[x]

Boylan BooksI first see Neal across the open sparkle mall floor, paused in serious contemplation thought speaking solely to self, whispers not for ears or voices only thoughts, shining thoughts, open thoughts thinking marvelous wonders of books and dust and corporate-but-not bookstores. His hair is green not really but blue and green pirate green, red bandanna is he a pirate? asks the little girl with pigtails and chocolate snot embarrassed mother shoo be nice that's rude tugging hand with look of so sorry, she's five, not smart enough yet, please forgive and Neal with open half-grin smiling not really there but almost, not speaking but almost, not acce

7.34mmA simple measurement
can make a man
lose himself; a blurring, no more
than a grainy smudge

a scant 7.34mm long
this rice-grain, seven weeks old
with one hundred and twenty nine
heartbeats per minute

—all this, from a mere sesame-seed of a heart

lessYour phone bills are smaller now,
with no long distance calls to make,

and your car insurance reduced to reflect lower mileage
and all those journeys not made, those roads not taken,
those lanes that you know like the back of your hand -

Left, right, straight ahead, right, right -

are no longer driven. You did not see the bluebells wake
and spring burst forth in the countryside,
did not see the snow on the fields, cold horses in their
quilted coats pawing, nibbling, pawing.

Christmas stamps still tucked in your wallet,
unused,
and fountain pens dried up next to watermarked
John Lewis writing paper
with no letters left to wr

It starts with a flash-bang and a Majulahi.
June's hauled her here again and
she's tapping at my classroom window,
A gazillion tiny fingers rapping in succession
(When she said "invitation" I didn't realise she meant
soaking half the country, the spike in umbrella prices has
nothing to do with me)
What's worse than an impatient child
is one with the whole atmosphere as her battering ram
when she tries to say something the urgency brims over
and one million exclamation marks
is beginning to sound like static frazzling
out on the pavements

ii.
She is without choice: when Cloud mother tips her out
she must go, and go she will
caught in an obtuse cycle, fought over

if only, if only.i.
we drove nowhere
and we spoke a language
that nobody understood
underneath a foreign sky
blanketed in the scent of pine.

ii.
you told me
my eyes were like envelopes—
because they were always
opening
closing
fluttering to the sound
of breaking seals
and ink stained fingertips.

iii.
i told you
we should run away
to a new land
with new faces
because
i was enamored
with people i had never encountered
and places i had never gone.

iv.
you laughed at me
and said that
if i didn't spend
so much time with my head
buried in world maps
i would realize
that i was living on one.

v.
i remember
it rained that day
and the tea went cold
but the

TiredI am tired, heavy-footed, worn with wear I wear my hair
down long
Cold air blows through windows trying to nip the buds
long gone
I watch the cigarette smoke whip through the air currents
blue-grey
Saddened by the sun's insistence, shining on a day like
this day

I am rust, I am crushed metal, junkyard darkness, graveyard
sunset
I can't remember when I remembered what I'm trying so hard
to forget
Fire in oil drums replace the sun and the screaming and singing's
begun
I can't sing anymore, like Clancy can't, and the noise in my head's a
throb-thrum

once.the world was wider, once: strewn bright
and willing to a fingertip's beckoning, riddled
with roads that spilled in breathless wanders
to otherlands of reverie. i remember
the promise i made a wild changeling child
before i bade her hush and say goodnight --
i've not woken her since: she sleeps and i steal
her spun-glass dreams for my garden
of wilt, ever longing to hold
the ghost-dance that spins by their dying light.

windstorms and labworkafflatus, inflatus, my morning globe,
as lithe as your impermanence.
and home! dread homes! are rabbit dugs,
spoonholed piles of mexican brick
where nothing ever touches down,
nothing here alive receives
the plains’ poor offering of gypsy light,
the ugly wind that meets the mudline.

