Andy Schildroth

Untitled

I’m still looking twice at bus stops,
Hoping to see the face on a train;
The old familiar with a new refrain,
But there’s no going back.

Proud to have put together a real day,
Just like everyone else;
Living like everyone else,
Dying in ignominy.

There’s no special place here,
Not even for one good hour;
Clutching the dry cup while sour,
Then the tension slides away.

Just another wave breaking loose,
Over the darkened, corroded separator;
Standing against the narrator,
Whose predictable lines are now absent.

So you wait like any other jerk,
Except for your five to ten served;
Getting what you deserved,
As you clutch at tangible worth.

So you’re out of the shadow,
Looking sick in the sun;
But not yet done,
Back again, though you look so pale in the sun.


Candian Winter

The bellowing begins as the exhaust puffs
And you feel the four walls around you close in
As the radio babbles on about interior décor,
Jailbreaks of murderers,
As well as the latest in gourmet foods, fashionable baby clothes, and ergonomic seating.
And everywhere around you looks so good and free.
Even if its 40 below out there
With clean snow,
Crisp air,
And a strange absence of a rambling humanity
Due to the cold you can’t feel.

A strange monotony sets in
Parochialisms become life, not just an utterance.
You watch is set to the beat of the traffic, of the warmth
From bubble to bubble you surf
Never staying long in the cold
Where you’re brain becomes a frozen block,
Unseeing, you race to the safety and confinement of the warmth.
Ah Canadians
We’ll never cause a fuss in the deep, thick winter.

"A bit different, this was sent via facebook, received at my quasi-boyfriend's house, better than an offer to rent a limousine. I love the moment of getting beyond the surface level day to day chatter bullshit. Even though I am the occasional queen of nothingness, and chatterboxery...this inbox pleasantry was a treat"

By "Flesh"

Last night I tongue-danced,

ego-wrestled across a table and

too many drinks,

fast friends with fast smiles

lighting laughter against the dark.

Last night, last night it was

4am on empty streets;

Tom Waits in my headphones

with his songs of love and death.

A thousand footsteps in the dark,

a thousand thoughts as dim,

I remembered

a little girl

in a picture

and didn't feel like laughing

anymore.

"I received this text at 6 am. I was tossing and turning trying to sleep and it came at the perfect moment. I love this poem, especially the 'ego-wrestled' dang have we not all been there a thousand times"

Racheal Carroll

Hast the echo of silver lining fadeth away...?

From thy life, from those around thee...?

Harsh words spill from thy mouth...

But tis thy sword as sharp as thy tongue...?

Nay, nay to thou and thy speech...

As to now and from now beyond...

Every uneven word they speak...

Shall the pain of a thousand blades strike thee...

And for those that laugh upon thy...

Shall they see the punishment throught the takers eye...

Crouched down so lower than thine...

They crack smiles that dwindle what was once mine...

(Yay! the first posting and all the way from Tennessee. I received the text with this poem in the locker room of my gym in Calgary, AB Canada...Thanks Racheal)

Christina Robinson

Be Y
(Written from my parked car outside of a church sign)

Be ye fishers of men. You will catch them and,
"Who will clean them?", She asks.

Be ye the fish hook in my heart,
which took my heart above the sea
Giving me a view
that could make silent of riots and dreamers of the old.

I thought on the hook,

I had a universe to beat and beat, with only rhythm;
I had a fisher of men and hearts,
first catch me and then deliver
And I loved to taste the tips of my fingers in the mouth of that fisher.

Be Ye a fisher of men, I whisper,
Be Ye a fisher of hearts