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ÚÄ Ü Ü Ü Ü Ä¿
Ûßß ÛßÛ ß Û Û Ûßß ÜÜÛ ß ÛÛÜ Û Ü
ßßÛ ÛÜÛ Û Û Û Ûß Û Û Û Û Þ ÛÜß
ÛÛÛ Û ÛÛÛ ÛÛÛ ÛÛÛ ÛÛÛ ÛÛÛ ÛÛÛ Û Þ ÛßÛ
ÀÄ ÄÙ
Ä electronic literary 'zine Ä
*ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ*
ù ÄÄ´ volume eleven ÃÄÄ ù
*ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ*
stop plagiarism - let out your soul
Copyright 7/96
ú úùcompiled & edited by Twilightùú ú
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
* All literature presented herein is copyrighted by their respective authors *
In memory of D.L.D.
...you left me without warning, but I still can't help but fucking miss you...
þ Table of Contents þ
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúù
1. A Pale Rain - Firefly
2. About Our Hats - Ray Heinrich
3. After Repeated Attempts - Pamela Gray
4. Artificial Gods - Raven Caine
5. Blackbird - The Beatles
6. Blood Roses - Autumn Silver
7. Charcoal - Stephen Lush
8. Clouds - Joni Mitchell
9. Death - Mark Wood
10. Fight - The Cure
11. Four Essential Questions - Christopher Stolle
12. Grand Theft - Twilight
13. How Hard This Time? - Cheshire
14. In My Life - The Beatles
15. In Plaster - Sylvia Plath
16. Just Like A Woman - Bob Dylan
17. Landslide - Stevie Nicks
18. Losing Me - Quinn
19. Missing You - Cat-a-lyst
20. Nobody's Hero - Neil Peart
21. One Day It Happens - Silvia Curbelo
22. Our Lady Examines Her Anger - Nita Penfold
23. Quitters Never Win - Cheshire
24. Rejoice - U2
25. Rhiannon - Stevie Nicks
26. Romance - Dorianne Laux
27. Silhouette - Lynda A. Clowers
28. Sink - Twilight
29. Starfish - Twilight
30. Still - Heather Gilbert
31. The End Of A Marriage - Joanne Seltzer
32. The Martyr In My Heart - Cat-a-lyst
33. The Wishing Box - Sylvia Plath
34. Typical - Serena Lemick
35. Untitled - HappyMonk
36. Untitled - HappyMonk
37. Untitled - K.c
38. Untitled - Molina
39. Untitled - Molina
40. Untitled - Shay Teighlor
41. Untitled - The Vorpal Bunny
42. Where Is The Light? - Christopher Stolle
43. Years Of Water - Ray Heinrich
44. Yesterday - The Beatles
þ Including Quotes From:
Anonymous, Toni Cade Bambara, The Beatles, Rob Brezsny, Camus,
Jules de Gaultier, Edna Ferber, Foolish Dictionary, _Fresh_, Joseph Heller,
Courtney Love, Senator Pat Moynihan, Jesse Owens, Dorothy Parker, Jean Rhys,
Anne Rice, Amber Coverdale Sumrall, Judith Viorst, Oscar Wilde, and
John Williamson
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
A Pale Rain
þ Firefly
ùúùúùúùúùúù
The rain is waiting.
She sits inside her silent prison,
Crying blood red tears on a cold pale concrete floor.
The walls are bare but for the etchings,
She has scraped in their unforgiving surface
With her crimson fingernails,
Now chipped and scrapped down to the quick.
Her eyes are torrent and full of grey sky's storm clouds.
The rain is coming.
Her hair and rags that taunt her are limp and tattered
From hours of playing in the ashes,
From savoring their charcoal sweetness.
Her skin is a dark shade of pale,
But has the look of porcelain
compared to the grizzled abyss she lies in.
Beyond the relentless iron bars that guard the window,
Her only link to the outside world,
Awaits a long vermillion fall
to the cold pale concrete of a forgotten world.
The rain is falling.
About Our Hats
þ Ray Heinrich
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùú
thin black hands
reach
out of the backs of our heads
holding up
our heaven hats
so
when we face each other
it seems
there is a sky
complete with stars
þùúùþ
Ray is an ex-Texas technofreak and hippie-socialist wannabe who writes
poems for thrills and attention. He's always been married, loves
dogs, evolution, electronics, and industrial design. He does not like
Republicans, but is willing to make an exception if you are truly
gullible and can stand bisexuals. He also owns a blue fish and loves
to get comments at: ray@vais.net
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
Ä Oscar Wilde
After Repeated Attempts
þ Pamela Gray
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúù
after repeated attempts
to get over you
i've decided to just
give up
accept the fact that
fifty years from now
i'll be sitting in a wheelchair
in the Home for Aged Dykes
muttering your name
some cute volunteer
in a dungaree jacket
will pat me on my wrinkled arm
saying "there, there,
maybe she'll come tomorrow"
my weak heart will flutter
each time a phone rings
or a visitor's announced
oh and i'll get visitors:
all the women I wouldn't
sleep with over the years
because i was waiting
for you
they'll show me pictures
of their collective land
in the country
their alternatively
reproduced grandchildren
occasionally they may ask,
"have you heard from..."
and i'll lower my gray head
"well," they'll say,
"she must be very busy"
at night, rereading
my tattered antique copies
of 'Twenty-One Love Poems'
and 'Beginning with O',
looking through the yellowed
photographs of our vacation
in P-Twon, fifty years back,
i'll ask myself
what it was about you
and i won't remember
"The old folks say, 'It's not how little we know that hurts us so, but that
so much of what we know ain't so.'" Ä Toni Cade Bambara
Artificial Gods
þ Raven Caine
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúù
Black roses, red wine
A sense of completion
Bodies entwined
He haunts my soul
Like a pagan god
sacrificial altar, cold stone
Blood splattered walls
Forces behind masks of clay
An insane smile in the dark
Long narrow hallways
Moon washed, featureless secrets
A long forgotten grave
He hides within mirrors
Gathering strands of thought
Creating confusion and lies
Blood red lips, black flashing eyes
Paper mache memories
The moment slips and dies
"Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis." Ä Anonymous
Blackbird
þ The Beatles
ùúùúùúùúùúùúù
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly.
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment
to arise.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see.
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to
be free.
Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.
Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly.
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to
arise.
"It is always darkest just before the dawn."
Blood Roses
þ Autumn Silver
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúù
The crystal seeker, at the dawn,
sheds his crimson tears,
and echoed in a silver mind
are his deepest fears.
Tomorrow's light will shed its rays
on agony and pain;
silver dancer calls the clouds
and sings into the rain.
Crimson petals at the feet
of a silver dancer fair;
with sweetest smile she tangles crystal
moonbeams in her dark hair.