[metaphors]
1. a mottled fence
2. and how these storms hold faceless teeth
that slat their eyes through butter-wood
then purge their guts on wintered florets
4. some freshly headless nativities,
their polyethylene skirts upturned
from violent sacks
5. and knowing i’m a souless
speck

i lick at what is manifest
beneath your

In PassingHags in a field, violet sky
Ruins, runes
Incantations
A murder of crows stirred
The Laughingman is silenced
The Walkingman runs
The Deadman smiles
in passing

Melinda sees all with second sight
Whispers a gothic lullaby
Twirls 'round the tombstones
Invisible partners

Spring-grass scent wafts
through the warmth
Skyfingers reach down to
cup her heart

Stars swarm
She smiles

shhhwe are lurking too close to jesus,
on the empty edge of a lightless stage,
curved nails digging into the skin of our pale palms.

he asks as an afterthought
do you believe in something holy? and i think yes,
i think this is what i believe in.

Desolateif you are parched tonight,
the pale of your lips cracked
with thirst for that which
will not claim you;

if you hunger -
the deep and shallow collapsing
into slivered vibrations;

if blindness rejects you, says
no, watch now.
this is the way of it;

if you are breathing the world
into cinders, inhaling each poison
on purpose, striving
toward an apocalypse
because that is chaos
we can categorize,

then you may understand.

Dying to be Marilyns   Girls hang themselves
with nooses made of numbers
and eyes of airbrushed idols
with society's approval.

   They say,
{while choking on pages of Vogue magazine}
        "that beauty opens doors
         to worlds
         we never had the right to".

They say,
         "you are beautiful when
          your body is thin".

Sex sells,
and so they do.
Trading their souls
for anot

Survival of the IllestAre those hints of lemon I detect?
Look, I'm just here to get wasted, don't try
to make it more than that.

I'd drink motor oil if I thought
it could get me high; chase it with a shot
of antifreeze
so
you can keep your survival instincts,
locked up
in that pretty velvet box (along with all
those other things
you thought you could convince yourself
you lived for). Instincts are the bare
bones of the impossibilities we wanted
to believe in,
remember,
those times you tried to tell me that
adrenaline was God's way
of saying
that
we were His chosen ones, we were
special, we were free.
I tried to tell you that instincts an

they can't be takentheir bleach skin caught my eye
albino white against the wild
hair like bright sky electric in the briars

haloed sister gods shot down like fawn

WhitmanI am all that grows from me
and all that grows from me is sacred—
              my hair, dirty roots reaching towards sky,
fed by sky, shifted by its undulating currents
              my fingers, spiders, crescents, twigs,
gaunt, blunt, probing, inquisitive...prurient
              my ears, awkward conch shells jammed on as if by mistake,
rigid and ridged, elven,
innocent like unexplored caves for children to bound gaily into
resounding with echoed cheers of courage wanting
as if a dozen more children waited within, fearless guides;
              my nose, obdurate.
The reach of my eyes knows no bounds;
what walls are there to throw my body against?

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The Wildernessby ~Elmara

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

Abbu (Urdu) - Father

Daily Deviation

Given 2012-06-24

The Wilderness by ~Elmara ( Suggested by $wreckling and Featured by `thorns )

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~m0thr4 Feb 22, 2013 New member General Artist

beautiful

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~maarvin Jun 25, 2012 Hobbyist Photographer

*hug*

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~Elmara Jul 8, 2012 Student Writer

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~maarvin Jul 10, 2012 Hobbyist Photographer

Well deserved DD, btw. Has been awhile since I read something this charged

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~secondhand-wings Jun 24, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

brilliant in its simplicity.

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~Elmara Jul 8, 2012 Student Writer

thank you

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~sachalkhan Jun 24, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

i can't say anything beyond this is amazing and ugh, give me all that you've got hooh hah

seriously, i love it. good job. simple images conveyed successfully with no trying-hard-to-be-eloquent, just perfect.

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~Elmara Jul 8, 2012 Student Writer

thank you

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~solaric Jun 24, 2012 Professional Writer

This is beautiful - it conveys at once a sense of alienation and community, which is an amazing effect for a quite brief poem.

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~Elmara Jul 8, 2012 Student Writer

thank you, much obliged

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