Byproduct
By Dustin Branum
Have you no clue how hard i try
To keep positive alive and negative aside
Why must you insist, genocide
Why must you feel the need to lie
I don't remember the reasons why
I cater to your deceptive lifes
What makes you think I'd oblige
Why must you live this way of life
Have you no clue how hard I try
To not do the things I so despise
To keep a hard face and try not to cry
If I do so, shall it be my demise
And should it be, I give you my word
Destiny will be mine fulfilled in time
I'll show the world that's being disguised
Time to reveal this knowledge I hide
As everyone starts to wonder why
But it's little too late to rectify
Nothing you say can justify
Living such a demonic life
My deepest fears are coming true
Total darkness is bleeding through
Raging inferno that's within my soul
No longer desires to maintain control
Exposing this darkness for all to see
"Reveal your demons!" You beg of me
Social guillotine
By Dustin Branum
9/03/26
Acceptance is dire,
I let this be known.
My only desire
was to feel I belong.
The empty will devour
everything I own.
Knowledge acquired,
the tongue is unknown.
Interpreter required
to speak the untold.
Silence gets louder,
the darkness gets brighter.
My Destiny expired,
no longer headstrong.
All hope is gone,
decaying empire.
No king for the throne,
no skull for the crown,
no cheers from the crowd.
No acceptance required,
no longer desire
your approvable satire.
Chronicles of the revolving door
By Dustin Branum
When exactly does life begin? When will this
tragedy come to an end? It's like over, and over,
and over again... When will I ever find peace,
my friend? And nobody knows how far I've
been; Nobody cares about the pain
I'm in. This knowledge that
burns deep within, with
a withering soul,
reality will
bend.
The
light
turns dark
with a grayish
blend, begging for
mercy, it's demons they
send. The light is illusion I
can no longer depend—There's no
Destiny for me to defend. Yearning for
happy, acceptance, and Zen, Instead of this
anger and evil times ten. No kids, no wife, no
next of kin; Lonely and broken, this chapter will end...
Exactly where the it began.
Empathy
By Dustin Branum
So, keep up with me:
In order for one to give a f**k
one must have a f**k to give.
So, one must’ve got f**ked
to have a f**k to give.
Someone had to get f**ked
for the rest of us to give a f**k.
If it wasn’t for the first f**ker that got f**ked—
the one f**ker that actually gave enough f**k
to take a f**k, to have a f**k to give.
Everything we know of all existence
evolves around a f**k-show of empathy.
If it wasn’t for one that gave a f**k enough
to have empathy,
thus born: i-human.
Getting f**ked to have a f**k to give
so we can all give a f**k together
Instead of being f**king f**ked.
So the question is, if you don’t give a f**k,
and if they don’t give a f**k,
and you don’t even give a f**k if they give a f**k...
Then who the f**k gives a f**k?
Well, I do.
Through a filter,
I look really great
My eyes are blue as azure seas
The bags don’t hang down to my knees
My lips are pursed in certain style
And grinned with just a hint of guile
The brows are plucked and even toned
The cheeks are even high cheek boned
Through a filter,
I’m the perfect weight
I’m built to swing on Tarzan’s vine
In other words, I’m mighty fine
My muscles glow in suntanned skin
It’s good to see the skin I’m in
The stomach flat, no need to tuck
I look as though I ate a truck
Through a filter, through a filter
Life is perfect, never changes
Through a filter, through a filter
Constant as life rearranges
Life, a cardboard cut out me
What a lovely place to be
You just can’t hurt what you can’t see
Words don't come easy
They really never have
They usually just come out messy
Leaving me with should haves
Should have walked away
Before opening my mouth
Not that I don't have words to say
It's just my mind speaks outload
Sometimes way too abruptly
Never with meaning to offend
Be careful of what is asked quickly
Because it will surely be my end
Please don't ask my opinion
Unless you are willing to accept
You will probably have to disown me
Because the response will be inept
Spoken truly with shaking
It seems I was born without
This simply thing is lacking
To stop the words out of my mouth
Don't eat the shellfish
the sea filters through
Every thing is a dichotomy
they say in the end
This obliqueness
sows it's wild oats in
the forest where only
small shreds of light
make their way to the
ground
A starlight is worth a
multitude of sound,
a one liner, a lyric,
a pun, a religion,
you and me
and all we have on this
Earth
was meant to mean
good things to some
I need to filter out the world,
Just for a little while,
To drown out the white noise,
The static and the light.