Silver cat with deadly grace
searching for a home,
shadows crystal and chases shadows,
yet remains all alone.
Quiet child of time and sun
draws her siblings' eyes,
but crimson silver rages in the night,
and the wholeness dies.
In quiet fields the last one roams,
and sunlight fills his eyes;
he looks to the distant stone
as the crystal seeker cries.
And from the tears, a kiss of life,
spreads patterns on the stone;
sweet blossoms, roses, silver thorned,
the Queen of Sorrow's throne.
Charcoal
þ Stephen Lush
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùú
Lost tears in the dishpans set
under our beds
eyes like magnets sear exposedly
alone in the dark
with dreams and shallowing left alone
rapier shining knife bent bright
in the echoed shriek of Luna
gas comes, it lets itself in
breathe no more in the profile
of shadows
little boy wishes and plastic
burns in the wall
car security lights bleed agedly
whimpers from the rusted sewer
beasts
brittle soddy truth
loveless stockings pulled to midthigh
black taffy lipstick painted
liver stains speckled of overexposure
broken corners, welcome fatigue
slide into
the effortless weight of the end.
"Chicken Little was right." Ä Anonymous
Clouds
þ Joni Mitchell
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúù
Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere
I've looked at clouds that way
Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel it
As every fairy tale comes real I
I've looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So so many things I could've done
But clouds got in my angel dust
Gets in your eyes your hair
On acid stars your getting there
My body's assembled into
A little itty bitty gift to you
When you die i've looked at life that way
But now it's just another show
You leave 'em laughing when you go
So so don't let them inside, don't let them know
Don't give yourself ohh away
But now my friends are acting strange
They shake their heads man they say I've changed well
Well something's lost rearranged
From living every every every I've
I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's just illusions I recall
I really don't know i really don't know
I really don't know i really don't know
I really don't i really don't clouds at all
Why are we here...terrified terrified wow
"Life is like an onion. You peel off layer after layer, then you find there
is nothing in it." Ä Anonymous
Death
þ Mark Wood
ùúùúùúùúùúù
Awake, please self, awake!
Death, he works on me.
No, don't drain the fluid from my body!
Awake, I must awake.
Mad dream.
Confined in a casket.
I'm so cold, they file past.
Seems so real, they touch me.
I'm alive I tell you, torment me not.
Nothing works, Get away!
Now I fade... Pain... Scream in the night.
Death laughs, rush into the void,
I shall laugh with him throughout eternity.
Time passes... slowly... time passes,
The worms! the worms! the worms!
In us all the time.
Filling my mouth, consuming flesh!
Climbing out the head of my penis.
Bloated belly, swollen with gas.
I rot, split apart at the edges.
Blue meat without form.
Nothing left but bones and a timeless scream.
Fight
þ The Cure
ùúùúùúùúùú
Sometimes there's nothing to feel
Sometimes there's nothing to hold
Sometimes there's no time to run away
Sometimes you just feel so old
The times it hurts when you cry
The times it hurts just to breathe
And then it all seems like there's no one left
And all you want is to sleep
Fight fight fight
Just push it away
Fight fight fight
Just push until it breaks
Fight fight fight
Don't cry at the pain
Fight fight fight
Or watch yourself burn again
Fight fight fight
Don't howl like a dog
Fight fight
Just fill up the sky
Fight fight fight
Fight 'til you drop
Fight fight fight
And never never
Never stop
Fight fight fight
Fight fight fight
So when the hurting starts
And when the nightmares begin
Remember you can fill up the sky
You don't have to give in
You don't have to give in
Never give in
Never give in
Never give in
"Whoever said love conquers all was a fool. Because almost everything
conquers love - or tries to." Ä Edna Ferber
Four Essential Questions
þ Christopher Stolle
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùú
I. How can I believe in religion if I know not what God is?
Just a moment ago, I thought I was visited by God
but he betrayed me, so to Hell with prophets.
Oh Satan, I have sinned with pride and joy
as I took a bite from the fruit of the apple tree
and disgraced the obscenity of gratitude.
II. How can I believe in technology when I know not what politics are?
Light bulbs are twisted from their fixtures
for broken glass resembles a crystal prism
that light can no longer shine through.
Cable cords and telephone wires
stretch all the dismal distances
that are apart at the seams.
III. How can I believe in this if I know not what that is?
Nature is nature and soil is soil
while grass is grass and a rose is a thorn.
Everything is everything and nothing is nothing
while the sun only shines at the stroke of midnight.
IV. How can I believe in myself when I know not who I am?
Conceited beliefs and self-sufficing means
make me more stable among the fallen
as those on a pedestal know not at all
where their angry thoughts border.
When all I can see is my reflection,
in the shadow of a street light,
I feel something that's a novelty
and maybe it's just my hand on my face.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to
their own facts." Ä Senator Pat Moynihan
Grand Theft
þ Twilight
ùúùúùúùúùúù
Like a perfect oyster
I lift the roughened shell
Coated with years of barnacles.
Prying open
Showing the fleshy pink.
And I giggle as you tickle me.
You embrace my pearl
Like a toy
Gleefully playing
But always putting it back into place
Before the latch went down.
But when no knife
Not even a crowbar
Could lift my little house
Somehow, some way
Unbeknownst to me
You tricked your way in.
So secretly, so deceptively
And stole my precious sphere of white
My glowing ball.
Leaving your dark footprint
And the lonely, empty dent.
Taking the key, breaking the hinge
And leaving me wide open.
Beneath the red-hot, sizzling sun
I shriveled into an unidentifiable format.
"I've got a blister from
Touching everything I see
The abyss opens up
It steals everything from me" Ä Courtney Love
How Hard This Time?
þ Cheshire
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúù
How hard will you hit me this time, Father?
Hard enough to forget your grief?
to forget your pains?
How long will you lock me away from you
and the rest of the world...
long enough to bring her back to you?
It doesn't matter you know,
it can't take away the fact
that she's gone because of you.
You can't change the fact
that she's left you, and soon I'll be gone too.
And the harder you hit,
the more you scratch,
all the pain you cause is just a warm-up
for the years of neglect
loneliness,
pain,
and regret that will be your only reminders
of a family that loved you.
So hit me harder, Father...
your strength is your own undoing.
In My Life
þ The Beatles
ùúùúùúùúùúùúù
There are places I'll remember
all my life, though some have changed,
some forever, not for better,
some have gone and some remain
All these places had their moments,
with lovers and friends I still can recall,
some are dead and some are living,
in my life I've loved them all.
But of all these friends and lovers,
there is no one compared with you,
and these mem'ries lose their meaning
when I think of love as something new.
Though I know I'll never lose affection
for people and things that went before,
I know I'll often stop and think about them,
in my life I'll love you more.
