Devon Tomasulo
Instigator
The arrogant teeth that line your jaw—show off
the punches it can take. Tuck your chin in,
keep swinging, keep yelling, get your fists in,
your words in, before they get theirs.
You sprawl your hips wide when you walk,
like you don’t worry about the hair
growing on your ring finger. A woman who knows
where her weight lies, fights five rounds, just waits
to deliver a knockout.
In your corner, you fix yourself quick, spread
lipstick like it was Vaseline
on the cut open parts of a face. Slit your skirt
quick as if to open a puffed eye, “let’s not make this
more than it is, boy.”
—-
Devon Tomasulo is a recent graduate of Pacific University’s MFA Program. She lives in New Jersey.
——-
Henry Oswald
TODAY ACROSTIC
Time flies, I am still in the mellow labouring,
Often the sun beats down, heat waves radiating, even after twilight,
Days of lethargy, one-upmanship and enmity,
Atomizing the gusty wind into warm fans, I am hence full of sweat.
Yet I must pass this day to live.
—
MONEY CINQUAIN
Money.
Tangible, indispensable.
Clicking, rolling, giving,
Like what the white-collar accountants are preparing for the remunerations for the proletariat and minions.
Rewarded points.
—-
Biography: Henry Oswald had graduated from the University of Oxford with a degree on English literature. Since young, he loves to write non-fiction and fantasy, especially regarding sorcery and the occult. He has been writing short stories and/or flash fiction in the morning, and a poem or two In the afternoon. His works had been published by a few online literary magazines including The Virtuous Mimicry. He also spend his time volunteering to tell stories in the library for children.
——-
Gary Beck
Summer Camp-
I sent my son to summer camp
for a new experience
far from gritty, city streets,
so he could breath clean air,
discover nature’s beauty
and learn self-reliance.
I did not know that far away
a boy was sent to another camp
with the blessing of his parents,
a Taliban training camp,
in the tribal area
of unruly Pakistan.
The Taliban curriculum
was divided into sections,
with bomb making most attended,
but reconnaissance, ambushes,
and firing machine guns
all led to graduation.
The boys returned to their homes
when the summer was over,
bringing skills that they could use
for the rest of their lives.
My only hope is that my son
never meets his fellow camper.
—-
Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn’t earn a living in the theater. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His chapbook ‘Remembrance’ was published by Origami Condom Press, ‘The Conquest of Somalia’ was published by Cervena Barva Press, ‘The Dance of Hate’ was published by Calliope Nerve Media and ‘Mutilated Girls’ is being published by Bedouin Press. A collection of his poetry ‘Days of Destruction’ was published by Skive Press. Another collection ‘Expectations’ was published by Rogue Scholars Press. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway and toured colleges and outdoor performance venues. His poetry has appeared in hundreds of literary magazines. He currently lives in New York City.
——-
Kevin Heaton
Betsy’s Orphan
The
stars and stripes,
unfurled and
waving,
dance
upon a southerly
breeze as if
nothing has
changed.
—-
Kevin Heaton currently lives in South Carolina, formerly from Oklahoma where he published Country Music. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in: Foliate Oak, Elimae, Grey Sparrow Journal, WestWard Quarterly, Counterexample Poetics, Calliope Nerve, Reunions Magazine, Right Hand Pointing, Hanging Moss Journal, Kansas Poems, and others.
——-
Samantha R. Peloquin
full of grace-
she sits on the dirty floor in the
kitchen, back against the
cabinets, cool
bottle between her thighs. the
only light is the weak orange
glow of the streetlamp outside
the gingham-curtained window. she
is fading, succumbing to the gentle
lull of sleep even as the baby
wails in the background. she
presses the bottle to her lips,
liquor first razor-sharp then
smooth enough to
push her away from
the raw, throbbing
ache of reality.
where the grass grows through
ragged cracks in ancient cement,
a woman sits by the canal, watching
garbage rush by in the toxic
current. her face is striated with
age and illness; her clothes are
filthy whispers. her crumbling
mind grasps a childhood memory,
a sermon about the Garden of Eden
and Eves fatal mistake. in the
distance, thick obsidian smoke
pours from a brick smokestack
into the sapphire sky.
in the middle of the night, she
thinks she smells lilacs.
she could be dreaming.
