If ever we needed to ventilate,
it is now…the thickening tragedy
of lies have become too heavy
for the respiration of living truth…
Indeed…the dire situation
has reached lunging capacity
and the alveoli of reality
are sparking gut-wrenching
diarrheic retribution…
Breathe people…breathe…
check the yellowing mane…
strings of manipulation pulling
thin loose-lips of a sinking ship…
Breathe people…breathe…
the corona of truth shines
its bright light of truth…glowing
around the dark moon of deceit
of Americanism’s tragic turn…
Be mindful… people …scapegoats
come and go…in God, we must trust…
rather than loaning our sacred lives
to ill-fated government iniquities…
As believers—in the Lenten resurrection—
let us be about the business of resuscitation
of our beloved dying nation—yes …ours—built
by the blood-brick masonry of our Ancestors…
i was explaining this at the
breakfast table
my wife pulled that electric chair face
but i consider
that it is better to
be adventurous than
cautious
my son takes another bite
of his jam on toast
and my wife
gives me those
ultraviolet light looks
she is our ozone layer
preventing
us from ripping apart
our
delicate
alveoli sacs
i am her wrinkly moon man
Soul Starving in the Midst of Plenty
By Sy Roth
Just a slit where air,
Some air can find a way to creep in
Replenish the foul exhalations of the horde
Crammed to the rafters
Airless beings
Dazed by the machinations of others
Deus ex machina
To starve them of what is fresh to others.
Clickety clack fly the miles
Unasssuming chorus of the rails
In tandem with their moans
And groans, seeking some small blast of air
To mollify a condition
That binds the soulless traveler to a fate
Yet unknown.
Little blink of light
And the hungry molecules
Bits of flotsam
Find ways to crawl to it,
To beat a path toward the light
Which may bring air to starved lungs.
Alveoli beg sustenance
But their cries rain down emptily,
Empty against the clicking and clacking from below
And the miles of breathless wonder
At their condition.
Too heady to begrudge the snakes that found
A way to slither to the errant light,
And for brief moments
To catch wisps of smoky air that cleanse
For an augenblink,
A soul starving in the midst of plenty.
My lungs are black but my heart is pure
My hair is thin and falling out in the wrong places
At this point my days to live are measured with an hour glass
The size of the smallest taxa
My memory is a bank of a hundred and one bad choices
Two thirds look like a previous poem I wrote,
one which I used a cigar to craft the smoke that is to swallow my alveoli whole
I am using one as I write this, and I’ll probably smoke another one after I’m done
These are the habits I have
The habits I adopted from the apple that fell far from the tree,
The forbidden fruit.
Sometimes, the pernicious
is just desserts like alveoli
losing pink to a ciggy devil
Love - an enterprise astral
yields to blemish: mockery
Garish sentry sneers, reflecting
on a visage muting its boo-hoo
on a traverse still willed in woo
Silly teeter-totters with serious
editing tears that dampen a life…
(10/31/2020: Gibson HB, DMS)
Ventilating Truth—Breathing…
If ever we needed to ventilate,
it is now…the thickening tragedy
of lies have become too heavy
for the respiration of living truth…
Indeed…the dire situation
has reached lunging capacity
and the alveoli of reality
are sparking gut-wrenching
diarrheic retribution…
Breathe people…breathe…
check the yellowing mane…
strings of manipulation pulling
thin loose-lips of a sinking ship…
Breathe people…breathe…
the corona of truth shines
its bright light of truth…glowing
around the dark moon of the deceit
of Americanism’s tragic turn…
Be mindful… people …scapegoats
come and go…in God, we must trust…
rather than loaning our sacred lives
to ill-fated government iniquities…
As believers—in the Lenten resurrection—
let us be about the business of resuscitation
of our beloved dying nation—yes …ours—built
by the blood-brick masonry of our Ancestors…
Good ‘n Wild with Bad ‘n Tame went awondering
On whimsical wings spinning together a tornado
Only exhaustion rested their reality of much ado
Don’t debated do, as wildly a passion conquered…
‘Never take on the wild for it leaves all forsaken’
When good looked at bad, bad saw, as it knew
Into a tame, fierce winds air-force-filled alveoli
Lust inhaled, filling balloons, lifting up to aerial
Depleted heights, gave a bird’s eye, ‘n taunted…
“Does good turn bad or does the wild get tamed?
Death’s by slow suffocation or resounding crash!”
(1/31/2020: Inspired by two contests &
‘00 Searay Sundancer 260: Riverbank)
PS - To my readers and fave commenters – I’m off for four months (maxing the visa) tomorrow to go visit with my elderly father and give my younger sister a bit of a break from worrying about him. I may get some connection to the www every now and then but not guaranteed. Hope to be back with more to write and to catch on yours...read and talk with you again at the end of May :)
Prickly cool fills my lungs,
Like a bladder canteen on a Bedu dromedary,
Sloshing the alveoli that branch, internal ...
Frozen filligree fanning my firkin chest.
I blink a tear, staring up at the belt of Orion,
Cold as the snow that wraps me like mother's womb.
Forever lost in the frightening beauty of God's providence,
I sacrifice my last breath to the naked, shimmering heavens,
Letting the night devour me, tender and bleak,
As I dream ... of sand castles.
~ 1st Place ~ in the "Early March 2019 Any Form, Any Theme" Poetry Contest, Brian Strand, Judge & Sponsor.
Self-dissection
By Stina lu
Stab yourself with a sharp dagger
Fresh blood splashing
No one stops you
There’s no piercing scream
No one scolds you
There's no worry about curses and reprisals
To air your pure heart in the sunlight
Wipe gently the humble soul
To hold your guts high up in the sky
Let the moon and the sun penetrate and judge.
Stop the bee humming in your head
Place reason on the left brain
and passion on the right side.
They don’t owe each other.
Dust covered thick in your lung
which should be peeled layer by layer.
Make your breath smooth again
Every alveoli feels fresh
After all this labor
Clean the wound and suture it
Time will erase it
A new lease on life
A reborn phoenix arises from the ash
Blue flowers on yellow dreams become green
Life moves on and on in the evergreen train
A single green leaf may pale and fall in dust
Green towers of bubbling life never succumb
In your deep and light green lovely shirt
I breathe deep and inhale your perfumed green
Through my nostril into the alveoli of my lungs
The warm green releases rivers with dream wave
Green exhalations sit on your glorious face
It is silky soft suave sweet savoury green grass
Spontaneous birds come and peck in green delight
My whole being is a tree of green ecstasy
Gray and black interruptions of course do come
But all in all it is green that triumphs invariably
--------------------------------------------------------------------
1 March 2016
rain reciprocate wind
inhaled gas nourishes alveoli
leaves give air of life
bull defecates
believe in
You are now standing
at epicenter
of violence.
It was an original trauma
for unknowables.
You intend to stride
straight through frozen limbs
cuddling the statement in love
with slaughter.
The alveoli will speak
for corrugated windows.
Going nowhere from here
to find the answers for fallen truths.
I have not understood
the concept of lying nude
in terror.
Musical chairs
will decide.
Who wins the bomb ?
Satish Verma
Alveoli burst in seething pain
Green bile floods out of lacerations.
Cruciform expletives implode into disaster.
I slice cornea's from my weary eyes.
Scum stained nails rip teeth from jagged mouths.
I stood in the womb of creation and cried.
Assailed on all sides by the blinding dark.
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