Though I know I'll never lose affection
for people and things that went before,
I know I'll often stop and think about them
in my life I'll love you more
in my life I'll love you more.
In Plaster
þ Sylvia Plath
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùú
I shall never get out of this! There are two of me now:
This absolutely white person and the old yellow one,
And the white person is certainly the superior one.
She doesn't need food, she is one of the real saints.
At the beginning I hated her, she had no personality -
She lay in bed with me like a dead body
And I was scared, because she was shaped just the way I was
Only much whiter and unbreakable and with no complaints.
I couldn't sleep for a week, she was so cold.
I blamed her for everything, but she didn't answer.
I couldn't understand her stupid behaviour!
When I hit her she held still, like a true pacifist.
Then I realized what she wanted was for me to love her:
She began to warm up, and I saw her advantages.
Without me, she wouldn't exist, so of course she was grateful.
I gave her a soul, I bloomed out of her as a rose
Blooms out of a vase of not very valuable porcelain,
And it was I who attracted everybody's attention,
Not her whiteness and beauty, as I had at first supposed.
I patronized her a little, and she lapped it up -
You could tell almost at once she had a slave mentality.
I didn't mind her waiting on me, and she adored it.
In the morning she woke me early, reflecting the sun
From her amazingly white torso, and I couldn't help but notice
Her tidiness and her calmness and her patience:
She humoured my weakness like the best of nurses,
Holding my bones in place so they would mend properly.
In time our relationship grew more intense.
She stopped fitting me so closely and seemed offish.
I felt her criticizing me in spite of herself,
As if my habits offended her in some way.
She let in the draughts and became more and more absent-minded.
And my skin itched and flaked away in soft pieces
Simply because she looked after me so badly.
Then I saw what the trouble was: she thought she was immortal.
She wanted to leave me, she thought she was superior,
And I'd been keeping her in the dark, and she was resentful -
Wasting her days waiting on a half-corpse!
And secretly she began to hope I'd die.
Then she could cover my mouth and eyes, cover me entirely,
And wear my painted face the way a mummy-case
Wears the face of a pharaoh, though it's made of mud and water.
I wasn't in any position to get rid of her.
She'd supported me for so long I was quite limp -
I had even forgotten how to walk or sit,
So I was careful not to upset her in any way
Or brag ahead of time how I'd avenge myself.
Living with her was like living with my own coffin:
Yet I still depended on her, though I did it regretfully.
I used to think we might make a go of it together -
After all, it was a kind of marriage, being so close.
Now I see it must be one or the other of us.
She may be a saint, and I may be ugly and hairy,
But she'll soon find out that that doesn't matter a bit.
I'm collecting my strength; one day I shall manage without her,
And she'll perish with emptiness then, and begin to miss me.
"You want to be somebody or somebody's girl?" Ä Anne Rice
Just Like A Woman
þ Bob Dylan
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúù
Nobody feels any pain
Tonight as I stand inside the rain
Ev'rybody knows
That Baby's got new clothes
But lately I see her ribbons and her bows
Have fallen from her curls.
She takes just like a woman, yes, she does
She makes love just like a woman, yes, she does
And she aches just like a woman
But she breaks just like a little girl.
Queen Mary, she's my friend
Yes, I believe I'll go see her again
Nobody has to guess
That Baby can't be blessed
'Til she sees finally that she's like all the rest
With her fog, her amphetamine and her pearls.
She takes just like a woman, yes, she does
She makes love just like a woman, yes, she does
And she aches just like a woman
But she breaks just like a little girl.
It was raining from the first
And I was dying there of thirst
So I came in here
And your long-time curse hurts
But what's worse
Is this pain in here
I can't stay in here
Ain't it clear that -
I just can't fit
Yes, I believe it's time for us to quit
When we meet again
Introduced as friends
Please don't let on that you knew me when
I was hungry and it was your world.
Ah, you fake just like a woman, yes, you do
You make love just like a woman, yes, you do
Then you ache just like a woman
But you break just like a little girl.
Landslide
þ Stevie Nicks
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùú
I took my love, I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around
I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills
'Til the landslide brought me down
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love
Can the child within my heart rise above
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life
Well, I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you get bolder
Even children get older
And I'm getting older too
Oh, take my love, take it down
Climb a mountain and turn around
If you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills
Well the landslide will bring it down
If you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills
Well the landslide will bring it down
Losing Me
þ Quinn
ùúùúùúùúù
I'm so sick of hiding
my true self locked up
I feel as though I might lose the key,
and then where would I be?
my actions are false,
though my feelings are true
Oh, what I would give to show them to you
I wonder what you would do
what you would think
if you got a glance at the real me
Do you ever look beyond my fake laugh?
have I hidden my feelings so well,
that looking into my eyes is like
looking into tinted glass?
I'm so scared I'll lose myself in this game we play
but I sink in more and more
day by day
Is that worse than losing you?
could losing myself be worse
than seeing rejection staring back at me?
If you saw my tears,
my worries and fears,
would you forget my smiles?
by keeping you,
I'm losing me
Missing You
þ Cat-a-lyst
ùúùúùúùúùúùú
The sands of time seem to flow
Like winter molasses.
The hours pass like clouds overhead,
Slowly and all the same.
Turning my eyes inward I see
Spun threads of love tangle
From my heart and soar over the miles
To yours. I feel you.
If only I could whisper to the moon,
"Tell her I love her..."
If only the moon had ears and voice
To carry my message to her.
Yet I feel her heart as mine own
And I know that she too burns.
The hottest fire, doused only
By the purest water.
We are burning water.
Nobody's Hero
þ Neil Peart
ùúùúùúùúùúùúù
I knew he was different in his sexuality
I went to his parties as the straight minority
It never seemed a threat to my masculinity
He only introduced me to a wider reality
As the years went by, we drifted apart
When I heard that he was gone
I felt a shadow cross my heart
But he's nobody's -
Hero - saves a drowning child
Cures a wasting a disease
Hero - lands the crippled airplane
Solves great mysteries
Hero - not the handsome actor
Who plays a hero's role
Hero - not the glamour girl
Who'd love to sell her soul
If anybody's buying
Nobody's hero
I didn't know the girl, but I knew her family
All their lives were shattered in a nightmare of brutality
They try to carry on, try to bear the agony
Try to hold some faith in the goodness of humanity
As the years went by, we drifted apart
When I heard that she was gone
I felt a shadow cross my heart
But she's nobody's -
Hero - is the voice of reason
Against the howling mob
Hero - is the pride of purpose
In the unrewarding job
Hero - not the champion player
Who plays the perfect game
Not the glamour boy
Who loves to sell his name
Everybody's buying
Nobody's hero
As the years went by, we drifted apart
When I heard that you were gone
I felt a shadow cross my heart
Nobody's hero...