—-
Samantha R. Peloquin is a student living in New York City. Her work has recently been featured at Poem2Day (poem2day.blogspot.com.)
——-
Timothy Pilgrim
Headboard-
Packing mainly blame with me,
I begin my retreat — Canada,
mineral springs, posh resort,
steam rising to melt new snow,
forgiveness cloaked beneath fuzzy robes.
But guards believe I hide much more —
won’t hop pool to pool, then cool,
need no massage, instead will wake
wet from dreams, guilty screams,
rip innocent headboard off the bed.
They search my van, my pants
for weed, for crack, for blow,
for hidden gun coaxed to explode
by parted lips just hours ago.
—-
Timothy Pilgrim, Montana native and associate professor of journalism at Western Washington University, has published over 70 poems in literary journals such as Seattle Review, Words-Myth, The Curious Record, Convergence, and anthologies, such as “Idaho’s poets: A Centennial Anthology” (University of Idaho) and “Weathered Pages: the Poetry Pole” (Blue Begonia Press).
——-
Michael Lee Johnson
Bird Lady-
They call her old maid Misty, as in fog, she misses the sun.
She runs a small pet store, more for the injured and lame,
alone and half the light bulbs have burnt out.
In the backroom everything smells of dust and feathers.
The cockatoo is cuddly and named Brenda, but has bad toiletry manners.
The macaw is well hidden, and fetches a high price on the open market, called Ginger.
Misty is surrounded by wired bird cages,
jungle noises in unfamiliar places,
and sleeps on a portable cot.
When parrots or parakeets shout shrills in the night,
her eyes squint and flash out in the dark but no one sees it.
Squinting is a lonely habit.
Misty works alone and is getting old.
On a wall, near her cot, hangs a picture-
but is it Jesus, or St. Jude Thaddaeus
carrying the image of Jesus in his hand or close to his chest,
difficult to tell darkness dimmed at night.
Misty sometimes sleepwalks at night from small room to the other-
she bumps, sometimes trips and falls, her warfarin guarantees bruises.
Misty tosses conjectures: “I’m I odd, old school, or just crazy?”
Her world is eye droppers, bird feeders, poop in cages, porcelain knickknacks.
Love left Misty’s life years ago, when World War II ended and so did her marriage.
As she ages everything is measure in milliliters, everything seems short and small-
medications in small dosages day by day.
Early in morning a young homeless boy knocks on the store front window
desperate for a job, he lies about credentials.
Misty desperate for help asks for no references.
Today is dim, raining outside, and old maid Misty still misses the sun.
—-
Michael Lee Johnson is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois. He is heavy influenced by: Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Irving Layton, Leonard Cohen, and Allen Ginsberg. His new poetry chapbook with pictures, titled From Which Place the Morning Rises, and his new photo version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom are available at: http://stores.lulu.com/promomanusa. The original version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom, can be found at: http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-46091-7. He also has 2 previous chapbooks available at: http://stores.lulu.com/poetryboy.
——-
Serena Tome
Branded-
I drink liquor from your lips
Soberly
I enter rooms within you
You within me
Shuddering again the sun’s
Rays
I refuse to allow its baptism
I choose to dance with blades
Of grass and walk with shadows
Across the evening lawn
Caramel laughs stain our teeth
As we join ourselves
To truth
I choose to forgive
Love for not being
The love I thought it
Should be
My name has changed
To present presence
With no memory
Of ashes
I burn
For
Now
—-
Serena Tome writes from the edge of Atlanta, GA. She is the poetry editor for Leaf Garden Press. She has literary work published and/or forthcoming in, Ann Arbor Review, BlazeVox, Word Riot, Calliope Nerve, Word for Word, Moon Milk Review, and many other publications. She is co-editor of Differentia Press. You can find out more about Serena at www.serenatome.blogspot.com.
——- Andrew Taylor Brent Cross Swallow Despite custom and announcements typically bring made elsewhere seeing the first swallow on April 5th above Wiltshire means Spring isn’t early just on time for a change To read on page 8 (April 12th) of such arrival offers a comfort on this the seventh floor in Brent Cross with its 12 lanes of traffic making a mockery of town and country planning Times past future black print on fingers Ryan is pleased the medium still exists “They say print is dead, well maybe it is squirming”
—-
Andrew Taylor is a Liverpool poet and co-editor of erbacce and erbacce-press. He recently co-edited with Lara Konesky, Blood at the Chelsea (erbacce-press). Poems have recently been published in The Black Market Review, Durable Goods and The Journal of Heroin Love Songs. His latest collection of poems, ‘The Sound of Light Aircraft’ is published by Knives Forks & Spoons Press. He has a PhD in poetry and poetics.
