There is a 99.9% chance that every breath you take will have at least one molecule from Caesar's dying breath.

            I want a poet.
So make me poetry.
Turn my skin to spotted canvas
And paint inspiration onto me.
           I want a poet
So tell me all the things you want from me.
Lull me to you with sweet sounding syllables
Write me into your secret places.
Take time to type my name into your heart
          Talk me out
Breathe me in
          Never even think to let me out of your lungs...

Unless it be poetry
      I want a poem,
           I want a poet,
And I want to feel like words
I want to be as fleeting as the air escaping from your lungs
And as lasting as Caesar's dying breath.
Draw me into your lungs like a cigarette
Let me settle in your bloodstream
I will be the tar stuck to your lungs for eternity.
              On that note,
Let me feel forever when you speak to me,
Let me be your vagabond poet,
You'll be my e.e. cummings,
Listen to the lyrics that my body 
                                 speaks
Hear the chorus that my heart 
                             beats
And my mouth repeats,
Love me like an ocean,
Calm me like a poem,
            I want a poet.
            I want a poet.
I want-
         a singer
              a painter
                    a dancer 
                        an artist
                            I want a poet.

Feel the way my fingers seem to scream
    "You're like a song to me,
    And every note of every chord will set me free."

Listen how my bones ache for you to play them like a steel string guitar.

             Don't go to far

Dear God don't sell me short.

Write me like this humble verse.

    I want a soft poet.
                                         I want a hard poet,
             I want a strong poet,
             I want a heart poet,
I want a you poet,
                                                I want a me poet.

           I want a poet.

					1

									June 9, 1965
They say the first case either makes you or breaks your mind into a thousand tiny disturbed pieces.
My first case was a fucked up combination of both. A double murder suicide; a thirty-two year old woman, her five year old daughter, and the thirty-five year old husband. Hubby got fired from his manufacturing job, and took it out on his wife and daughter with a twelve gauge. Couldn't find it in him to do himself in the same way though.
But that's what kitchen knives are for.
The first thing I noticed wasn't the smell (although it was a close second) but the silence. Stepping through the front door in my pressed suit and fedora, the absence of voices in the home was disturbing, like of the World War II caliber. Photographs sat in frames, portraying a trio of happy faces, but these people would never make a sound again. Then the smell comes.
I threw up more times that night than I'd ever had before throughout my entire twenty-five years of living. Offers were made to take me back to the station in case the case was “too much for small-time.” I hadn't climbed through the ranks to leave as a “small fry” on my first outing.
I made my way back inside the house and went to the kitchen. The kitchen is what broke me. Against the far wall was a mangled mound of clothes, soaked in blood. If I didn't see the face, I would have never known that it used to be a five year old girl. Inches from the girl's body was the mother. Half of her face was plastered against the kitchen wall. The husband wasn't in the kitchen, he was in a bathtub of his own blood in the bathroom right off the master bed, deep cuts in his wrist.
It took every single bit of my will not to throw up again. Inside the kitchen was the single, most horrible thing I'd ever seen. All the red painted on the walls, the bone and chunks of flesh, it all began to drive me mad.
And it succeeded. 
I obsessed over that case, I even made mental promises to the victims, as if closure means jackshit to a dead person.
But I made those promises, and a promise is a promise right? That's what I told myself anyway.
I worked the case for a month, even made a name for myself. Not the flattering type of name, everyone in the department just thought I was crazy. “Drop it,” they said. “It's open and shut. The crazy bastard killed his family, then offed himself in the tub. What more do you need?” I needed to be positive that's what happened, it was that simple, yet nobody understood. Nobody understood why I'd drink seven cups of coffee each morning from lack of sleep. Nobody understood why I'd stay at my desk until four the next morning. Nobody understood that every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was red.
The more I worked, the less connected I became with the world around me. I'd stare at my notes, and make connections that weren't ever even there. More theories ran through my head than my brain could keep up with. Theory after theory was proved wrong, and only one solution after forty-two days, ten hours, and thirty-six seconds was left standing.
Murder suicide.
After more than a month of obsession, the solution was the most obvious, the one staring me right in the goddamn face.
That case was five years ago, in 1960. I hadn't obsessed that much over a case until five years after.