One Day It Happens
þ Silvia Curbelo
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùú
One day it happens: your lover
lights your last cigarette and becomes
a feather of smoke rising through your fingers,
a handful of nothing, a shaft of air.
It is the story of a man
running after a train
or whistling down some alley
while you stare at the long hallway
of his leaving, wondering
*how will I live without?*
One day the night rides in through the window
and unpacks its usual stars.
You lie on the thin bed
and feel the room
opening up like breath
when the last door slams behind you
final as a shot.
One day you lie alone
remembering the short barrel of his heart,
its single bullet.
"Endings are horrible, almost impossible. We are deeply instilled with the
belief that love will last forever, even though the statistics give us quite
a different perspective. I have had ten major breakups so far in my life and
hope never to have another, but I'm far from confident. I am perplexed by
the rapidity and ease with which passion, desire and shared dreams simply
fade away or deteriorate into boredom and animosity. Last year I broke up
with someone and believed I would never fall in love again. This year I've
fallen in love with someone and believe we will never break up.
My last breakup was devastating, a phantom pain of the heart. I thought I'd
never love or be loved again. I started smoking, took two-hour baths so I
could cry without interruption, and listened to Nanci Griffith continuously.
Days passed in which I was unable to eat, sleep, or leave my home. I thought
I needed a jumpstart, some incredible jolt to my nervous system in order to
feel alive again. What I needed was simply to grieve. For months. Many
prior losses surfaced which I also grieved. My hypnotherapist, the support
and love of my friends, my writing, my dreams and the passing of time pulled
me through. Love comes with no guarantee. The alternative is to display
my scars and close my heart. A price I'm not willing to pay."
Ä Amber Coverdale Sumrall
Our Lady Examines Her Anger
þ Nita Penfold
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúù
like a foreign object
turning it over, looking for cracks
flaws in the obsidian surface.
She is angry at him
for going on with his life
as if she were not maimed
as if she had not lost an arm to him,
a foot, hobbling around now
trying to grow them back.
Each memory of their life together
an obstacle to trip over:
the little boy who wanted approval
from his father, the little girl who needed
her mother's love, two artists attempting
support through the hardness,
holding each other's tears in the night.
She loved the soul of this man who
reflected back her own undetected strengths,
who could transform himself into roles
with rich masks, who played like
a gleeful boy, who showed her
that happiness was indeed possible
but must be made, joy
could be found if you are open
to the moment. So she opened,
and he closed to her.
But most of all, as she catches
her distorted face in the shiny whorls,
she is angry because
loving him was
the closest she had ever come
to loving herself.
"An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself." Ä Camus
Quitters Never Win
þ Cheshire
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùú
...and it doesn't matter anyway, not down there on the mean, crowded
streets and not up here on top of this sleazy second-rate apartment building
I used to call home. It never matters how hard you swing, 'cause they can
always hit you harder the next time. It doesn't matter how much you care,
because nobody else does. And it doeesn't matter how much you cry - trust me
on that one.
Yeah, I was young and naive like the rest, and I believed them -
"Work hard and you'll come out on top. Try harder and you'll get it." Nobody
thought to tell me that no matter *how* hard you try, they can still take it
all away from you. I had just graduated after heavy struggling when my
father's company called, telling us how unfortunate it was that my father's
own negligence led to his "accident". He was buried day after I walked across
the stage. Mom was nothing short of useless after that. She stayed home
a lot, cried a lot, and drank more than that. She took *herself* away in a
blaze of glory called a car crash.
I was creeping through college at the time and didn't have any legal
eagles guiding me <like I could pay for one, pshaw!> so Ole Uncle Sam couldn't
help me past life insurance, and that hardly covered tuition, so I had to drop
out. Everything I worked for tossed away, because some factory worker forgot
to put out the "floor wet" sign after he mopped.
I stuck it out for a while, got my own place and a job waiting tables.
I guess I thought maybe I could put it all back together. Maybe it'll
somehow turn out okay. Then some junkies broke in and stole everything I
owned. Everything I EVER owned.
So here I am. I'm tired of the lies. Tired, ya know? They build up
your hopes and dash them into a million billion pieces on the street. But
I'm following *my* dreams...
The crowds are forming now. I guess my crazy old landlady figured
out all by herself that I'm not up on the roof to sunbathe <heh>. Now the
news crews - and the firemen who will try to tell me that it'll all be okay
if I come down. More lies, more deception. Channel 6, channel 11...and some
radio crews too. Good, they can all know the truth.
Now here's the firewoman with her pretty shiny ladder to talk me
down with sweet soothing speech, and I dont hear a word. Fevered newscasters
give their dramatic reports of a desperate suicidal young woman with
her whole life ahead of her. Mothers hold their sons close, Fathers shield
their sons' eyes, and now I fall over the edge.
...and I never was a winner anyway.
"'I have this dream.'
'Yeah, what?'
'Nothing. Just sometimes I have it, that's all.'" Ä _Fresh_
Rejoice
þ U2
ùúùúùúù
He's falling, he's falling,
And outside the buildings are tumbling down,
And inside all over the ground.
Do it again.
But what am I to do?
What in the world am I to say?
There's nothing for us to do.
He says you'll change the world someday.
I rejoice.
He's building, I'll follow.
Bear with him.
I'm listing to what he's saying.
Everyone's crazy, but I'm too lazy.
Why? What must I do?
What am I supposed to say?
I'll never change the world.
But I can change the world in you.
Rejoice, rejoice.
What am I to do?
Tell me what I am supposed to say.
I can't change the world.
But I can change the world in me.
Rejoice
I don't know
I don't know what to change.
Rejoice
Rejoice
"Happiness is a warm gun." Ä The Beatles
Rhiannon
þ Stevie Nicks
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùú
Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night
And wouldn't you love to love her
She rules her life like a bird in flight
And who will be her lover...
And who will be her lover...
All your life you've never seen
A woman - taken by the wind
Would you stay if she promised you heaven
Will you ever win...
She is like a cat in the dark
And then she is the darkness
She rules her life like a fine skylark -
And when the sky is starless -
All your life you've never seen -
A woman - taken by the wind
Would you stay if she promised you heaven
Will you ever win...
Dreams unwind.
Love's a state of mind.
"I've discovered that romantic love is a disillusion that causes no one
anything but pain." Ä Courtney Love
Romance
þ Dorianne Laux
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúù
I know we made it up, like God.
But, god, it hurts. Like phantom pain
in a leg that's been taken, what's gone
throbs, aches. Nothing there
and still, the pain makes a shape.
