The world is full of critics...

upon reading a critical review
it's difficult to accept
and you look around the room
for the person they are talking
about. 

he's not there
he's not here.
he's gone.

by the time they get your book you
are no longer your 
book.
you are on the next page,
the next
book.

and worse,
they don't even get the old books right.
you are given credit for things you don't 
deserve, for insights that aren't 
there. 

people read themselves into books, altering
what thay need and discarding what they
don't.

good critics are as rare as good
writers.
and whether I get a good review or a
bad one
I take neither
seriously.

I am on the next page.
the next book.

by Charles Bukowski

Searching

alone with everybody


the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and them men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but they keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

— Charles Bukowski (Love is a Dog From Hell: Poems, 1974-1977)

                      

WHY BADSTUFF HAPPENS
by Elsa Joy Bailey


If it weren't for my beautiful sad mother
drinking a beaker of cold cyanide when I was three,
I wouldn't have learned
she could both love and abandon me
in one hot severe breath.
Nor would I have grown flowers in my heart
for people who urgently want to die.


If I had not broken my leg in a wild fall,
I wouldn't have learned that stark physical pain
is, to my great surprise, not permanent.


If I hadn't fallen in love with someone
who didn't love me,
I would never have realized that unrequited love
is still an ecstatic dance of the heart.


If I hadn't encountered praise and blame,
success and failure, heat and cold, darkness and light,
blows and kisses, pain and bliss,
never would I have found out that through it all
there is a Spirit within me
which remains unceasingly alive and loving.


If I hadn't received the gift of knowing you,
I would not have come to realise
that our stories are different in details,
but never in essence.


If I hadn't lived through an era of hurting
I would never have met the miracle
of being fed with kindness by a friend.


If I hadn't discovered that you and I
are two threads in the same vast cloth,
I would have remained forever lost and imprisoned
in my separate universe.


If I hadn't seen both good and evil
occupying space in the same event,
I would never have met the hand of humour
painting over these polarities
with new clarity and light.


If I hadn't wept a thousand tears
over the loss of a beloved,
I would never have been driven inward
to find the eternal companion,
my Soul.


If I had not witnessed cruelty
and man's inhumanity to man,
I would not have been forced to look
beneath the ugliness of fear,
and encounter the common Heart
that lies beneath it.


If I hadn't encountered our myriad differences,
I would never have discovered that you and I
are not two,
but infinite sparks of love ever arising
from one indestructible Flame.


And if I hadn't felt abandoned and heartsick,
I would never have heard the wordless whisper
of an abiding, unseeable Friend,
who translated the feeling of alone
into All One.

What if...

Life in Chaos

Heart in two

Every now and then
I have a remarkably vivid dream of you
And though they are growing
Far and few between
I am always left shaken;
Heart in two.
I would appreciate it if you would
Stay out of my subconscious
From now on.

Every place I go

I thought you wouldn't come back

The flowers are rotting in the vase,

You and I, we've indulged too long,

In this limbo of smoke that never rises;

Your lips move but I don't listen,

You're telling me to grow up,

Go away,

Find a home.

But to leave you here,

In the middle of the middle of nowhere...

Have some coffee,

I'll smoke once more and pour my last thought into your atmosphere,

As the music drifts further away,

And we can't hear it any more because we're blind,

Although we think we can see it all.

You're wise and you won't admit it,

Telling me of the colour of the sun in different cities,

Running to see what people drop in street corners,

And your smile is so wide it contains more than my soul can bear.

I don't know what I've become,

A stroke of a brush unto an unfinished canvas,

Years into this, colours still not mingling:

We make for a damn good case study.

I can't see your eyes, but I can smell you sleeping,

I take off, away, knowing we will never touch again,

But how wonderful it was to rest here on your shoulder,

Like when we were kids,

And train rides were easier to take than ever.

I know I'm guilty.

And I am alone.

But you've tattooed home on my skin,

And you are in every place I go.

