[x]

-clink- goes the coinher smile is cleverly contagious because
you can see that her bliss covers
everywhere from her halcyon head
to the very end of her tiny toes

bright irises, a glowing face, and a loose
braid hung over her left shoulder, she
laughs as she runs through
the tall wilted grass

there is only the sun and the cloudless
sky as she lays on her back and lets the
heat tickle her soft skin, and she looks
so beautiful because she's happy to be
breathing in the warm air

only the chirps of birds and the
swaying of tree branches and the
smell of just-a-little-too-much pollen,

because she wished the rest of the world away

--

her heart is miss

Laudanum and the Moonlit NightFlattered by the gossamer glow of a blushing moon,
I scour the poppy-fields for the opiates of inspiration,
the petals brushing against my bare thighs; easing
the tense creases in my neck into shivers down my back.
What wanton joy, as I wander and wade in this sea of red,
the waves of flowers parting before me, waltzing with
the silent wake of my footsteps. I could saunter on forever,
holding nightfall by the waist; nature at my beck and call.

Why do you blush, moon? Is it because of how stark naked
I appear before you, disrobed by your own coaxing caress?
All cares do I brush aside, when on the night you do preside,
and aloft the

origins to finishYou cannot remain.
You cannot remain: Intricate little insect,
each shiver of your ice-vein wings makes you
a new thing, each seed you swallow grows
out in different forms—you cannot hold
anything back, you cannot escape your liquid mind
running into unseen shapes.

You are seminal.
You are the jungle-floor scurry of berry-feeders.
You are wind-puffed clouds.
You are a swollen apple.
You are fluid, the billion ovaries of a rainforest.

I know you cannot remain frozen for me—that you would be torn
by the burgeoning crystals woven pepper-pot throughout
your vulnerable form: so I insist on nothing.

Mariathere's a brilliance
in a Palestinian boy wearing a
Che Guevara t-shirt
it's stupid-he doesn't understand
bloodshed

she's a clever breed
of stallion ideals and vulgar majesty
her lips pout
they cover bruises
with girlish understanding

"i know you"

an inviting smile
lolita's somber look is heart
breaking
but what can a Marxist do
when he's in love
with a Romanov?

EmperorEmperor
-----------
Alec Maynard

Consuming passion: hands gesture -
guilt-leaf golden patterns, grandeur -
condemning from his regal throne;
etched with kamon. His standard flown,

iron rule impressed a dynasty -
false traitors tortured, tyranny.
Whose fertile nature bore a sire,
who rests at peace upon a pyre.

Cinders remember reigns run through;
Chrysanthemums emerge anew.

AshesThink of the letters that we write our dead.
- Dana Gioia

Mother, you are a bowl of soot. It's sad I wasn't there,
but I did remember to weep
and your yellow hair, that your eyes
were the strange, exhausted blue of certain leaves.
You buried your husband young and went on,
in a way, though I think the Mother who carried me
died the same day - I barely recall
her being in our house.
There was a woman who did laundry, made the beds.
Now she is dead, and in this bowl her ashes
are all mixed up with yours.
She used to call me 'daughter', but I was never hers.

.

winnowedcatalytic
with my role.
she the mystic
half of whole.

with my role
her role entwines.
half of whole:
our hearts and minds.

her role entwines
so we are us.
our hearts and minds
commune in trust.

so we are us,
we share this life.
commune in trust
with her, my wife.

we share this life
til this life ends.
with her my wife,
we shall transcend.

til this life ends,
she the mystic.
we shall transcend:
catalytic.

Hand RolledSitting in the sand, ankles itching,
we smoke hand-rolled cigarettes
and sip from wine glasses filled with water,
high on the smoke and stigma.
The waves beat the shore,
a soundtrack to our loneliness,
and together we face the dark.

We say we'll quit when we get older,
but it makes me wonder.
If I marry a woman like you, could I stop?
Wouldn't I sit with her in the dunes,
burning away our years like the embers of our cigarettes,
the cold of our glasses fresh in our palms.
Under clouds, no moon, no stars,
wouldn't we clumsily kiss, her half-warmth against mine?