Silhouette
þ Lynda A. Clowers
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùú
Life is funny
Just when you think you have everything figured out
It throws you a curve ball
And turns your orderly little world upside down
Anger intense and white hot
Fear consuming and cold as winter's breath
Flash through your mind
In rapid succession
What right does life have...
Changing without your permission
How will you survive
What roads do you travel from here
These feelings are expressed with your mind
But felt, for the first time
With your heart
And your realize
That you are alive
For you have begun to feel
Deeply
Albeit painfully
And in this one way
It is good
For you are growing
In ways that you never knew you could
And never wanted to try
And it is for these reasons
You see some light
Feel a little hope
That you will survive this
that you will be stronger for it
You find that suffering leads to growth
And growing to truth
And truth to living
Not just existing
You find that you are no longer a silhouette
An outline of the best parts of yourself
You are whole and reborn
And damned if it doesn't feel a little good
Sink
þ Twilight
ùúùúùúùúùú
swimming uselessly
leaden down
fish filling
air losing
bubbles rising
frantically looking
anxiously grasping
for the diminishing light.
sinking gradually
twisting around
salt stinging
skin freezing
nitrogen forming
body cramping
sullenly watching
it all turn dark twilight.
plunging hopelessly
head bowed down
lungs collapsing
thought ceasing
life thinning
brain imploding
arms crossing
now graciously accepting
my new pitch black.
Starfish
þ Twilight
ùúùúùúùúùú
worms feasting on aqua lungs,
forcibly pushing water
over flaking fillets
frothing bubbles -
eating away at the innards,
and depleting the insides.
elasticity gives way to fragility
binding tends to break,
and the hearty core falls away
slowly, piece by piece.
but as the white meat turns to black -
and as decay sets itself in,
spring forth does rebirth
new soul and new life.
stumbing in new form
capable medium finally reached
only to have half torn away
ripped to shreds in jagged teeth.
and the black sets in again...
speckled ailing, not entirely killing
as wiggling shapes hook on
to the exposed raw red flesh
wishing for annihilating rot,
rebirth though not an option -
flailing miserably, tentacles half gone
limping on those numb;
core half eaten, ghost parts.
gently suffering with broken crutches
hanging on by tiny suctions
frantic searching though knowing secretly
the missing half must be discovered
symmetrically - withinside.
"D. H. Lawrence dreamed up the theory that somewhere in the world there is
one person, and one person only, who is your missing half. If the two of
you ever find each other, you can reconstitute the angel that split apart
before your births. I wish I could believe this sweet romantic myth.
Unfortunately, it's just too pat, too neat. I'm more inclined to think
that *every* intimate relationship creates an 'angel' - a spirit that is
bigger than the both of you. Imagine that in every interaction you have
with your beloved, you're either feeding or starving your mutual angel."
Ä Rob Brezsny
Still
þ Heather Gilbert
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúù
Still green waters,
They calm his mind.
His hands are frozen against
the railing,
as the glassy ice falls,
coils spilling into his veins.
Spinning upwards,
eyes burning as the ceiling bleeds
over his body
He starts to fall,
into the cyclic pattern of madness
the puzzle falls apart,
the swing crashes,
It hits the ground...
It leaves us standing, waiting.
The End Of A Marriage
þ Joanne Seltzer
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúù
Three years after the death
of her sainted husband
she learned from her daughters
that he had abused them,
sexually, all the girls
and probably the boys
as infants and children.
She who was once a rock
is now a dervish - now
howling dark secrets - now
collapsed into silence.
How to divorce a man
who has been dead three years?
"When he is late for dinner, and I know he must be either having an affair or
lying dead in the street, I always hope he's dead." Ä Judith Viorst
The Martyr In My Heart
þ Cat-a-lyst
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùú
A killed a part of my heart today.
The part just above the left ventricle.
It was the part that screamed in pain
When she held another.
It would yell and jump up and down
And beat at the walls of its cage
In rage, leaving bruises.
It would try to climb out of my throat
Just to set things to its fancy.
So I killed it. I removed it
With a sword forged of wisdom,
Hewn razor keen by tears of the past.
Impaled on the naked blade,
I severed the muscle from my being.
And what is to come of this?
Will it be seen by a stone statue
Or a human with tears of her own?
Tomorrow will see what today parades
Behind a veil of darkness, the night.
The martyr of my heart
Has died for my sins.
"Anyone can afford hate. It costs you to love." Ä John Williamson
The Wishing Box
þ Sylvia Plath
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúù
Agnes Higgins realized only too well the cause of her husband Harold's
beatific, absent-minded expression over his morning orange juice and
scrambled eggs.
"Well," Agnes sniffed, smearing beach-plum jelly on her toast with
vindictive strokes of the butter-knife, "what did you dream *last* night?"
"I was just remembering," Harold said, still staring with a blissful,
blurred look right through the very attractive and tangible form of his
wife (pink-cheeked and fluffily blond as always that early September
morning, in her rose-sprigged peignoir), "those manuscripts I was
discussing with William Blake."
"But," Anges objected, trying with difficulty to conceal her irritation,
"how did you *know* it was William Blake?"
Harold seemed surprised. "Why, from his pictures, of course."
And what could Agnes say to that? She smoldered in silence over her
coffee, wrestling with the strange jealousy which had been growing on her
like some dark, malignant cancer ever since their wedding night only three
months before when she had discovered about Harold's dreams. On that first
night of their honeymoon, in the small hours of the morning, Harold
startled Agnes out of a sound, dreamless sleep by a violent, convulsive
twitch of his whole right arm. Momentarily frightened, Agnes had shaken
Harold awake to ask in tender, maternal tones what the matter was; she
thought he might be struggling in the throes of a nightmare. No Harold.
"I was just beginning to play the 'Emperor Concerto'," he explained
sleepily. "I must have been lifting my arm for the first chord when you
woke me up."
Now at the outset of their marriage, Harold's vivid dreams amused Agnes.
Every morning she asked Harold what he had dreamed during the night, and he
told her in as rich detail as if he were describing some significant,
actual event.
"I was being introduced to a gathering of American poets in the Library of
Congress," he would report with relish. "William Carlos Williams was there
in a great, rough coat, and that one who writes about Nantucket, and
Robinson Jeffers looking like an American Indian, the way he does in the
anthology photograph; and then Robert Frost came driving up in a saloon car
and said something witty that made me laugh." Or, "I saw a beautiful
desert, all reds and purples, with each grain of sand like a ruby or
sapphire shooting light. A white leopard with gold spots was standing over
this bright blue stream, its hind legs on one bank, its forelegs on the
other, and a little trail of red ants was crossing the stream over the
leopard, up its tail, along its back, between its eyes, and down on the
other side."
Harold's dreams were nothing if not meticulous works of art. Undeniably,
for a certified accountant with pronounced literary leanings (he reads E.