——-
William Doreski
Substandard Academic Poem
As curator of the papers stacked
on the shelves behind me I live
for the past. You’re after scraps
of Anglo-Saxon. Third shelf down
in the seventh range to my left.
Clean hands? Of course you scholars
wash with care. Down the corridor
an office collapsed, fell through the floor
because Professor Pack-Rat saved
every scrap, every memo, every
student essay for thirty years. Crushed
in the mess, he died miserably,
crying the name of a dean retired
ten years before. Look outside.
See that tree stump by the walkway?
That tree fell at commencement and killed
the worse student ever to don
academic regalia. Everyone
and also no one cried. You know
what I mean. The days sift through
my fingers. Sometimes as I sit here
the papers rustle as ghosts get restless,
especially those who spoke the Midlands
dialect, their holograph almost
impossible to read with the mind.
The fingertips can trace the letters,
of course, but don’t actually touch
the parchment. The Anglo-Saxon’s
on vellum, but the vegetable ink
smells more like death than the skins
of those tortured animals do.
Browse at will. In forty years
I’ve catalogued nothing, the creak
of my swivel chair and the sighs
of those dusty ghosts complying
with the imperatives of a sky
to which none of us will ascend.
—
William Doreski
Eleven Skulls
Sifting my garden for clues,
I find eleven skulls antique
enough for the Indian wars.
I wish I could find a twelfth,
but I’m hardly desperate enough
to liberate someone living
by boiling down his carcass.
No, I won’t soil this moment
of archaeological triumph
with petty vicious crime. The skulls
grimace in varied shades of dust.
Their family resemblance proves
how firmly evolution frames us
with our species characteristics.
Not that I ever doubted
our commonality. No, I’m sure
that every human tear glistens
in the same shade of crystal,
and every baby, as they say,
resembles Winston Churchill.
So when these eleven skulls
work their jaws together in chorus
I should understand whatever
language they speak even
if it’s long lost. Bagging them
in a couple of canvas totes,
I hear the murmur begin
like the undertone of ocean
in a seashell. As I place them
on a shelf in my basement
their jaws grind with agony
left over from their violent death:
their pain at being unearthed
severe enough to rouse them
despite the absence of breath.
—-
William Doreski lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire. His most recent collection of poetry is Waiting for the Angel (2009). He has published three critical studies, including Robert Lowell’s Shifting Colors. His essays, poetry, and reviews have appeared in many journals, including Massachusetts Review, Notre Dame Review, The Alembic, New England Quarterly, Harvard Review, Modern Philology, Antioch Review, Natural Bridge.
——-
Peycho Kanev
Departure
I hang at the edge of my brain
and I sit by the window –
it is raining.
Black clouds, stormy wind and
flashes behind the hills.
Right there on the other side of
the ridge,
the houses are silent,
the windows are illuminated.
Inside –
happy children laugh,
fathers drink wine and listen to
the radio
as the mothers fix some hot plates.
I try not to think about happiness,
kids and warmness.
I try to swing shut my soul and embrace
the arriving brightness.
I lean forward
and the darkness leans with me.
—
Peycho Kanev
Seasons in the uterus
Laying on the floor with one bottle of wine,
listening to sonatas from Brahms and Scarlatti
from the old gramophone on the nightstand
eyes closed
cigarette in the crooked mouth
hands behind the head
wondering where all the dreams are -
desires for millions and seventeen years old virgins,
first class cigars and ice-cream cones, tasty food and
easy life
evaporating in the stratosphere with the speed of
brain pierced by the bullet.
my daddy’s gun under the couch
my siege is over.
—-
Peycho Kanev’s work has been published in Welter, Poetry Quarterly, The Catalonian Review, The Arava Review, Nerve Cowboy, Chiron Review, Tonopah Review, Mad Swirl, In Posse Review, Southern Ocean Review, The Houston Literary Review and many others. He is nominated for Pushcart Award and lives in Chicago. His new collaborative collection “r”, containing poetry by him and Felino Soriano, as well as photography from Duane Locke and Edward Wells II is now available at Amazon.com
——-
Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal
PLEASED WITH THEIR SONG-
Pleased with their song
the birds just sing.