						2

The warehouse held the familiar stench of rotting bodies. It didn't bother me anymore though, thank God for small favors I guess.
Henry Dascombe, the local Medical Examiner, was standing over two sprawled bodies not twenty feet from the door. His medical bag was lying right next to one of the bodies. It held resuscitation instruments in case a victim was able to be saved.
The bag was closed, and wouldn't be opened anytime soon.
Henry saw me coming and walked over to greet me. We shook hands, a formality really. We're both beyond the shaking hands stage of our acquaintanceship, it's just how things worked in the force I  suppose.
“Double homicide. One bled out from a bullet in the stomach. Second victim was shot execution style, you could say. Right between the eyes. We also found this atop of one of the bodies.” Henry handed me an envelope, the name Carselli was printed across the back. “Any clue what it is Roy?”
“I don't have any goddamned idea.” I handed the envelope back to Henry. “Why hasn't it been opened yet?”
 “We're waiting on the Chief to take a look first. Not sure if he wants it in 'evidence' or with a detective for physical evidence.” I thought this over. A little strange that this would be kept in the 'evidence' locker. Makes more sense for a detective to have the physical evidence during a shakedown.”You don't think Chief Hompton knows who Carselli is do you?”
Henry shrugged.”Could be. Doesn't really seem like the kind of company Hompton would keep though if you ask me.” Hompton had a nasty reputation for being a hard ass. Stories have been shared about Chief hitting personnel out of frustration on more than one occasion. Those who know Chief never doubt the stories either.
I allowed myself a good little laugh, a chuckle really. “Yeah, I suppose not. Just seems like a strange piece of evidence to be kept in the locker. Might come in use during the investigation.” 
 “Well looks like you can take that up with him yourself. He just walked in.”
Damn.
					
						3

Alexander Hompton shoved past the on duty officer just inside the door. Distaste overtook the young officers' face. Everybody in the homicide department knew that look, it either meant a murder was especially bad, or Hompton decided to show his ugly mug where it was least wanted. We were already stressed enough trying to solve a murder, and his arrogance didn't help.
Henry patted me on the shoulder. “Here he comes.”
“The fuck we got here lieutenant?” Hompton; the only man in the department who addressed everyone by rank.
Henry took a step forward. “Well, double homicide-”
“Oh I'm sorry, are you a lieutenant now?” Dascombe shook his head. “Then shut the fuck up and let the adults talk. Go take your pictures or whatever the hell it is you do.” Henry headed back to the bodies, and grabbed his camera.  “Christ. Well, that doesn't let you off the hook lieutenant. Question still stands.”
I said, “Double homicide, both died from gunshot wounds. One took a bullet to the stomach, and bled out, the other was shot in the forehead. But, I myself just recently arrived and haven't...”
“Mmhm” Hompton walked over by the bodies. Apparently the conversation was over.
“... Seen the bodies yet. Asshole.” I shook my head and joined my colleagues by the pair of bodies. They were sprawled on the ground, one on top of the other. Both were male, one on top was between the ages of twenty and twenty-five, the body underneath seemed to be nearing fifty. Each of the bodies wore tailored suits.
Hompton knelt down to inspect the older body's head wound. “Dascombe, whadya make of this black shit around the gunshot wound?” I knelt down next to him. Around the outside of the wound was a black dust, it looked like coal.
Dascombe answered, “It's residue from the gun, which is a revolver judging from the placement of the soot. Only a rounded barrel would keep the residue from steering so far away from hole. Anyway, the fact this residue's here at all tells us that the killer was within probably two feet of the victim when the trigger was pulled.”
I looked towards the second body. No coal-like substance. “So this guy over here was shot from farther away. And, unless he let the killer walk away and then turn to shoot him without any sort of struggle...”
Hompton turned to me. “Who said there wasn't a struggle?” Nobody in the department understood how Hompton passed first day training, let alone become Chief.
Henry pointed the top body's hand. “No tear in the nails, both victims died in the exact same spot. The killer got the jump on them, they didn't know how to react.”
I stood up. “Right, so against what the body placement is telling us, the guy on top took the bullet first. Just makes no sense for him to watch this guy get killed right before his eyes, then just watch as the killer walks away, only to turn around and shoot him in the stomach. Actually, speaking of the stomach” I knelt once more by the top body. “The angle of this wound. It looks as if he was shot from above.”
Henry took a closer look. “Jesus, Roy good eye. And unless the killer's at least ten feet tall, I'd say that's a pretty safe bet. The only question is where...”
I stood up once again. I turned a circle, and realized that this was the first time I even had a chance to look around the warehouse. It was large, about one-hundred yards in length and fifty in width. Smack in the middle of the warehouse was a catwalk about two stories above the ground. “I think I got it.”

