Dying is Safe

it's fine that we have bones
it doesn't mean that we're alone
like waves who live to crash
when we die we will be home

An Atheist On A Date

by Jesse Feinman

My Mother's Friend

my mother
had a schoolfriend
she shared the war with

my mother
looked after her friend
in the ghetto

she laid her out
as though she was dead
and the Gestapo overlooked her

in Auschwitz
she fed her friend snow
when she was burning with typhoid

and when
the Nazis
emptied Stuthof

they threw
the inmates
onto boats in the Baltic

and tried
to drown
as many as they could

my mother
and her friend
survived

in
Bayreuth
after the war

my mother’s friend
patted my cheeks
and curled my curls

and hurled herself
from the top
of a bank.


by Lily Brett

Driving Inspired

warm music behind your head as you drift to another body
now walking with purpose down crowded streets
the lights are dim, but you are in control
sudden red fading and brakes
all power is lost

To All Compassion Gives

The Mouse's Petition,

 Found in the Trap where he had been confin'd all Night.

by Anna Laetitia Aikin

OH ! hear a pensive captive's prayer,
For liberty that sighs ;
And never let thine heart be shut
Against the prisoner's cries.

For here forlorn and sad I sit,
Within the wiry grate ;

And tremble at th' approaching morn,
Which brings impending fate.

If e'er thy breast with freedom glow'd,
And spurn'd a tyrant's chain,
Let not thy strong oppressive force
A free-born mouse detain.

Oh ! do not stain with guiltless blood
Thy hospitable hearth ;
Nor triumph that thy wiles betray'd
A prize so little worth.

The scatter'd gleanings of a feast
My scanty meals supply ;
But if thine unrelenting heart
That slender boon deny,

The chearful light, the vital air,
Are blessings widely given ;
Let nature's commoners enjoy
The common gifts of heaven.

The well taught philosophic mind
To all compassion gives ;
Casts round the world an equal eye,
And feels for all that lives.

If mind, as ancient sages taught,
A never dying flame,
Still shifts thro' matter's varying forms,
In every form the same,

Beware, lest in the worm you crush
A brother's soul you find ;
And tremble lest thy luckless hand
Dislodge a kindred mind.

Or, if this transient gleam of day
Be all of life we share,
Let pity plead within thy breast,
That little all to spare.

So may thy hospitable board
With health and peace be crown'd ;
And every charm of heartfelt ease
Beneath thy roof be found.

So when unseen destruction lurks,
Which men like mice may share,
May some kind angel clear thy path,
And break the hidden snare.     

Living Graves

Living Graves

by George Bernard Shaw 

We are the living graves of murdered beasts,

Slaughtered to satisfy our appetites.

We never pause to wonder at our feasts,

If animals, like men, can possibly have rights.

We pray on Sundays that we may have light,

To guide our footsteps on the path we tread.

We’re sick of War, we do not want to fight –

The thought of it now fills our hearts with dread,

And yet – we gorge ourselves upon the dead.

Like carrion crows, we live and feed on meat,

Regardless of the suffering and pain

We cause by doing so, if thus we treat

Defenseless animals for sport or gain,

How can we hope in this world to attain

The PEACE we say we are so anxious for.

We pray for it, o’er hecatombs of slain,

To God, while outraging the moral law.

Thus cruelty begets its offspring – WAR.

Root Cellar

Root Cellar by Theodore Roethke

Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch,
Bulbs broke out of boxes hunting for chinks in the dark,
Shoots dangled and drooped,
Lolling obscenely from mildewed crates,
Hung down long yellow evil necks, like tropical snakes.
And what a congress of stinks!
Roots ripe as old bait,
Pulpy stems, rank, silo-rich,
Leaf-mold, manure, lime, piled against slippery planks.
Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.

The Big Orange Love

Let's sing our favorite orange song,
The one that plays in dreams
Of sand and tides and sunfast
Sheets before the day goes brown.

You'll meet me if I want you to.
Low buzzing and resonant chimes,
Infatuated with such a
Transient hum.

Cursory darkness, then orange
Again. You carry me with big hands.
Boardwalk, warm togetherness and
The blue below, abiding in rage.

Its cool breath is pulling me in,
Out of your love, towards
The end of our song, but
You keep on smiling.

You smile into the dark,
When I fall and splash
Blue and black and sink
Into the crying deep.

But you're still there, smiling
And waiting and humming in
Orange and yellow. You know
I always come back.

I saw you turn red from me.

As one puts a handkerchief before pent-in breath-
no: as one presses it against a wound
out of which the whole of life, in a single gush,
wants to stream, I held you to me: I saw
you turn red from me. How could anyone express
what took place between us? We made up for everything
there was never time for. I matured strangely
in every impulse of unperformed youth,
and you, love, somehow had
wildest childhood over my heart.

Rilke, Uncollected Poems, p. 13

30 in 30: Day 13

Prompt: write a poem about a hobby.