They need no audience,
applause, or approval.
They dart from the
pepper tree to
the lemon tree singing
throughout the cool morning,
while poets in
America and
beyond stuff envelopes
and fill the Internet
with poetry
and songs that don’t
compare to anything
the birds are singing now.
—
Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal
TAKING THE CHILD
I took the child
from the cart. He
looked like my own
child. However,
I made a big
mistake. I am
not allowed to
go out on day
passes because
of what I did.
I suppose it
is better than
going to jail.
I let myself
down. I took the
medicine like
they told me to.
It did not work
that day. The child
started crying
and all I could
do was panic.
I ran with the
child in my arms
from the store to
the parking lot.
It was too late
when I came to
my senses and
realized this
child was not mine.
I do not blame
the mother for
pressing charges.
I would have done
the same thing if
someone took my
child. I intend
to press charges
against the state
for taking my
child when I was
hospitalized
when I was just
eighteen years old.
My child must be
eighteen years old
by now, give or
take a year. I
don’t know where he
is or who is
his mother now.
I lost track of
him because I
have been in and
out of mental
hospitals the
last twenty years.
You would think they
would have found a
cure by now. I
guess they need to
have people like
me to keep these
places open
and have jobs for
these people who
can’t find a cure.
—-
Luis works in the mental health field. His first poetry book, Raw Materials, was published by Pygmy Forest Press. His new chapbook, Digging A Grave, will be published in October 2010 by Kendra Steiner Editions.
——-
Jake David
“I Still Miss Someone”-
& if I could think of something to say to you,
along the silvery dreams of sprung mattresses weeping
for your hazy spiels of faux-romantic song,
would you sing high all that we’ve done
like I never could admit to myself as I
stand, saluting life’s fingertips,
on the porch-steps of an evening’s song?
Like a candle match striking firm for Tango silhouettes
singing tirelessly to your lip’s edge,
if I should eventually be something you
haven’t wished for, ached for,
craved-of & wrote secret Sonnets underneath
cross-legged knees to, I’d wish you the ease of struck-through
dates of our calendars on too-naked walls.
Like the rings of Saturn, though dancing
around the flings of the sun to remind
my night’s arriving that I still miss someone.
—
Jake David
“Eye’s Admission”-
Into sacrificial paradise’s gardens for your lain-to-rest;
disillusion an only certainty for your future come.
Maybe you’re beautiful. Tragic & broken. Perhaps you’re pure.
Constant regrets dangling from a harp’s string
left beside the whistles of a candle flame’s jewel hum.
Know me, know me. Lead me into your lips.
Feed me the strength o’ your kiss.
I think I know who you are
when you read my admission’s eye
for another pro-plus night.
Sweat with me underneath old-sung sheets,
spiraling a cross around our round fingertips.
Arriving hour hour long hour, beautiful dame alive.
Never know how the secret of vineyards speak:
Candor receives the bucket-fledged vertebrae resentment—
Honesty no longer cherished, why is my morality a superstar?
Kill the Trends.
Reject superstition & monetary obligations.
Commit the sins, take the slip, live a life.
—-
BIO: Jake David lives on the border between Cornwall, ON, Canada, and Massena, N.Y. While not a formally published author, he is slowly entering the web-magazine market with publications in Writers’ Bloc, Silly Mess, and The Beat.
——-
Laura LeHew
State Your Emergency-
a sestina
A life out of balance reanimated
whatever she was she was lost
contained in the Iraqi war trajectory
a brilliant allegory about a civilized meeting with the dead—
sculpting with blood to overcome a crisis of brainwashing
even as her mother lay in a cloud of cancer scorched.
A small change for the better to be scorched
by a self-inflicted wound than reanimated
alongside continuous national brainwashing.
Civil liberties lost.
Too late for control the dead
are the grain beneath the bark—their trajectory
a revisionist version of the classic war trajectory
in the guise of national security. Scorched
she crosses herself with a hammer dead
not wanting to be reanimated.
Who whispers the names in quarantine of all the lost?
Who carves with knives and cuts too deep this brainwashing
terror terrorist terrorism torturous self-confident brainwashing?