If we really are the company we keep,
I worry for your sake,
but y

spellboundshe cracked his heart open
like a melon
on the summer sidewalk,
sifted the seeds from the pulp
and laid them on
the sun-warmed cement
like an oracle reading entrails.
until the black-cloaked crows
came, eyes glossy as the buttons
on her stolen shirt
--it's his shirt, but
it looks better on her,
even with her knees to the
gritty pavement, dark hair
a wild storm cloud in
the dancing light--
she paid the cackling crows
in silver from her slender fingers
--for their only currency
is that which shines, and
her heart was dim by then--
and fate was drawn
in the shadowed fluttering of
their dark feathers.
she wrapped th

Eternal ReturnRainwater pools
in the ruts in your driveway
grey and gravelly
winter is here again
wet and windy again
damp and clammy,
a recurring drainage issue
yet lovely still

pinned in your bedroom
above a booklamp, the headboard,
one slow-dried rose
coloured like chianti
an Nth anniversary token,
a keepsake, a memory,

twin bedside tables
cluttered with novels,
your handpainted pasta bowls
faded from a hundred
improvised pasta sauces,
from passata and capers,
ricotta and dolcetto

stains on the marble coasters,
deep red rings occluding
the florentine piazza
scene as sepia-toned
as it always was
and always will be

the familiar

Lightning If she was a glorious bright star, burning with potential…

CREAK, CREAK, TOWER OF PURGATORY
PIERCING THE WORLD LIKE LIGHT

Burns brighter than the sun

It bares its teeth like a light
And spits me out after days
(shh, w

Escalades pt.2So.
Drift lines on the fences of our youth,
skids on the white, plain and pristine
and almost broken out of ways devised
to glorify the old regime.
Impoverished as we were,
and are, new facets of impoverty
wining and dining the shit
out of all this contemporary engagement
is no refuge for tomorrow.
It all overwhelms and everyday wakes up
to a new one, kindred spirits and
red headed girls and black headed boys
playing mandolin on your front porch.
This tomorrow is felt out by sleep
and we dream ourselves an expectation.

So.
When this pressure subsides
and given merit on this record
we align and give shape to a heart
with

The Art of AgingThere was a time he built
sand castles by the sea
without the fear of waves and wind
and careless birds
with fretful wings
and restless feet of human beings
that made his castles crumble down
again, again, again.

The crisp and salted seconds
dripped out of his days
Memories became his beaches,
his castles mere accounting forms,
and paper-thin bills his dragon kites.
And his grandchildren built sand-castles.

These ironed trousers
were not meant for beaches
as childhood is not meant for men.
But all his desires
would begin to conspire;
he'd fall into white sky sheets
and re-wind life
during dreamless nights.

He counted the

What's LeftThey found him hung like meat
waiting to be salted.

Accidental suicide the paper read.
Thirty-two and drunk, foolish
and wasted: A portrait strangers
might examine for poems about life
and death and the unsubstantiated
point to everything.

And we are wordless, mindless,
awed by the severity of grief;
each alone in a cavity
of communal questions.

ashesyou made a list
of every storm bearing your name,
then you set it afire.

flames like autumn leaves
carried the tear-stained memories into oblivion
dancing to the unsteady beat of a victory prelude
(or was it a death march?)
until nothing remained of it but ashes.

mere ashes, swept under the rug
-- ironically screaming WELCOME HOME --
and forgotten.

but ashes always show their faces
when you least expect it
...or at least when they are called out to play.

and play they will,
flirting with the remnants of Taylor Hanson and Santa Claus,
who aimlessly float like Bobble Head figurines
inside the murky waters
of the chi

Browse More Like This

Download File
HTML, 434 bytes more ▶

More from *alapip

upon our misdirectionsin life, disappointments or tragedies occur
thus we encounter everlasting what-ifs:

from calm lonely evening depths
they sometimes surface to take a breath
[stealing perhaps a bit of ours]
revealing views of might-have-been
then they submerge once more

leaving a mirrored expanse

to reflect thereon as we now observe
not what we thought we should deserve

though we don't focus on that placid plane
brief ripples from the past appear
again... again...
again...

llp - dA - dec2012

from gifts and random inspirationyou,
Rich Man,
seem to believe -
'Yes! I did this all by myself!'

an inborn inbred
circumstancial advantage,
if not seen,
cannot be acknowleged.

community and nation
you take for granted,
and use.

fellow citizens
you casually employ,
and use.

which comes first,
self delusion,
or lack of empathy?

include perhaps,
a touch of psychopathy?

like the poor man's failure, easily dismissed
by you and your wealthy peers -
you're not self made,
but externally caused,
[just as his misfortune is caused].

