***
words thrown together –
but not in sentences.
without verbs, present action:
alone
disjoint
inert.
***
Loneliness is never more cruel than when it is felt in close propinquity with someone who has ceased to communicate. – Germaine Greer
Christianity teaches us to love our neighbor as ourselves; modern society acknowledges no neighbor. – Benjamin Disraeli
***
over a beer
a notevencold beer
he laments his fallen star
puts his money on the counter
his own money
chipping away at a feeble stack
would not have happened
even just five years ago
but it takes
not much
just a tiny shift
the easiest of pushes
the faintest change in breezes
voice darkened dampened by time
wear
smoke
quit the tour
poor reviews
dysfunction
chain of events
from one
to noone
in notime
his former mates might be
in some same plain jane establishment
elsewhere miles removed
thinking too, sipping
strangely foreignly
some same remorseful rum
on the rocks
again
the tender knows the usual
—
elsewhere miles removed
in some same plain jane establishment
his new song plays on the juke
unnoticed background static
except to one
one noone
one forlornly lonely noone
who reaps from it
the grace of a million moments
ever so subtly
in the sky
a star rises
behind the clouds of dank evening
***
***
All stones are broken stones. – From “44 Aphorisms” by James Richardson
***
alas, pangaea
here underneath my toes the softest bed
(silence all about
(morning here is lonely peace
is formed by microscopic graveyard stones
which (if they were not undersized)
would read “the one is hereby crushed and dead”
in patient lines the waves bring ever more
(storing them for now
(back to get them will they be
and here deposit ancient crystal bones
which (shards of some lost gemstone prized)
lay glimmering for my eye to adore
i wonder at the thoughts of these fine grains
(if they were endowed
with this capability
i’d listen to their every word and tone
which (i don’t know but can surmise)
would sing a song of brokenness and pain
the tales of fond rememberance they’d weave
(music all around
(sorrow wafting on the breeze
of days gone by when they were joined as one
which (with this i can sympathize)
are too far gone now ever to retrieve
alas, pangaea, once in you we lived!
(tenderest of ground
(lost forever seemingly
that garden lush and soil without stone
which (cracked by time’s relentless pries)
demolished is past aught that aid could give
alas, pangaea, you were all i knew!
(sands and i both now
(singing out this elegy
for shattered are we, fragmented, alone
(where once we lived in paradise)
we now can see but glimpses in the blue
someday pangaea will be whole anew
somewhere across that haunting, daunting blue
***
Author’s Note: i am not sure it’s done, but i have not received many submissions for my impromptu contest yet, so i thought i might spur everyone on with an entry of my own. Thoughts? Since i am going to judge your work, its only far to request that you judge mine as well. i would appreciate some sound criticism. Also: get to work. August 17th is the deadline.
inputoutputmodule 