Seen through the eyes of war’s festering trajectory
what she wants is lost.
Alone is alone. Scorched
into nothing. Reanimated
she wants a new song to carry her through the days of the dead
something closer to old school hip hop than death
or a predictable romantic comedy sans brainwashing
explanations of the theology of Islamic terrorism via anime.
Our suppression of basic human rights its trajectory
supported by buying oil and foreign aid scorches
her country, endangers national security; the economy lost.
She is a wolf made mad by the moon but not lost
this is her promise to you the undead—
she will bear witness as decay is scorched
new born blades of grass opportunity and hope washing
clean the hysteria. The peace trajectory
a symbolic disharmony to reanimate.
Lost, what’s causing you to lose sleep? Brainwashing?
You might be the voice of the dead, the trajectory she hears
a ghost scorched with blood—reanimated. Don’t walk away.
—
Laura LeHew
When Cabbages Go Bad-
shy cabbages and their sister Brussels Sprouts
never able to share their inner selves
to reveal their motivations, loves, pains
break off a layer and there is another and
another and another—each bound tighter
and tighter a nautilus shell
spiraling fast until
they can no longer remain
decorative
they plead for you
to sink your serrated kitchen knife
into their passive fleshy hearts
there is no insurance plan—no hotline
the carrots egg them on laugh—shout out “jump—Jump—JUMP”
as they mount the rim
of the simmering Borscht
joyously belly-flop
scattering bits of butchered celery
—-
Laura LeHew is an award winning poet. Her work appears in a myriad of national and international journals and anthologies. She earned a MFA in writing from CCA and residencies from Soapstone and the Montana Artists Refuge. Laura edits Uttered Chaos www.utteredchaos.org. She has eight cats, one husband, and never sleeps.
——-
Stefanie Maclin
Siren-
There’s no pleasure in the bearing of her crown,
in the jewels she adorns. Is that a smile,
scraped across and painted on, so small and uncertain
that it is. Looking at you, seeing you as you are,
and knowing what you must have been, it must hurt
as you are trapped by man’s hands and man’s accord.
I wish to see you as you were, splashing in waves,
and foam. There must have been a time,
you were freer, allowed to wear your shells and stars
on your breasts, your hair loose in the wind.
How sad, to see you now, hair hiding skin,
fins in your hands.
(I’ll free you, when I, too, finally am.)
—
Stefanie Maclin
Worship-
Who must have you been, to be buried as you were?
Laid out on beds of roses and semi-precious stones,
among your familiars of metal and wood?
Already our archaeologists are billing you a hero,
marveling at the craftsmanship of your coffin
and leather sheaths. There’s a dagger there too,
placed reverently in your hands, bronze blade
and gold band. Was such a weapon what you used
at your last stand,
your last parry and thrust? There are no marks
across your skin and in your bone, not that we
can see, but you must have been
important, preserved as you are,
a warrior of high-class trapped in stone and birch,
with your possessions
and tributes.
—-
Stefanie Maclin’s poetry and short fiction has previously appeared in such publications as Abyss&Apex, Battered Suitcase, Astropoetica, Doorknobs&Bodypaint, Underground Voices, Under the Radar, Conversation Poetry Quarterly, and Mizmor L’David Anthology: The Shoah. She has work forthcoming in Illumen and Star*Line. She lives in Boston, MA, and recently completed her Master’s degree in Library Science.
——-
Daniel J. Woldman
Untitled-
In every moment
there are an
infinite amount
of
miracles
—
Daniel J. Woldman
Untitled-
The
ability to question
is at the heart
of a man
—-
Daniel J. Woldman is a lover of all things natural
——-
David McLean
only small things-
only small things go missing,
things like fathers and countries, places
and locations, and the patriotism
we peeled from our bodies
when we were still children.
only small things go missing
while these huge absences in us,
blended well with the all too present
flesh, do most of the living.
