so that the intellectuals from all over the world would sob and rip out their hair and drink themselves into oblivion as the remnants of their logical world collapsed around them, driven to demise by a chair that defied gravity and moved when spoken to. But was that what he wanted? Did he truly desire that the minds of the world suddenly find no alternative but to follow the philosophy held by many that human perception was all the reality consisted of, that the laws of physics were simply created to give reason and shape to the chaos around us? Then the chairs would no longer be a source of fear, but the basis of new theories, the theories of a new world order. And perhaps then people would understand how he spent nights twisting and bending the fabric of existence until he was all but sure he was going mad himself.

He thought he would keep the seventh.

Veils

At the sound of her heels click-clacking on the green-tiled floor, heads look up to assess the newcomer. At the sight of her, gazes are dropped instantly, out of respect for her dress. Like stars on the night of the new moon, Swarovski crystals illuminate the deep black of her abaya. Rich folds fall over face, covering the slight immodesty that even the most conservative of women allow themselves. The hem of her robe sweeps the floor and men avert their eyes, ignoring the fact that it covers four-inch stilettos and a killer figure wrapped in revealing, expensive designer-wear.

A few eyes glance furtively at her, wondering perhaps, how fine her hair is, what the colour of her eyes is, or what the shape of her mouth is like. The scent of the finest oud surrounds her like an aura, enveloping her in a dream of sensual Turkey, or erotic Egypt. But the men speak respectfully towards her, their gazes lowered - their shoes a poor alternative to the mysterious persona.

A glimpse of her black-swathed visage sends a jolt through their hearts. The enigma of her face consumes them with curiosity and desire. Her husband must be a lucky man, the onlookers think. To discover her would be like receiving manna from Heaven.

And then they are rewarded. A delicate hand peeps out from the folds of the robe. A soft wrist sends shivers through their bodies. Her skin, white and ethereal, disappears as fast as it materialized leaving those around her believing that it was nothing but a dream...

Of Birds and Bees

This is from the in-club prompt for a parent telling a child about "the facts of life." Enjoy!

“Well son, sometimes two people, when they are old enough and love each other very much or pay enough, share a special hug. For the purposes of this conversation, we’ll refer to this hug as a happysicle. Now a happysicle occurs between all sorts of people, sometimes even a whole big group of them at once, we’ll get to those kinds of things later when we reach the kitty bar in Vegas in two hours.

But you see, when a man and women have a happysicle, the woman’s belly will grow and grow until she regrets ever having that 5^th tequila, and then she’ll yell at the man for forgetting to bring home the mint chocolate chip ice cream she was screaming at him to get two hours ago while the man was trying to have another happysicle with his secretary.

But ultimately a tiny new-born baby will pop out of the woman’s no-no spots, one day growing up to be a full-grown and mature adult such as myself. And that is precisely how you arrived on this fair earth; ice cream, secretary, and all. Now quick, drink the rest of this beer, I think I see a cop car coming up behind us.”

Thus begins the blurred, sometimes awkward, adventures of Damien “Did you want another shot with that?” Joel and his eight-year-old son, Jacques-de-Napoleon Joel (yes, Damien was drunk at his son’s birth).

Jacques’ mother had left the pair two years after the boy’s birth under the cough-syrup influenced impression that Damien was having an affair with a chicken sandwich. She was later quoted as saying, “That fucking sandwich can have my son, he’s the offspring of that chicken fucker anyways.”

Damien, in fact, was in a multitude of relationships and one-night-stands over the course of his marriage to the mother, often times forced to hide a lover under his bed when his wife would arrive. This would often lead to midnight threesomes in which the wife was unaware that Damien was simultaneously having sex with her as well as another woman in the middle of the dark.

On the horizon, the strip shined brightly, beckoning the two towards its sinful innards. God help us all.

OK, so after doing much research, I have two fabulous events to offer you. First is a corn maze. This will probably have to take place next Saturday, October 27 or Sunday the 28th. I think it would be best to do this in the evening (so much cooler in the dark). The maze itself is about 3 miles long, and it is absolutely amazing. However, it is located near Lansing, about 45 minutes away. So I will need to know EXACTLY how many people are coming and how many people can drive. Leave a comment letting me know that you are interested and which day is best for you.

We can also make a trip to the Dexter Cider Mill if there is enough interest. Downtown Dexter is about 25 minutes from Ann Arbor, so again, we will be carpooling. This will probably take place the first weekend of November (3rd and 4th) or the weekend after that (10th and 11th). Leave a comment if you are interested in this event. Thank you!

Raindrops

Written and workshopped this summer, edited slightly since then.