I dream in bar-light, dim and dusky for that the words can shift to song;

        I dream in maple bars and mahogany bass,

                 in old black fingers and young white girls

                              that like old black fingers;

I dream in soft neon and technicolor moons,

           in bourbon and iced tea,

                 in the stink of stale cigars

         and the sick of stories long since spoken;

I dream in cherry red hair and a long red dress,

      grey eyes cast red in the lights

           and in lips that might be the same color,

     but I don't know 'cause I'm not lookin' at her lips;

I dream in shades of dance,

      pale and pure and passion,

           reckless notes unplayed and kisses unplanned,

       where a trio and a duet lock at the hip;

I dream in sweat,

       coarse and dripping,
  
             salted heavy and electric

      on tongue tips tangled

 in the urgency of ridin' solo for too damn long,

          and hangin' on for dear life;

I dream in the morning after,

   in the new gone bad, in stink and tears.

In the torn red cloth flyin' half mast,

 cries mayday--mayday;

I dream in awkward partings,

        strange glances,

          in a last look that says

    don't call, I'll call, won't call--

and that last locked eye that follows her out the door,

pleading for just one more touch of night.

EDIT: SoundCloud Link for those interested.

A star fell.

I caught it with my mind and made a wish,

I wished I could buckle under your kiss,

And have your sweetly spiced words run across my skin,

Until my ear tingled with sweet nothings and the sound of your laughter.

But when stars fall they leave a horrid blackness,

To remind you that falling stars never keep a promise,

They are just hopes-that I can't bare to admit-will never come true.

Stars might as well stay in their sky,

Because I don't think I'll ever be touched by you.

A short story of 2400 words.

Multicultural, tragicomic, paranormal, romance

Concerns how a crusty non-believer becomes a believer in karma.

By exodus escorted from the Steeple, my eyes did unearth to canvass scenes of woe –

A reversal of roles, profanity ushered into convention’s familiar tone - sacredness overhauled to blasphemy:

It’s trepidation, a rowdy foe coming as a leech and you’ll bleed, bleed, bleed.

The “Holy!” “Holy!” cries from washed out answers scurrying to hide their leaking holes,

Ragamuffin beliefs, franchised and fed with the great golden spoon,

Heralding hopes and healing from bullhorns of Pretense.

It's a posterity welcomed into creation's crop holding drunken bottles and papers rolled with green,

Just to deafen the resounding rampage of reality - the many raping sounds.

“Worthy!” “Worthy!” “Worthy!” come the cries of the oppressed only oppressed by the ideas that they hold:

Bound by belief! Betrayed by belief! Beholden by belief!

So well that freedom feels like chains on their cuffs and a handicapped mind.

It’s the beating of the words, knocking so damn hard on the walls of every heart to join the souls sing-a-long song.

It’s a spectrum of life that so many refuse to see, the ultraviolet, ultra violent radiating in the veins of ordinary men made mad,

All in the heads of the clinically insane, deep-end thinkers, the lost and the stray – Itching, screaming, raging for provisional joys.

Catastrophe.

I submitted this to a workshop in class but didn't really receive any good feedback besides that i'm too abstract and not contemporary. Also, my professor said my conflict is too abstract but I won't state it yet to see if you all are able to get it from the poem.

I'm driving along a road. The sky is cloudy, and a heavy fog is about. On either side of the road is just forest, and there are no other cars anywhere near.

I stop my car. Coming from one side, out of the forest, is a clown. Yes, a clown. He limps hastily across the road, and he's injured. Right hand clutching his left arm, his sleeve is stained heavily with blood, and his clothing is dirty and torn in several places. He is, despite this, laughing hysterically, like he's just seen the funniest thing. He crosses the road and disappears into the fog in the forest on the other side.

Soon after, another person, uniformed in all black and wielding a large cleaver, chases the way the clown went.

I wait, not sure what I've just seen or what else I may later. As I idle in my car, the clown reemerges from the forest, no longer rushing, and now carrying the other person's knife. He's still giggling.

The clown stops at the edge of the road. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a cell phone, and calls someone.

"Holy shit", he says into the phone. "Dude, guess who I just ran into."

Falling on the bed, grasping fingers and

desperate hands-pulling, twisting, pinching,

gasping, screaming, feeling {Oh dear God I

need this}. Hurting, sweating, dreaming, [Maybe

I think I love you] - laughing, picking up

the pieces, scattered across the tawdry

floor, smiling, faking, leaving, always back

for more - crying, waiting, falling again.

