*__^ graci.

A poem by William J Toburn

the U.K. wakes up and stretches; its feathers unfurl.
calls immediate attention to the tips of its coils.
they explode and they crawl into so many pools.
the chromosones spread, and leak across the whole world.
("she will die with her dues, to this world, 'an unjust.'"

a ghost pirouettes, dives and it digs,
through all of these servile connections,
just so helpless..
his flawless conscience is lost in search of the 'golden id.'
an accordian design, seemingly by
a catalyst through which he still recalls...
a dream we both once had,
to shatter it all
(until there were only roses).

all lust, all hope, all self-respect.
she wants to make real, those gods i rejected. (in the form of old dreams...)
and i'm sad now to be upon these broken knees (...so disrespected.)
where every nerve-ending will refuse to scream
of some blissful end in eternity.
and the silence stood too bold to scream.
within a dismantled insanity,
the silence stands too bold to scream,
"does not this black-hole grant me any mercy?"

the sunrise showed face and we awoke
inside some late-morning sunday.
by now, i've picked them up, tried them on,
the garments of this martyred evening.
i was looking deeply in the mirror.
but it was done by sun's setting.
of course, i was first to blink
and it's time now that i accept it.

you disappear passed door inside door
(or at least some figment within my head).

we ignore the truth. commence pursuit,
i'm stumbling somewhere far behind.
you escape all loss, evading the law.
i'm here just in time to rewind,
the plotting of, my most epic fall,
into the black; towards the sweetest bed.
to somewhere unattached where misery cannot call.
but it's all belonging to some blissful end.

in a room she disguised and left forgotten in the hall,
these planes disintegrate, frame by frame, lost.
and this game always seems to get in the way
of something more meaningless.
but today, it all dissolves.

we are, dying roses become a funeral's confetti.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Probably Not
by Richy Maine

If tranquility Smells like rain,
the ocean feels
like ecstasy,
hot tea tastes like
my mother's kitchen,
and bells resonate
longing for life;

then award, in shame or celebration,
what lurks above my
shoulders,
because it is his miscalculation
and his paradoxical grin
that has delivered me
to you.

And, if tranquility
smells like rain,
then extinguishing candles
aromatizes home , and
the silhouette is cursing my name

so I’m hunched over love poems
drowning the specifics in alliteration
reminding myself of generalizations
weaving webs and writing fairy tales
for the future of
my daughter’s son.