The staccato rhythm of rain on the windowsill
Keeps me trapped inside
Because at the moment, this isn't as bad
As having wet sneakers

I stare at the curve of your forehead
Yearning to plant a gentle kiss on it or even
Just caress it with the affection I feel
I've always felt

But I know the rules
That's not okay anymore

You've fallen asleep on the couch
As you're so fond of doing
And are oblivious to the familiar sounds of
Jack McCoy putting away another killer

In a happier world
I would give you that kiss, or that caress
And you would ask me to spend the night
Or at least the rain would fade away
And I could walk home in peace

I'd settle for an umbrella, to be honest

But in this world
I gaze longingly at your lips for
Just a few more seconds
And I walk out into the rain

As I ease the door shut, I idly wonder
Why the raindrops taste like salt tonight

Feste's Folly

This is the first part of a novel that I have been working on of which I am going to publish segments sporadically. It is based on the character of Feste the fool from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. When the play begins, Feste has returned from some absence whose kind and duration are not specified. My novel deals mainly with what happened to him during this absence and why he both left and returned.Thank you to my group today for your helpful suggestions.

Chapter 1

He was drunk.

There was really nothing else to it. The young man sat at the bar on his wooden stool, completely and thoroughly inebriated. The barkeep glanced at him and shook his head sagely. These types came in often. Young, idealistic fools disillusioned by love and labor. Some of them went to the bottle and never came back. If he could talk to them in such a way, he would say that the world was bigger than their problems. But it wasn’t his place. He went on wiping mugs.

It is at least fair to say that the man at the bar would not deny he was a fool. He knew it well.

However, right now he didn’t actually think of anything. His eyes dazed into an unfocused cavern of dust and stars. His mind dabbled over physical proceedings like so many strings on a mandolin. A pluck here, a strum there. Lovely music played in his ears. It was the kind of stuff he’d heard before. A long, long time ago. Too long to remember. Perhaps a bit more ale would help him. He held out his hand toward the barkeep.

“Not for you, sir,” the barkeep responded levelly. “Not until you’ve paid for what you’ve had, man.”

The man at the bar swore and wondered why the barkeep’s head kept swiveling. Cursed barkeeps. They just wanted to empty his pockets and leave him in misery. He slapped his hand upon the bar and glared at the keep.

“Now, fellow, no need to get angry. Just pay the money, is all.”

At this point two big, loud townsmen entered the tavern and sat themselves next to the man. They were the kind who liked to show their muscles and demonstrate their belching ability. They spoke with far more volume than necessary, about some girl. Their very presence irritated the young man, and one of them was taking up more than his share of the bar space.

“Get me some ale,” one barked heavily.

The young man was vexed. He clattered his mug on the wood.

“My drink! My drink! I asked y’ for it, before these rascals come in. Come now, fill me mug anon!”

The big man next to him growled menacingly.

“Eh, you there, watch your tongue or you'll be sorry. Now, we ordered first so serve us first, that's right, barkeep.”

The barkeep knew what the start of a brawl looked like, but he had to serve the new customers. He reached for a couple mugs.

“Now!” The young man yelled. “What’re y’ doin’? Fill my drink. Pay no ‘tention to these dogs, these usurpers a’ thrones. Anon!”

At this both big men stood, and the closer punched the young man in the stomach. He was slight and weak and toppled right over.

“Now we warned you! Do you want more of that?”

The man could do nothing. The ale broke in waves over his mind, and the other men’s faces changed. He babbled without a thought.

“You block, you! Mal—you—worms, all y’! T’rrible blockhead. Ah, you, me brother, ‘re ‘n ig—nor—a—mus. Yes sir, signora. That is what be true. Oh what a tune, what a ninny! Ninnies, all. The twelfth day of December, lady, lady….”

By this time, the big men were upon him and he could not defend himself. His head hit the bar with an interesting cracking sound. At some point, he knew he’d been dragged outside because he felt sharp wetness of snow in his lungs. Strange, how he felt so warm and soft while the big man kept hitting him. He thought he might like a nap, just a quick one, sir….

The men finally left him against the side of the tavern, eyes closed and mouth stuck in a screwed smile. The pretty snow floated down and melted on his bloodied body.

A sound came out of his mouth, no more than a whistle of air.

“Oh mistress…mine…where are…you…roaming….”

Then silence.

Inside the tavern, the barkeep grimaced as he wiped blood off the corner of the bar.

untitled

I
it is somewhat intoxicating absorbing what you don't want to absorb, the mathematics of the life you're wishing to lead. the economy of words is lost on you, you spurt out words you don't want to be said, and in these exhilarating moments, you wish for someone to save you, take you away. or perhaps, just take your breath away.

II
between the hello and goodbyes, we seek comfort in the approximation of each human quality that we tend to deduce. between the polite smiles and awkward handshakes we find in the touch that lasted a second, a closeness, a sharing of melancholic sentiments. we are alone, in our worlds, apart, and yet intimate.

III
You.
you took my breath away.

IV
in these ways of love, as they used to say, amor vincit omnia.

V
and there we are.

*****
I brought this for workshop tonight and got really helpful feedbacks :) . Just wondering what everyone else think about this.

the latin words up there mean 'love conquers all'

On the Radio

I would love lots of help on this one, I love the idea of the piece and I during classes have caught myself writing more lines to this piece of Poetic-Prose instead of taking notes.