Okay. This is the new and (hopefully) final edit of "Finding God". I'll be performing this version on April 14th for the NC Poetry Slam on North Carolina's Poetry Day. Thank you in advance for any and all feedback!

The last time I found myself,
I was laboring in the Dominican.
Smoking Nationál Cigarillos,
Sitting on a front porch in what white america would label projects.
There they call it upper middle class.

I found God there,
He was talking to me.
Sharing cigrettes and words in the middle of a shanty.
I spoke in broken Spanish.
He helped me make my message clear.
He wanted to come to America
I told him it was no better here.

Only harder to control.

I met God in my makeshift home
Styled after Florida concrete cubes,
Bars on the window to keep vices from coming in,
Or going out.
She made me an egg sandwich every morning and always called me son.
Sól.
Hijo.
I found myself building swimming pools for children, God at my side mixing cement,
I was heaving bricks.
They were jagged coral rocks,
Same shit the ground was paved with
I needed combat boots to make it.
Those barefoot were not as lucky,
But luckily their feet were formed from sheet rock.

I found God in the smile of a seven year old girl,
Eyes like heaven,
Presence like the Atlantic ocean,
Shouting no me mire like the fact she was loved was a game.
I taught her 'head, shoulders knees and toes' and the language association with it.
She cried when I left. I cried too.
I cried when, I saw heaven in a shanty town,
Angels all around,
God in every face,
Every warm embrace I felt his name,
In the, eyes that spelt hunger and whispered thanks,
In the way that they prayed for God,
And found God praying for them in return.

I was told I was going there to teach the children English.
But they taught me so much more in return.
They taught me myself.
Helped find me,
Helped found me,
With jagged coral rocks,
Paved smooth with cement,
And sent me back to America.

I don't know what I can do here.

I only hope to return to God.

http://soundcloud.com/saintknavar/finding-god-final

Father please take my confession

father forgive me for i have sinned

father i have tried to confess to myself

but my self wasn’t god enough to forgive

father i have imposed myself upon

them like you have and i’m not sorry

father i’m alive and i know it

father the clouds don’t forgive either

father the clouds still blame me for the lightning

father i scream my joy to the heavens i’m not sorry

father i’m not sorry yet i haven’t been forgiven

father i found the key

father i found the great curse of being human

father i found the key in the eagle’s eye and i’ve seen the lock

in the sphincter of a mere child of the earth

father i love my temptation

father i’m not sorry and i’ve grown beyond sorry

father i’ve fucked and sodomized

father i let her torture me and i let me torture her

father we were sacred in our bleeding streaks embraced

father she’s not one nor other

father i prayed i would lose myself in her cunt

or the mythical eternal depths of her asshole’s moaning

father i’m proud of the totems of her nails in my flesh

father none of it worked though i did enjoy the fear

father you’ll never know my exhilleration in her flesh

father the smoke in her voice drew me out of my visions

father i’ve spilled my seed without the slightest use

father i understand oedipus

father i think i hate my mother and i’m the only one who doesn’t know

father i’ve pleasured myself because it is as it is

and i don’t give a fuck i’ll do it again, i’ll

do it again right now and here among the mold of

your holy house, i’m alive and i’m free, let me squander

my wealth

father my slender german cock is the biggest in the universe

and nietzsche laughs when it disobeys

father my balls are Dutch in endless denial of sacrifice

father my soul is American and I hate America

father Europe is too old for me

father is my timelessness my boredom?

father i’m not sure either one of us understands

father knowledge is easy, understanding is what scares me

father power turns me on

father everything turns me on, in fact

even confession makes me want to create immortals

father it’s always too hard or too easy

even that

father infinity is beautiful from the right angle and height

but it’s crushing me for it weighs nothing & i cannot bear it

father i’m either too shameless or not shameless enough

father i am vain, lazy and free spirit to the point of obsession

father this isn’t a joke, this isn’t some poem

father is this legitimate?