Spaces

First things first,
Last things last.
Hours
          pass
  slowly.
Years pass fast.

m  e  a  n  i  n  g
e  s  c  a  p  e  s
t  h  r  o  u  g  h
s  p  a     c  e  s
 b  e  t  w  e  e  n 
l  e  t  t  e  r  s

Not always rainbows & butterflies

Lost Wanderer

by Alotta

Here I stand, alone and afraid; feeling filthy and unwanted. he took my soul; my virginity; my life; my hopes; my dreams. I am nothing now. nothing but a lost wanderer. wandering this cruel world thinking why he did what he did, to me. I didn't deserve this punishment. didn't deserve it at all. but when he grabbed me and began ripping my dignity away bit by bit, the fear arose within me. he touched me over and over. told me I would soon die. told me I was a "whore". but why? in a way, I did die. in a way, I am still here. a lost wanderer. alone and afraid.

Feel the waves

Dream big...dream bigger!

 Dreams are illustrations... from the book your soul is writing about you.

No Happy Endings/ Faded Desire

No Happy Endings 

Time to stop believeing in fairy tales

time to start seeing how you failed

waiting too long for you to make a move

in this dance it takes two to groove

thinking back on how you danced

I should've known I didn't have a chance.

I still can't deny the love I felt

I felt this warmth this sudden flame

the flame of hope burning so bright

this time I thought it felt so right

and like trust and desire

all hope is gone.

Time to start over

leave the past behind.

Looking straight ahead just have to keep walking

can't handle anymore of your talking.

Now I forget all the love and time spent

thinking about all the love left to give

too late for words I can't forgive.

No more thinking this has to be it

eighth time is always a charm

you just keep causing too much harm.

Taking it in stride going along for the ride

I wait and see someday i'll be a bride

no more fake smiles and words left unsaid

I take a line out of your head

it seems "Im too much to handle"

can't have someone whos going to mishandle

looking back never really understanding

why lies and pride is what you portray

I gather the strength to walk away.

    Faded Desire

I gather the strength to walk away
this strength I gather keeps you astray  

Your eyes your smile that touch I inspired 

is nothing more than a faded desire. 

Being with you is not the same

It seems I can't even remember your name.

Your words I know leave nothing to ponder

yet your eyes speak more than your words ever could

the mouth I so hungrily yearned for every second of the day

is now a vile hurtful vessel that leaves me without wonder

your words are harsh and cruel your soft lips hard and brittle.

  As you turn old and gray and filled with despair

remember who was their to guide you away

I tried to make you see the evil in your ways

I can't be your savior the cost is too steep

I have to start looking before I leap.

 

Next time you ache don't reach for my hand

with two separate worlds we can never be

our souls may be twined in an eternal connection

but mine is filled with affection and yours an incurable infection.


VML 

Sidenote: Written what feels like a million years ago inspiration always hits best when the chips are down.



Poem:Love

Beautiful Pain

The answer to this sweet affliction that haunts me,  

is to eradicate all feeling I have for you.

But how can I let go of everything that I have ever wanted.

I rather love and not be loved in return,

than forget about the love I have for you.

I wonder before I sleep,

If maybe, just maybe, you would be thinking about me.

Then I would tell you, how much I need you.

This would only take me into a dream and

Upon opening my eyes I find the remedy to cure my affliction.

I have found the remedy and it is to forget about you,

But I chose not to take such remedy.

Because as painful as this feeling can be

it is also the most beautiful feeling I have ever had.

Anonymous

Sidenote: I was rummaging through my past looking for a poem and came across this beautiful piece written by a friend.  It's true what they say the pen is mightier than the sword.

VML



Do not stand at my grave and weep

This is the poem i'd like to be read at my funeral.

Do not stand at my grave and weep.

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow;

I am the diamond glints on snow;

I am sunlight on ripened grain;

I am the gentle autumn rain;

When you awake to greet the dawn

I am the day as it is born;

I am birds in circling flight;

I am in the flowers that bloom,

I am in a quiet room.

I am in each lovely thing.

I am the soft starlight at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there. I have not left.

  Modified from its original version by:Mary Elizabeth Frye

Time goes by

As a little girl...

I would ask you to tell me a story, i'd ask you to tell me until you were
exhausted and out of stories.
Now you’re starting to repeat  yourself, you’re telling me the same old stories. Your memory is not what it used to be.
But I will forever sit & listen. As if its the first time, as if I’m still that little girl so eager to listen and learn.
You gave me all of your time when I needed you most, I will try and do the same for I know our time is short and the lessons are many.
Father. 

Peace.Love.Hope

VML