So any suggestions, ESPECIALLY things to work on, would be greatly appreciated,


On The Radio

My friend is on the radio

Making me cry a little

With every dedication

To all of us who left

Yet we can't seem to call him

To tell him that we love him

The "On Air" button flashes red

But all the phones are dead

Am I next?

Life tells me let go

But teacher can't you see

He was my hero first

I just watched him grow

Tell me to stop breathing

Cause I just might do that

But don't tell me not to love

Chorus:

God, don't forget me

Don't tell me there is no home

Lie to me if you have to

I don't want to feel alone'

There is more to it, but its really long so you can find it on my blog

http://doubtdedication.blogspot.com/

Thanks so much in advance

Rick

ओं थे रेडियो

2007 Lit Mag Submission Guidelines

Here are the guidelines for submissions to the 2007 Writers' Community Literary Magazine:

**NEW DEADLINE: NOON ON SUNDAY NOVEMBER 4TH** (see below for updated editorial staff meeting times)

1. All submitters must be Writers' Community members. Each member is welcome to submit up to 5 pieces.

2. All submissions must be in some way associated with the group: i.e. written during writing activities, workshopped in a meeting, or posted on the blog for comments.

3. Submissions need not be only from this semester; as long as the provisions stated in guideline 2 are fulfilled, older pieces are also welcome. Feel free to re-submit updated versions of pieces you submitted to last year's Lit Mag or spoken word CD that weren't chosen for either.

4. Submitting to us does not in any way mean you're turning over rights to your work: we will either publish it in this issue of the magazine or not use it at all, and in either case you're still welcome to submit it elsewhere. If for any reason some edits become necessary, we will consult you before changing anything.

5. Each piece must have a title (or else we'll call it Untitled) and be not more than 3 single-spaced pages long in 12-point Times font.

6. Pieces must be emailed as Microsoft Word attachments to writerscommunity@gmail.com. Do not put your name in the word document, but please include it (as you would like it to appear in publication) in the email.

7. All submissions must be in by 11.59 p.m. on Friday November 2nd. You can start submitting now!

If you have any questions that aren't addressed here, leave a comment to this post or email me at cmanisha@umich.edu. You can also email me with specific questions about particular pieces.

(updated)
**If you're interested in editing the Lit Mag, here's the editorial staff meeting schedule:
Meeting 1: 8.00 p.m. Sunday Nov 4th
Meeting 2: 6.00 p.m. Tuesday Nov 6th
Meeting 3: 6.30 p.m. Thursday Nov 8th (before regular meeting)
Meeting 4: 6.00 p.m. Friday Nov 9th (tentative)

All editorial staff meetings will take place in the TAP ROOM (Union basement).**

Sky Reconsidered

That night we found
Solace
In the green drip
At the bottom of a bottle,
A subtle touch
To sever,
Each drop,
A passing cloud.

You convinced me
That my orange-cream
Sky was no such thing,
That it was diluted red.
At that moment
I could see
The rose petals
Twist through
Frozen space,
Wobble, curtsy, sputter,
Then layer the earth
In their soft
Floral glow.

Change

The world is changing

Is it? I see nothing different

Ah, but humankind varies

Do they? I hear no difference

You must see that the planet shifts

Does it? I feel nothing different

The world is changing

There are more colors in life

Beauty multiplies

Art becomes the living as the living grow stale

Humankind does vary

That man and that woman

They cannot be the same

In all aspects they are individual

The planet is shifting

Earthquakes, volcanoes, weather

Landscape changes and society grows

The natural world trembles and humans live on

The world is changing

It is… everything adjusts

Ah, but humankind varies

They do… I hear them bicker and argue

You must see that the planet shifts

It does… and nothing stays the same

Here is Where my Mind and Body Lie

Here is Where my Mind and Body Lie

Here is where my mind and body lie, but it is not where they belong

They follow the motions, follow the purpose, but they follow blind

Their blindness of the world, the reality that flows by,

Can only be caused by the loss of their organ of nonsense and illusion

And what is reality if fantasy is lost, but a drudgery of hard truth

Oh, how can this be found, this fantasy and disparity

But through a replacement of the lost organ, a new hope

Or connection with the lost, the one detached, to find the link

Between the past and present, and its contrasting fantasies,

To make the future so bright and find the line

The line is found, oh long thin thread of desire,

How it separates the real from not, and not at all

How can it be followed, but with the lost organ

Only a heart will do, to find the me that finds you

The heart was there all along, but with the one I love,

To keep me centered on the path of life,

To give me hope in times of trouble,

To remind me of the reality of the present,

To inspire my fantasies of the future,

To ground my thoughts when they flew too far,

And to love her when times get hard.

Some Day

Another I just found in my random writings folder- I don't remember writing some of this... hope I didn't steal it from someone. Here it is:

You’ll find me at the edge of time

The end of all things

The beginning of what’s to come

You’ll find me enduring the fiercest storm

Wind lashing my face

Rain flooding my bones and drowning my soul

You’ll find me kneeling before nothing

Penance paid to virtue

Soon I’ll find my destiny among those who’ve gone before

You’ll find me again, after all of this is through

I’ll laugh and smile to the breaking point

Someday I will have my time