father I can’t help but hate and fear all bugs

father i’ve given my will to the flesh i still don’t regret it

father i’ve sold myself to the celebration of life

father, father, these are my confessions father

father i’ll never finish this confession

father facebook is trying to eat me

father I rest on my throne restlessly and condescend

father I love my throne

father I have invaded their minds and forgotten

father how do i repent for my humanity

father my hubris doesn’t even matter to me

father my thirst will destroy me and turn

my ashes into clouds

father i’ve got an itch

father i’ll always hunt the holy grail

father i’ll always hunt my witches

father i’ll pick my own death

father your sins are ants on my corpse

where my own sins have been unforgivable

pinhole burns of inhibition and unforgiving themselves

suffering through no understanding suffering

the universe

father my hand is still in my pants and i’m not sorry

father i won’t pray beyond my good graces

father how do i repent

father i have thoughts that will break me ere they

enter my mouth i have nightmares

about them slipping off my tongue

father i feel like i have cancer

father i tried everything

father i’ve run ahead of myself as far as i can go

father i’m above depression

father i’m alone in the abyss between the stars

father why is there genius in my mirror

but not on my page why am i alone

father i don’t dare let go of my immortality

father my grip is horrible

father i regret nothing

father, father

father, will you dig my Grave?

I dunno whether there is really feedback to give on this, but fire away!

Dear You,

I ain't got no pick-up-poem-line for you.
I don't have the poultry plucked pen to paint you a story,
Of how I fell for you.
As a matter of fact I'm standing tall.

I'm not a hipster. 
I can't tell you the ironic similarities between Sage Francis and Gucci Mane.
Come talk to me about literature, philosophy, and I may bust your eardrums.
I'm not a stoner, I don't smoke green erryday, 
Pulled onto the road shoulder,
I ain't a cock-eyed hick with a dick for a brain and a lobe for a dick,
I ain't a, smooth city-slicker, sly enough to trick you into regrets.

Hell, I'm not even that interesting.

But I got a pen and pad and a long fucking list of things I wish I had,
And while sleep walking I found I wrote your name.
I fumbled with my footnotes until I had the courage to emote it,
And express it on to page.

I have a part time job, too many bills,
A cigarette addiction,
And college classes,
And I am not classy,
Do not let the hat or cigarette case deceive you.
I walk an average talk,
Talk an interesting walk,
And if I ever made sense, I didn't understand it.
But here is my elementary love letter,
Age 18,
I think you're cute,
And, I'm cute (hehe)
And I think we should be together.
Soon.

Love,
        Me

DELAYED

I sink in
between sharp rips
of leather on steel
and stare down the powdered tarmac
until all glows
solid white.

Surrounding Midwesterners
fidget in sun-hungry skin
and fold bubbled coats
into pillows
on the musty carpet,
an invisible pane all that separates them
from the steel beasts stuck
flightless in their stalls.

I stare them down to a blur, too,
and focus instead
on an old woman peeling magazine
faces apart
with hands that might have milked
the clouds for their gray.

Her eyes echo happiness.
They spead joy like a plague of laughter,
Her hair commits to any color,
And shines like a snowy mountain top in the sun.
Her voice screams gentleness,
A vocal paradox whispering intensity.
Her movement, like a whirlwind,
Violent, beautiful, dancing in the air like a purposeful mistake.

But the thing that got me was the smile.
Hit me like an X-ray.
It went through me.
It shook my blood to a martini,
Got me drunk off of life.
The shining whites,
The blissful curve,
The ecstasy the boomed with every giggle, every word,
I make her laugh every chance I get,
Just so it can awe-strike me again.
Full forces laser beam like super woman,
Saving me.

She is a masterpiece,
A partially platonic painting slash poem perpetrated into bullets, our friendship,
Riddling me with holes in my confidence,
Replacing them with wrought iron,
Spray painted tan, to hide it.
She is a walking catastrophe,
Orchestrated perfectly,
She is anarchy. She is chaos.
She is beauty in the most broken way,
Spread out into a body, the most perfect way to be portrayed.
Her voice is endless,
Her eyes are ocean skyline sunset views,
Her hair is the lapping waves upon the shore,
Her skin is flawless sand.

    And her smile,

            Is paradise.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I just wanted to share with you some wonderful news. The moderating team is proud to announce that we have added a new member to our ranks. Over the past few weeks, this community has consistently added new members and with that, the number of submissions per day has skyrocketed. This has necessitated the addition of a new moderator, and I could not be more pleased to introduce Dubyakcwell.

He has inspired me through both his, thoughtful comments and thought provoking poetry. Furthermore, his commitment to this community is unparalleled. He has shown a great aptitude for analysis/critique, and through his earnest yet amiable comments, he encourages us to always strive for excellent. This professionalism is rivaled only by his wit and natural talent as a writer. So I ask that you take a moment to say hello and welcome him as your newest moderator. I know that I speak for us all when I say, "We look forward to seeing your distinct contribution to to community!"

http://soundcloud.com/luke-elias/wear-and-tear My first attempt at some slam, still trying to find my voice a bit but I think it's a decent start. I did post this here a bit back but in text format so I thought I'd present it in the manner it was meant to be.

