Dates and times.
Shapes and forms static.
But I’m as grand as a shower curtain.
Things pointed out to me.
Time didn’t occur.
At some point, it just became “me, my thoughts, collapse.”
A chart to explain everything to me.
Got thwarted by the bursting tennis ball of nothing.
When I see calendars?
I could believe them but then I spoke to myself.
They just are lines of lines of numbers.
And I am a fluttering being.
Dates and times exist as I do.
As glossed over, rambling, jumbled, and ran out of pencil lead.
The grotesque nature of time is a quest to me.
Whether it is 2025 or 2011.
I do know what year it is when I’m crying.
When I’m flustered the scars unravel.
And I know what year it is- the year of mistakes.
I think I can time travel if they let me.
And they won’t.
Time exists as.
Some stunt that happened.
Combining brain power and blanket creases.
Or plopping down with my eyes.
Or adjusting and clearing my throat the whole time.
Time, rushed, guidance.
Two weeks and nuance.
Heightened normalcy.
Some stunt that happened with nuance and scribbles.
I still have some of that pencil lead screeching, hopefulness…
They don’t burst- they’re just not that glamorous after all.
So nothing happened.
I’m a dry, cobwebbed throat.
With eyes that never happened.
As I sat and pondered my final draft,
I lifted my cup for another draft,
When the cracked window let in a cold draft,
And chilled me just like the '69 draft.
Bringing back faces of the men I led,
In '69 the air was filled with lead,
A sudden snap. I broke the pencil lead,
This note to a soldier's son outweighs lead.
I could not let the chance to write you pass,
And tell you how he fought in that damned pass,
Your father never let a challenge pass,
Never a test so hard he could not pass.
Of all my men he was the best in line,
So I'm writing you...the last of his line,
And hoping you don't find me out of line,
Bringing back the past with such a poor line.
Panic attacks can seem…
Pointless.
Jumps up and down.
A sighing yet struggling feeling.
Sighing out so much.
Because it’s boring.
Like a pencil lead from a mechanical pencil breaking.
Then you put more in.
There’s something pointless about it.
I can’t describe.
It used to be a passionate feeling.
Knocking down all the books off the shelf like crazy.
But these days it doesn’t feel like much.
Like wearing one sock because I lost the other.
That pulling and spinning.
It doesn’t define me.
A panic attack is like…
A squealing beetle.
Now I know that I’m the beetle.
And I can crawl onward.
Pencil Sharpener Woman
Her shapely metal figure was baby blue,
but there was much more to her.
She sharpened all grades of pencil lead
with the greatest of whir.
Her movable face plate with pencil gripper and human features was, as commented by most
library customers,
the opposite of gross.
She was very fond of
customers of all colours, of all sizes, the dented,
and, of course, of all classes. ‘Your love of reading keeps you learning,’ she often complimented.
Unfortunately some customers
weren’t fond of her at all though,
and they demanded that
she be let go.
‘Why? Why? Why!’
was her only reply.
When her haters returned books late,
and refused to pay the small fine,
anger and hate
she felt for their stupid action and whine.
So to teach them a lesson,
on the front desk made of pine,
when the whiners sharpened their pencils she shut off her automatic stop mechanism normally fine,
turned her hand crank as
rapidly as an equine,
and her sharp blades
ate up their pencils just fine.
Cadaver, Godiva and Quiver
I believe that I've poisoned my liver
Pushcart on the ramp fell apart
I'm afraid I've damaged my heart
Pencil Lead, Interbred, Seeing Red
I think I've a hole in my head
Had to beg for a keg of bootleg
They just amputated both legs
Only one thing I dread even more
~ A fall from the bed to the floor
When I was a boy I repudiated you
Your cooties chased you out the crew
The innocence across the playground blew
I ran and ran and ran
Later I was taught how to communicate to you
Your dress had black borders and dotted lines I retained the view
I remember in that moment my curiosity for you grew
Soon we, little men, inscribed our names onto manhood
Its hard surface wore my pencil dull and no good
At bonfire we threw in our graphite and wood
I watched it burn and burn and burn
By adolescence I turned despondently shy
On a shadow of descry over your moniker
My drab feelings moored, to an anchor,
Swayed back and forth out in the middle of the water
As a young man I sat and listened to her voice
On that day my pencil lead and made a choice
It walked out the boat and drew uniformed waves
colliding under a mountainous view to rejoice
And I wrote and wrote and wrote
a girl owns a jar
known as a happy girl
not showing her true self
she saves up the negative emotions
stores them in her jar
then
when the jar is full
she shatters it on paper
black stained glass
thousands of pieces
across the page
she watches
anguish, anger, anxiety
seeping into hard pencil lead
picking up the pencil
she shapes the emotions
drags her pencil though the fear
swirls it over the pain
plunges it into the rage
her emotions for words
death, depression, despair
poured into stories and rhymes
told they are good
that she has natural talent
these emotions do her well?
confused, she keeps writing
until her words run out
and she sets out on a journey
to find a bigger jar
I tried and failed so many times
This one here is sure fly
Here is how the others went
A journey on paper not well spent
My pen won't flow my pencil lead broke
I tried in crayon it never spoke
Lots of colors went in the can
One came out like "Sam I am"
My poems I wrote would not take flight
I even glued one to a kite
I cut the strings it flew for a bit
Until a pigeon it did hit
Back to the ground that poem came
Two more times results the same
This last one written from a chair
I'll send it whole over a copper pair
On its way here its goes...CLICK
Was that the delete key ? That's it I quit
Boomerang contest
~Chris~
dancing with my muse
twisting desire into dreams-
my pencil lead breaks
Rumble rumble chuga chuga boom
We sit on the bus as it struggles through the gloom
Mumble grumble hear the voices say
"What an awful journey I've stood up all the way"
"Could you would you move aside a little
Your elbows in my ribcage and it's feeling rather brittle"
Jingle jangle rings a mobile phone
Not another one they think and what a silly tone
Crinkle crackle goes a magazine
They thumb the pages idly and don't know what they've seen
Scribble scrabble goes my pencil lead
As the noises on the bus, make music in my head
Contest : first poem on the soup (( second poem 4 some ))
8th Place
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