Form: Rime Coueé

Beloved, comfort me this day,
Corrosive thoughts I must convey-
Piano, holy voice.

All my distress you will allay,
Such graceful, tonic notes you play-
Time and I, divorced.

30 in 30: Day 12

Prompt: (modified) describe a ritual.

Form: Elemental Ode

Rain! Today?
Why must you
Threaten
The resolute?
Soak the wills
Of us goodhearted
And lust for our despair?
Forced umbrellas
Resist your reign
Lest their hearts be drenched.
You feed the fields
But flood the streets,
A muddled pool
Of dampened spirits
In your wake.
Too ambitious,
You fill to overflow!
Don't you see?
We, composed of you,
Are destroyed by you!
Plop where you want;
The day is yours.

30 in 30: Day 11

Another stupid prompt. This site's program needs redeeming. Borrowing another from the same site as always.

Prompt: riff on the theme of origins.

Form: Fibonacci (They're short, so I wrote two.)

In
Vain,
Giant
Fingers point-
ed toward the Earth.
"At last," he said, "let there be life!"

---

Time,
Space-
To know
No other,
No one could achieve,
Bar each other, no one could be.

30 in 30: Day 10

Another stupid prompt... stealing one from here again.

Prompt: write a poem about a memory.

Form: Shadorma

Crippled girl
Alone by the wall,
Her soft face
In mourning.
Crippled not by broken bones,
But by my leaving.

30 in 30: Day 9

Prompt: use the word "secret" twice in your poem.

Form: Rondelet

My heart will break
Like theirs, such secret deaths they die
My heart will break
Innocent lives you need not take
Like glass concealed, a clever guise
The secret shatter, helpless cries
My heart will break

30 in 30: Day 8

Just so you know, day 8's prompt was stupid, so I borrowed a prompt from a different site.

Prompt: write a poem about something that's missing.

Form: Roundel

I wish, for once, for starry skies,
Hovering winds to carry us
Into warm air and cricket's cries,
A whisper from your lips.

Sing leaves to sleep, dark specs of dust,
Whilst awake, shield from them your eyes.
Come close to me, dear, if you must.

Night-flames, I beckon thee arise!
Release your voice in this bright gust
And seek to soothe the fireflies,
A whisper from your lips.

30 in 30: Day 7

Prompt: write a poem that involves an animal.

Form: Prose Poetry (warning: extreme alliteration)

Beefcake, be that befitting, is what you'll be, you bag of bones bound in blubber. You bait my heart and benumbing hands with your bulldogged begging. Your batty eyes bewilder me and beckon the laceration of my nails. Your body beats and jerks as I blemish your black and brown brush. You thump your bunion against the boards- relentless banging, you brash beast! Be still. The bumping in the basement will bother the boys. Alas, I bid farewell but bereave you not of your badgered bliss. Barge to his bedroom and beseech my brother; beguile that bairn, the master of the pugs.

30 in 30: Day 6

Prompt: use the same (or similar) words in both your first line and last line, but change the order or the meaning of the words from the first line to the last line.

Form: Free Verse

You look at me, I look away.
The table sprung for miles
As the head's gaping mouth
Took freedom from our necks
With paralyzing fire.
It bullied the bulletin
And ripped the racks,
Spilling markers to the matting.
It flipped our folders
And gripped our pens,
Filling empty space between blue lines.
Seven and a half decades of minutes
Crawled from face to face. They
Left their mark with bloodshot eyes,
Making for the door.
The auricularly mannered ingress
shut. It's shut for but two days.
I look at you, you look away.

30 in 30: Day 5

Prompt: pick three words that you absolutely love the sound of and set out to use them in your poem.

My words: beyond, salvation, colossus.

Form: Distich

My time is dying, a death unfair, moving
Beyond the scope of books and study.

Beyond the standing pen and paper,
The soaring colossus that is my room.

Beyond that colossus, that fetid death,
It dies to find salvation.

Salvation found beyond itself, hidden
In hearts unseen. Unseen by that colossus!

That hungering beast, with such false passion,
Seeks pretentious looks and grandeur.

To that I die, admit my loss, no more
Time to waste. I meekly seek my savior.

30 in 30: Day 4

Prompt: write the final line to your poem first, and then write the poem to get to that ending.

Form: Tanka

Beckon me once more,
Chilled air. How the light dances,
Swings between the trees!
Guided by a curling hand,
A willful wind tossing leaves.

30 in 30: Day 3

Prompt: write a poem that begins with a proclamation.

Form: Kyrielle

I will not let my body rot!
To waste I know that I will not.
Like if to then I have forgot,
Day's sweat and blood my body needs.

Such simple food I should intake,
Yet I never fail to mistake
Nutrients of green beans with cake.
And so for this my body pleads.

A day spent out below the sun,
An afternoon spent on a run.
Why do I fail to see this fun?
Such a healthy bodily deed.

I hate the type of man I am,
One who does not do what I can.
Instead of heeding healthy plans,
On trash and filth my body feeds.