you,
Rich Man,
were given better tools
and a bigger push,
that's all.

disadvantaged,
but valiant in arid la

solar perplexusagain, it rises, that stupid sun,
trying to brighten my nurtured overcast.

no matter how i try -
roll over in bed, bury my head.

it still shines all optimistic.
go away. leave me alone.

can't you see i need to suffer...?

suffer!

llp - dA - nov2012

the worth of a sentient beingintermingled,

multitudes of lives
begin and end,

as multitudes of seasons
are seamless in their passing
on multitudes of worlds.

on this Planet Earth
our allotted seasons
are years
times four.

the years, of course, are variable
via the patterns of our lives,
enhanced by random chance.

upon reaching our sum total
it is desired that the self
shall depart with quiet grace,

as do the seasons one enjoys
throughout one's life.

when we make our final exit
our existence will be thought of
as successful,

provided,
we have given more
than we have taken.

our understanding:

this is all
that is required
of any entity

anywhere.

concentratetoday's world is multi-task addictive;
it brings interruptions... uninterruptedly,
cell phone external, i-pod eternal.

it takes so much time,
plus time to earn more time-consuming things.

what about life?

we really don't need constant stimulus or entertainment.
no - we require the bliss of thoughtfulness, of silent focus.

questions require our attention;

sometimes all filters kick into gear.
every sense is quiet, as the mind seeks logical patterns, where

epiphanies partiently await our awareness -
epiphanies concerning perhaps a still beautiful world.

llp - dA - nov2012

carboniferous resourcesyesterday/today ~

a smoky, slurried world
burns from within - energy
wells over, under, around
and through, [pell-mell],
uphill bent,
depleted by time;
or will be, in no time -
on our dime.

friction and gravity
in darkness bypassed,
by pressure egressed,
through fissure released.

breaching repeatedly,
reaching its peak,
but not neatly -
sputtering intermittently.

unleashed, the eons'
compressed biomass
once spewed forth;
now taken by force,

to an end-product
driven, flown.
exhausted, breathlessly.
it's airborne, darkening.

here's a clue:
'you're getting warmer'.

tomorrow ~

refiners ride that coming slope -
downward, looms a blacker

View Gallery · View Prints

Featured in Groups:

Not currently featured in any groups.

Details

Submitted: October 24, 2009
File Size: 434 bytes

Link

Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 36
Favourites: 14 [who?]
Views: 521 (0 today)
Downloads: 15 (0 today)

[x]

lower education

by *alapip, Oct 24, 2009, 8:46:08 PM
Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

one size fits all,
settle for the least.

allow the most
to fester,
callow.

un-spire the best,
to pass for less.

borne, with potential
for a universe
of thought -

but behind those eyes,
the endless cosmos dies.

llp - oct'09 - dA
DLD dec23/2009

lower educationby *alapip

Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

many of the greatest minds
are failed by our schools to
lives of mediocrity.

this poem is in direct response
to one by AlecBell, on the same
subject - titled "higher education"
[link]

pip

~the-photographicpoet Apr 19, 2011 Hobbyist Writer

Hey

You have been featured here!

*alapip Apr 19, 2011 Hobbyist Writer

thank you, Sammie. i'd totally
forgotten about that DLD. not
being sure, i think i've had
three. maybe i should make more
of a note of them?

pip

~nathanzachary Dec 23, 2009

Congrats my friend; incredibly well-deserving, and I hope it brings some more attention to your amazing gallery!

*alapip Dec 24, 2009 Hobbyist Writer

once more, thank you, Nate... pip

Hidden by Owner

~Hyperionic-Xmissions Dec 23, 2009

congrats on the DLD, Pip

*alapip Dec 23, 2009 Hobbyist Writer

thanks, Hyper.
Merry Christmas.
pip

~LamiaShame Dec 23, 2009

well done

*alapip Dec 23, 2009 Hobbyist Writer

thank you...

=DailyLitDeviations Dec 22, 2009

Your wonderful literary work has been chosen to be featured by DLD (Daily Literature Deviations) in a news article that can be found here [link]
Be sure to check out the other artists featured and show your support by

ing the News Article.

Keep writing and keep creating.

More from *alapip

Featured in Groups:

Details

Statistics

lower education

lower educationby *alapip

The Journal Portal

Polls

What is your preferred drawing software?

deviantART [dee·vee·un'nt·ART]

Keep in Touch!

Deviousness

Add Media

Style