T. A. Hoffman, Kafka, and the astrological monthlies isntead of the daily
paper on the commuters' special), Harold possessed an astonishly quick,
colorful imagination. But, gradually, Harold's peculiar habit of accepting
his dreams as if they were really an integral part of his waking experience
began to infuriate Agnes. She felt left out. It was as if Harold were
spending one third of his life among celebrities and fabulous legendary
creatures in an exhilarating world from which Agnes found herself
perpetually exiled, except by hearsay.
As the weeks passed, Agnes began to brood. Although she refused to
mention it to Harold, her own dreams, when she had them (and that, alas, was
infrequently enough), appalled her: dark, glowering landscapes peopled
with ominous unrecognizable figures. She never could remember these
nightmares in detail, but lost their shapes even as she struggled to
awaken, retaining only the keen sense of their stifling, storm-charged
atmosphere which, oppressive, would haunt her throughout the following
day. Agnes felt ashamed to mention these fragmentary scenes of horror to
Harold for fear they reflected too unflatteringly upon her own powers of
imagination. Her dreams - few and far between as they were - sounded so
prosaic, so tedious, in comparison with the royal baroque splendour of
Harold's. How could she tell him simply, for example: "I was falling":
or, "Mother died and I was so sad": or, "Something was chasing me and I
couldn't run"? The plain truth was, Agnes realized, with a pang of envy,
that her dream-life would cause the most assiduous psychoanalyst to
repress a yawn.
Where, Agnes mused wistfully, were those fertile childhood days when she
believed in fairies? Then, at least, her sleep had never been dreamless
nor her dreams dull and ugly. She had in her seventh year, she recalled
wistfully, dreamed of a wishing box land about the clouds where wishing
boxes grew on trees, looking very much like coffee-grinders; you picked a
box, turned the handle around nine times while whispering your wish in
this little hold in the side, and the wish came true. Another time, she
had dreamed of finding three magic grass-blades growing by the mailbox at
the end of her street: the grass-blades shone like tinsel Christmas
ribbon, one red, one blue, and one silver. In yet another dream, she and
her young brother Michael stood in front of Dody Nelson's white-shingled
house in snowsuits, knotty maple tree roots snaked across the hard, brown
ground; she was wearing red-and-white striped wool mittens; and, all at
once, as she held out one cupped hand, it began to snow turquoise-blue
sulfa gum. But that was just about the extent of the dreams Anges
remembered from her infinitely more creative childhood days. At what age
had those benevolent painted dream worlds ousted her? And for what cause?
Meanwhile, indefatigably, Harold continued to recount his dreams over
breakfast. Once, at a depressing and badly-aspected time of Harold's life
before he met Agnes, Harold dreamed that a red fox ran through his kitchen,
grievously burnt, its fur charred black, bleeding from several wounds.
Later, Harold confided, at a more auspicious time shortly after his
marriage to Agnes, the red fox had appeared again, miraculously healed,
with flourishing fur, to present Harold with a bottle of permanent black
Quink. Harold was particularly fond of his fox dreams; they recurred
often. So, notably, did his dream of the giant pike. "There was this
pond," Harold informed Agnes one sultry August morning, "where my cousin
Albert and I used to fish; it was chock full of pike. Well, last night I
was fishing there, and I caught the most enormous pike you could imagine -
it must have been the great-great-grandfather of all the rest; I pulled and
pulled and pulled, and still he kept coming out of that pond."
"Once," Agnes countered, morosely stirring sugar into her black coffee,
"when I was little, I had a dream about Superman, all in technicolor. He
was dressed in blue, with a red cape and black hair, handsome as a prince,
and I went flying right along with him through the air - I could feel the
wind whistling, and the tears blowing out of my eyes. We flew over
Alabama; I could tell it was Alabama because the land looked like a map,
with 'Alabama' lettered in script across these big green mountains."
Harold was visibly impressed. "What," he asked Agnes then, "did you
dream last night?" Harold's tone was almost contrite: to tell the truth,
his own dream-life preoccupied him so much that he'd honestly neer thought
of playing listener and investigating his wife's. He looked at her pretty,
troubled countenance with new interest: Agnes was, Harold paused to
observe for perhaps the first time since their early married days, an
extraordinarily attractive sight across the breakfast table.
For a moment, Agnes was confounded by Harold's well-meant question; she
had long ago passed the stage where she seriously considered hiding a coy
of Freud's writings on dreams in her closet and fortifying herself with a
vicarious dream tale by which to hold Harold's interest each morning. Now,
throwing reticence to the wind, she decided in desperation to confess her
problem.
"I don't dream anything," Agnes admitted in low, tragic tones. "Not
anymore."
Harold was obviously concerned. "Perhaps," he consoled her, "you just
don't use your powers of imagination enough. You should practice. Try
shutting your eyes."
Agnes shut her eyes.
"Now," Harold asked hopefully, "what do you see?"
Agnes panicked. She saw nothing. "Nothing," she quavered. "Nothing
except a sort of blur."
"Well," said Harold briskly, adopting the manner of a doctor dealing
with a malady that was, although distressing, not necessarily fatal,
"imagine a goblet."
"What *kind* of goblet?" Agnes pleaded.
"That's up to you," Harold said. "*You* describe it to *me*."
Eyes still shut, Agnes dragged wildly into the depths of her head. She
managed with great effort to conjure up a vague, shimmery silver goblet
that hovered somewhere in the nebulous regions of the back of her mind,
flickering as if at any moment it might black out like a candle.
"It's silver," she said, almost defiantly. "And it's got two handles."
"Fine. Now imagine a scene engraved on it."
Agnes forced a reindeer on the goblet, scrolled about by grape leaves,
scratched in bare outlines on the silver. "It's a reindeer in a wreath of
grape leaves."
"What color is the scene?" Harold was, Anges thought, merciless.
"Green," Agnes lied, as she hastily enameled the grape leaves. "The
grape leaves are green. And the sky is black" - she was almost proud of
this original stroke. "And the reindeer's russet flecked with white."
"All right. Now polish the goblet all over into a high gloss."
Agnes polished the imaginary goblet, feeling like a fraud. "But it's in
the *back* of my head," she said dubiously, opening her eyes. "I see
everything way in the back of my head. Is that were you see *your* dreams?"
"Why no," Harold said, puzzled. "I see my dreams on the front of my
eyelids, like on a movie-screen. They just come; I don't have anything to
do with them. Like right now," he closed his eyes, "I can see these shiny
crowns coming and going, hung in this big willow tree."
Agnes fell grimly silent.
"You'll be all right," Harold tried, jocosely, to buck her up. "Every
day, just practice imagining different things like I've taught you."