—
David McLean
it is nothing-
it is nothing that wraps sweet meat
around the skull,
night as innocent as Edmund Kemper
and the gigantic hands of a child
crushing life, like Myra and Ian
and their German wine
time’s intemperate icons they all are
the annals of incongruous innocence,
because they were as friendly
as teachers and priests and evil
seemingly, if evil may be. Kemper
wondered what it would be like
to kill grandma, and he wondered
what girls’ heads would look like
on sticks. and as i look at commuters
i wonder what they would look like
if they were human beings,
or some sort of living things.
i wonder what a memory might be
if it was wearing my skin
—-
David McLean is Welsh but has lived in Sweden since 1987. He lives there on an island in a large lake called Mälaren, very near to Stockholm, with woman, cats, kittens, and a couple of dogs. He has a BA in History from Balliol, Oxford, and an MA in philosophy, taken much later and much more seriously studied for, from Stockholm. Up to date details of many zine publications and several available books and chapbooks, including three print full lengths, a few print chapbooks, and a free electronic chapbook, are at his blog at http://mourningabortion.blogspot.com. The latest full length laughing at funerals is available via Small Press Distribution http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/9780981184456/laughing-at-funerals.aspx?rf=1
——-
Changming Yuan
The Dream Catcher-
Like a cat
Body coiled
Tan and tawny
Came with a big leap
Springing on
An invisible mice
Your only prey
—
Changming Yuan
Self-Abuse-
The man chops off his own head
And tries to barbecue it with human hair
In the slaughtering square
The woman cuts open her own chest
Takes out her heart and uses it
Like a gas pump
To add all her blood to the fire
While the volcano is vomiting violently
Its lava smashing onto every creature
Running around wildly
—
Changming Yuan
The Unborn-
The unborn are wildly shuffling among us, I believe
As we try to catch a plane or prepare a lunch
They are jumping, hopping, tripping like wantons
While they remain invisible even to ghosts
If they had been born, they would have proved better
Making all the prize winners in the world feel shamed
If only they had a chance to grow in broad daylight
They could have regrouped us all between hell and heaven
All this time, they are demonstrating, protesting against us
Their crowds snowballing, their shouts never heard
—-
Changming Yuan, twice Pushcart nominee and author of Chansons of a Chinaman (2009) and Politics and Poetics (2009), grew up in rural China, published several books before moving to Canada, and has had poems appearing in Barrow Street, Best Canadian Poetry, Cortland Review, Exquisite Corpse, London Magazine and more than 250 other literary publications worldwide.
——-
Rob Nyenhuis
Prism Prisons-
The promising prospect
of shattered beauty lying at your feet
so close you can taste it
but you’ll never quite make it bleed
never gonna see it scream
walk down the dusty trail
of some dream long forgotten in time
remember those good days
somewhere
that never were quite there
never truly cared
you sit and you watch
all those free flying song birds
fly away
but your wings have been clipped
the choice you had has slipped
away
the sky simply stares into space
like a doll that’s lost its little girl
pays no heed to all of your crying
kill yourself or die trying
rebel without a shot trying
to find what’s worth dying for
well what can you say
to all those free flying song birds
all gone away
like the flowers of happiness
all gone away
what can you say?
—-
Rob Nyenhuis is new to writing and attends Timothy Christian High School in Elmhurst, Illinois. He started writing back in 7th grade because he wanted to express emotion in ways other then talking, but was unable to draw. He has been trying to take writing more seriously since his freshmen year in high school. Currently this is his first publication, outside of school related newsletters.
——-
Will Roelofs
I Have Been Credited-
I have been credited
with Beethoven’s ear for orchestration,
Dali’s eye for re illustration,
and Hemmingway’s diction as motivation,
all in conjunction with other capacities within which I have not functioned. Yet,
I have been credited
and
I have been credited
with the craft to lull words as a man whose been shot
whose dying declaration dare not be disrespected or forgot
and it seems from these wounds I’ve recovered a lot
as my last breath trembles on with the force of a master mind plot
yes,
I have been credited
and
I have been credited
and I’ve been accused, but I’ve also been blind and also been used,
even this condemning praise is part of a ruse
to turn me away, to accept Her as true.
And it worked, so
Credit is given where credit is due.
She would suspect my motives, my lies, couldn’t through novel be summarized. and my grand scenes of misinterpretation? accompanied by my deceit through narration?
What is the cornerstone of my vengeful manipulation?
all my motives and actions when at last comprised compile to form these lengthy lines:
“I care for you. Whatever it takes, I’ll take care of you.”
—-
Will Roelofs typically expresses himself through music. He has recently, however, been trying his hand at poetry. The result is not a collection of any literary merit, but rather a very real, personal look at his everyday worries and emotions.
——-