I music has turned discordant
And I cannot see the sky,
Hear the rustling on the breeze,
Nor the soaring birds that cry.
The longing for some silence
Is building each passing hour
The yearning for some clarity
Drives me up this broken tower
The whispers on the winds,
Have all been blown away,
The deep azure blue sky,
Has been faded out to grey.
It's time to shut it down,
Let it all fade out to black,
As the silence comes crashing in,
I hope I can come back.
Who I Might Have Been
David J Walker
Ever since
You came home
Things haven’t been
The same
Things that I remembered
Have been rearranged or
Discarded/hidden
in the mounds of dead leaves
Beneath the dying trees
of my youth
A small fire lit under the
rotting truth
Of that which can be set free by flames
Then who’s to say what they might have been
Ever since
You came home.
My bathroom mirror has cracked
Into a fractal filter
I spend my mornings deciding
Who I might have been
today
The Human Filter (Freewill)
There is only, but one, who can see black and white.
For the rest of us, it is merely perception.
We can hope for glory, but for all is not bright.
As many have followed a path of deception
Choosing right over wrong, there is only one choice
But the answer is not, always easy or clear
When intention may be, but you listened to voice
Your trusted, Jezebel, is the one you should fear
For so many have felt, and their feelings infringed
Of a world that’s selfish and derailed from what’s right
When even the righteous, have been victims of spin
As so many lose faith, I am searching, for light
We are human filters; to allow, how we play
But the more we filter, we darken the shade; gray
Contest: Your best sonnet October1-December31,2017
Sponsor: John Hamilton
Original posting: 12/21/2017
Placed Sixth
Our little angels are being taken
by this horrible disease
GOD help to rid this from the
world please
It has no filter to pick and
choose you see
It could take hold of you
or hold of me
When it appears in our kids
it hits us most
Why did you pick our little
ones? They should not be
your host
They should be playing each
and everyday
Not laying up sick and hurting
we know that’s your way
Rid their little bodies of your
nasty hold
And take your sickness with you
as you go
The day will come as we STOMP
you out forever
We only wish that it was sooner
to make our little ones
better
We will jump for joy and shout
it to the moon
That day will come and
hopefully very soon
Little Owen is running and
playing in HEAVEN forever
more
You don’t have him to hurt
GOD closed the door
Tammy Arrowood 10-7-2017????
Two years and a couple of weeks and I will be on the road again. Back from living right and ready to start living wrong. Ain't that a *****. But I got a pocket full of money gotta last me till they burn me on beach of Lake Bistineau. Not much to hope for but a redneck's dream gets lost in double wides, Pearl beer and filter kings. I'll see you in Houston. I'll see you in Baton Rouge, I'll see you Oxford if your shoes ain't too blue. Until then my friend I'll see you in the Bayou, Syd & Harry's, Foresters, Magoos, and all those place we used to get lost.
tank filled with green crud
on the bottom like a spud…
goldfish was a dud
Praying Mantis at basement door
I had not seen you here before
So lime green you stand out
Scarey enough to make me shout
Died next day in pool filter__gore
The dirt does not give into words.
Blind-less in tongue and heart,
I have dropped myself in the earth.
Dark eyes wrapped in cloth,
Tilted clouds narrow my sight.
Spiral down fellow pride follows,
Relieving fires flame of it's light.
Tonight silent is the color.
And the wind is what I wear.
Tomorrow is what we desire,
Dropping the past skin and years.
Aggravation the deepness unaware-for a fee.
Quivering stories holding the once better-left debris.
Filtrate the deafening lies we're forced to breathe-sounds of fear.
You crack the glass we all feel to sing-mixed to share.
Digging farther to find what I've left behind-beyond what's here.
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