Anges let the subject drop. While Harold was away at work, she began,
suddenly, to read a great deal; reading kept her mind full of pictures.
Seized by a kind of ravenous hysteria, she raced through novels, women's
magazines, newspapers, and even the anecdotes in her 'Joy of Cooking'; she
read travel brochures, home appliance circulars, the 'Sears Roebuck
Catalogue', the instructions on soap-flake boxes, the blurbs on the back of
record-jackets - anything to keep from facing the gaping void in her own
head of which Harold had made her so painfully conscious. But as soon as
she lifted her eyes from the printed matter at hand, it was as if a
protecting world had been extinguished.
The utterly self-sufficient, unchanging reality of the *things*
surrounding her began to depress Agnes. With a jealous awe, her
frightened, almost paralyzed stare took in the Oriental rug, the
Williamsburg-blue wallpaper, the gilded dragons on the Chinese vase on the
mantel, the blue-and-gold medallion design of the upholstered sofa on which
she was sitting. She felt choked, smothered by these objects whose bulky
pragmatic existence somehow threatened the deepest, most secret roots of
her own ephemeral being. Harold, she knew only too well, would tolerate no
such vainglorious nonsense from tables and chairs; if he didn't like the
scene at hand, if it bored him, he would change it to suit his fancy. If,
Agnes mourned, in some sweet hallucination an octopus came slithering
towards her across the floor, paisley-patterned in purple and orange, she
would bless it. Anything to prove that her shaping imaginative powers were
not irretrievably lost; that her eye was not merely an open camera lens
which recorded surrounding phenomena and left it at that. "A rose," she
found herself repeating hollowly, like a funeral dirge, "is a rose is a
rose..."
One morning when Agnes was reading a novel, she suddenly realized to her
terror that her eyes had scanned five pages without taking in the meaning
of a single word. She tried again, but the letters separated, writhing
like malevolent little black snakes across the page in a kind of hissing,
untranslatable jargon. It was then that Agnes began attending the movies
around the corner regularly each afternoon. It did not matter if she had
seen the feature several times previously; the fluid kaleidoscope of forms
before her eyes lulled her into a rhythmic trance; the voices, speaking
some soothing, unintelligible code, exorcised the dead silence in her
head. Eventually, by dint of much cajolery, Agnes persuaded Harold to buy
a television set on the installment plan. That was much better than the
movies; she could drink sherry while watching TV during the long
afternoons. These latter days, when Agnes greeted Harold on his return
home each evening, she found, with a certain malicious satisfaction, that
his face blurred before her gaze, so she could change his features at
will. Sometimes she gave him a pea-green complexion, sometimes lavender;
sometimes a Grecian nose, sometimes an eagle beak.
"But I *like* sherry," Agnes told Harold stubbornly when, her afternoons
of private drinking becoming apparent even to his indulgent eyes, he begged
her to cut down. "It relaxes me."
The sherry, however, didn't relax Agnes enough to put her to sleep.
Cruelly sober, the visionary sherry-haze worn off, she would lie stiff,
twisting her fingers like nervous talons in the sheets, long after Harold
was breathing peacefully, evenly, in the midst of some rare, wonderful
adventure. With an icy, increasing panic, Agnes lay stark awake night
after night. Worse, she didn't get tired any more. Finally, a bleak,
clear awareness of what was happening broke upon her: the curtains of
sleep, of refreshing, forgetful darkness dividing each day from the day
before it, and the day after it, were lifted for Agnes eternally,
irrevocably. She saw an intolerable prospect of wakeful, visionless days
and nights stretching unbroken ahead of her, her mind condemned to perfect
vacancy, without a single image of its own to ward off the crushing assault
of smug, autonomous tables and chairs. She might, Agnes reflected sickly,
live to be a hundred: the women in her family were all long-lived.
Dr. Marcus, the Higgins' family physician, attempted, in his jovial way,
to reassure Agnes about her complaints of insomnia: "Just a bit of nervous
strain, that's all. Take one of these capsules at night for a while and
see how you sleep."
Agnes did not ask Dr. Marcus if the pills would give her dreams; she put
the box of fifty pills in her handbag and took the bus home.
Two days later, on the last Friday of September, when Harold returned
from work (he had shut his eyes all during the hour's train trip home,
counterfeiting sleep but in reality voyaging on a cerise-sailed dhow up a
luminous river where white elephants bulked and rambled across the crystal
surface of the water in the shadow of Moorish turrets fabricated completely
of multi-colored glass), he found Agnes lying on the sofa in the living
room, dressed in her favourite princess-style emerald taffeta evening gown,
pale and lovely as a blown lily, eyes shut, an empty pillbox and an
overturned water tumbler on the rug at her side. Her tranquil features
were set in a slight, secret smile of triumph, as if, in some far country
unattainable to mortal men, she were, at last, waltzing with the dark,
red-caped prince of her early dreams.
"Everybody should have a dream." Ä Jesse Owens
Typical
þ Serena Lemick
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúù
sitting alone
cold saturday night
trying to be
wanting to
trying to
love
cry
sobriety rears its ugly head
four a.m.
no one in sight
breathe
live
be
i want to
i want to
fuck you
warm summer night
alone
again
sleeping in the damp grass
looking at the stars
scars
pretty colors
another hit
another night
alone
i want to
i want to
fuck you again
more
more
i can't have enough
love
drug
hate is here again
i want to
i want to
fuck you
tell me more
love me
love me
again
i want to see
i want to
i want to
fuck you
break me
hate me
love me
kiss me
fuck me
again
i want to
i want to
hit you
just another night
sorrow
lust
greed
fuck me again
hate me
hate me
hate me
but don't forget
leave me
forget sobriety
forget your life
and love me.
"Ducking for apples - change one letter and it's the story of my life."
Ä Dorothy Parker
Untitled
þ HappyMonk
ùúùúùúùúùúù
she rains down upon my hands
and whispers
washes it away
been that way so long
forever
i know that it won't stay
standing by the road
flowers for her hair
i give them away
says she doesn't care
standing in an empty field
no sense of time
falling
no sense of what is real
i can't believe...
i can't believe
she's gone now
she turned away to go
i should've tried...
i should've known
she'd leave me here
alone
* special thanks to S. for the second stanza...
"Year: A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments."
Ä Foolish Dictionary
Untitled
þ HappyMonk
ùúùúùúùúùúù
subtle pounding beneath flesh something can't get out
overwhelmed with necessity lost the chance to try
saw her standing on the stairs tried to move my mouth
night was almost over didn't want to see the light
the restless feeling will not leave have to leave it soon
the bugs have finally overrun time to leave at dawn
find a place where no one lives and go to it with you
swing an axe around my head 'til all the trees are gone
take the bottle down again and take another drink
wishing i could see you here but knowing you're with him
getting so damn drunk tonight i just don't want to think
break the thoughtless bottle just to cut away my skin
thinking about everything
leaving without anything
living without anyone
dreaming about you
Untitled
þ K.c
ùúùúùúùú
Hollow inside
forgotten pain
cold black blood
denied lies
why can't you just die
why can't you go away
fade...
fade away...
fade away to nothing.
Why must you torture me
sing your song some other day
you're nothing to me
but a reminder of what i used to be
you only bring back the hate
the pain you made me feel
so long ago...
yet so real
can't you just let it go
let me drown in my own sorrow
let me live another day
let me cry another day
i did not want this
don't turn back
just go...fade away...
into the black nothingness
bury me deeply...
so that I might not see
what you do to yourself
and what you've done to me
"Excellent time to become a missing person." Ä Anonymous
Untitled
þ Molina
ùúùúùúùú
Flickering slowly in front of me
Taunting me with every twitch
The sunshine yellow and sparkling orange
Temptation overcame my strongest inhibitions
Reaching out slowly at first
Trying to capture just a bit of you
The warmth felt so good against my skin
Jumping out to sear my flesh
I caught my first glimpse of pain
My first look at the real you
Still I played the foolish game
Attempting to grab hold of something better
Soon my hands were charred and bleeding
The flame had long since been out
Yet still I picked at each wound
And still I remembered my time with you
"Love was a terrible thing. You poisoned it and stabbed at it and knocked it
down into the mud - and it got up and staggered on, bleeding and muddy and
awful." Ä Jean Rhys
Untitled
þ Molina
ùúùúùúùú
i search my soul, every crevice, every crack.
i peer into the depths of my heart looking -
for one last trace of who i used to be with you.
i try to remember what we meant, what mattered.
it's so lonely.
and i'm so cold.
my heart burns with a frozen fire of hate and misery.
you touched me once and i melted beneath your fingers.
my skin crawled with excitement and my body numbed itself.
now you touch me and i jump.
i back away from any warmth.
my flesh shudders at the thought of you being near me.
your voice sends chills down my spine.
fuck you for caring.
fuck you for thinking i cared.
go away and take your love with you.
i don't want it.
i don't need it.
everyone goes away sooner or later.
you will too.
go now while i have my heart braced.
never look back for you'll never see me again.
not the me you knew.
my expression now one of hate and dismay.
the joy drained from my eyes as time slips by.
my life is a joke.
and our memories are as jaded as death.
i hate you being near me.
your voice sends chills down my spine.
fuck you for caring.
fuck you for thinking i cared.
"Scratch a lover and find a foe." Ä Dorothy Parker
Untitled
þ Shay Teighlor
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúù
The reverbration of the telephone
ring, a soft click.
"He Left"
T words banished
U G To A
M N paridoxical corridor
B I inside of
L THOUGHTS
No good-bye's, no C-ya's, no hugs; just
the perpetual silence of the dial tone.
When something disappears walk
towards the familiar.
At first eyes brush against nothingness
in this isolated place.
Though the disfigured circle hides
in the background.
Waiting, watching for the simple cue
that brings things to life.
Smile here, laugh at that part, move
over there.
Mechanics of the actor are a little out of
touch and somewhat insane.
Finding, playing a part much easier
than watching the rain.
The face lingers in the halls, voice
echoes in the crowd
Rewinding, Fastforwarding
Replaying History
Life outside the box set stage falls
upon the actors lap.
Trapped in a poetic prison, the room
pours with desperation and hope.
Always raining, weather knives thrust
forward stabbing at blades of grass or
falling softly to the rhythm of love.
Catching the rain in a glass, a hand
curves script around a page, wondering
if it ever rains in New Mexico.
"Life is not one thing after another...it's the same damn thing over and
over!" Ä Anonymous
Untitled
þ The Vorpal Bunny
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùú
Making a leap into nowhere
Throwing my emotions down into the unknown
Hoping my soul will land safely
Instead it crashes roughly on a floor made of stone
In time I know
Trust will come naturally
For right now, though
Our love is misery
The bittersweet taste of your kiss
Both passion and pain all in one tender touch
The tenderness of my caress
Letting you know that I need you so much
The pleasure I feel
This pain is so real
Our destinies apart
I won't let your love tear up my heart
When it all comes back from afar
Will I still be standing here or will I disappear
Will you still remember my name
Will you have brought to life all my darkest fears
Turn back around (don't leave me alone)
The tears on my fact show the weakness inside
Tell me you love me, tell me you need me
Before you tell me goodbye
Standing alone in the darkness
No one else around me to help heal my deep wounds
Memories shredded like canvas
It all loses meaning when I can't love you
Don't turn around (you left me alone)
The tears in the dust show my strength deep inside
I told you I loved you, I told you I needed you
But now I'm telling you goodbye
Where Is The Light?
þ Christopher Stolle
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùú
something has got me down
and I don't now what it is
creeping up on me like a storm
as it wreaks my total existence
and my fears run deeper and deeper
I stood on solid ground that was loose
all my functions began to dissolve
so I ran, I ran, to where do I run
then I hit the end of a road
and I smashed into a wall
can't wait for the savior
time are short and sour
I couldn't climb a ladder
so I climbed a mountain
and I fell on a bed of roses
I sleep with ease and peace
my ego never was visible
so I cry, I cry, to whom do I cry
and when I awake I'm alone
in this overpopulated world
so where is she, where is she
that woman in my dreams
and where, where is the light
"The more people there are, the lonelier it gets." Ä _Fresh_
Years Of Water
þ Ray Heinrich
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùú
i dream
of water
and the seals
barking
on the rocks
and i dream
of a deep lake
of navigating
the shores
of the lap and pound
of years of water
of willow strands
growing in a hidden path
of dark waves eating
through wet years
of escaping
and searching
for you
of the touch
of the water
of the fossil cliffs
rising over us
Yesterday
þ The Beatles
ùúùúùúùúùúùúù
Yesterday
All my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday
Suddenly
I'm not half the man I used to be
There's a shadow hanging over me
Oh, yesterday came suddenly
Why she had to go
I don't know
She wouldn't say
I said something wrong
Now I long for yesterday
Yesterday
Love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh, I believe in yesterday
Why she had to go
I don't know
She wouldn't say
I said something wrong
Now I long for yesterday
Yesterday
Love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh, I believe in yesterday
"When I grow up, I want to be a little boy." Ä Joseph Heller
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ÜßßÜßÜ ßÜßÜ ßÜ ß Þ ß ß ß ß ß
Ý
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ß ùtwiù
Legalize.
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúù
Submit your original literary works for Spilled Ink, [volume twelve], to
Twilight via Internet e-mail:
twilight@mail.utexas.edu
ùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúùúù
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