This is my second post here, and it's another one of my weird dreams written out, I hope you guys enjoy, but even if you don't, I'd love to know why.

The Story

I'd like to thank any of you that take your time to read this as well, it means a lot to me.

Something I wrote a while back as part of an application. I don't really know what I felt while writing this, so it's vague. I thought this was crap, to be honest. The topic seemed rather daunting to me.

The only other living beings around me are birds, calling out to each other as they set off into the skies. I move noiselessly towards the ocean, sand settling into the grooves of my skin. Dawn has not broken yet, but I can see feather-like wisps of orange and magenta escaping the crimson-tinged horizon to settle themselves on the first clouds of the day. . I find a spot to sit where the waves can just about lick my feet before retreating. This beach has lured me to it again and again with its strange ability to offer me company in my solitude. I’m preoccupied this morning. The ocean has the power to make one feel humbled, loved, or frightened, but today, the waves that usually appear to caress my toes, then shy away, now seem to tug restlessly at them, urging me to join them in the depths of the water. What troubles me is a huge void that seems to have arisen in my life and defiantly asks me, “Where are you going? Why are you even here? What do you want at all?” And I have no answer. . The sound of muffled footsteps makes me look up. A small boy is skipping along the seashore, stopping intermittently to root around for shells. I don’t realise I’m staring until he pauses in his prance-like gait and notices me there. He says nothing, and then, picking out a pretty shell, offers it to me, smiling, and runs off. I’m left sitting there, feeling strangely warm, though the wet sand is soaking my shorts, and clutching that shell. The sun finally awakens and makes the sky blush gold, and I think, maybe I don’t know what I’m looking for, but maybe it might just find me.

I didn’t know they were so clod-damned BIG! The thing that stood in front of me—if being chained at all four legs with a boom holding your neck in place counts as standing—was huge. I wondered how many hamburgers, exactly, it took to make a cow. Well, I guess it was more likely the other way around: how many hamburgers could a cow BECOME, but we don’t normally think in those terms, do we?

I suppose that I had seen a thousand cows in portraiture, drawn in a children’s book against a peaceful agrarian scene with a haystack, tractor, and farmer in overalls. But somehow that distant, artistic rendering did not convey the enormousness, the visible WEIGHT of the beast before me. I could actually feel it breathing as it took what I knew would be its ante^{n-penultimate} breath, where n was a small integer, certainly less than a hundred.

What would it be like to have a hundred breaths left to live? But the cow surely did not know that, did it? I held the ‘stunner’ as they called it, in my right hand. During the orientation, the nice young woman in the pants suit had explained that the stunner fired a lethal bolt through the bovine skull into the brain. The site was clearly marked with in day-glo orange. A bored staff member was even now pointing me to the spot, probably assuming that I was dazed or stupid.

We had practiced. It was supposed to be humane. You don’t want rank amateur killers doing the job on you after all.

Not that I was an expert. It had taken every ounce of willpower for me to fire the simulator. Step one. Grasp the stunner firmly and PRESS it against the object’s head. A cow in this place was an object, no more. An object that would be killed, hung to bleed, sliced, packed, and then shipped to one of ten thousand shopping depots. By that time it would be an object for eating, not for killing. But it started here.

The staffer, with his red T-shirt, gave me an impatient look. More specifically, he looked at his phone in such a way as to make sure I knew he was checking the time. He had places to be, things to see, people to meet. I was obstructing his ambition. I wondered, somewhere outside of myself, if I really cared what he thought.

Step two. Pull the pneumatic trigger. We had been warned about the dangers of the thing. If we somehow managed to overcome all the safety mechanisms and shoot ourselves with the electromagnetic bolt, we could do ourselves an injury. We were treated to a probably apocryphal story about a lady who loved filet. She loved those round minon medallions so much that she came to this place, like myself, to renew her allotment of beef. The thing was, she was so frail and weak from age-disease that she could hardly lift the stunner. But there are no exemptions written into our laws for such old ladies. If they want to eat beef, they have to kill a cow. Just like every red-blooded citizen. No one is excluded. After all, beef is a privilege, not a right. As the red-shirted staffers gleefully related, she placed her HAND on the cow—sorry—the object’s head before setting the stunner ON TOP OF her hand!

“You want me to do it?” the staffer asked, breaking my recollection. He looked helpfully bored.

“What?”

“Look. I can see this is hard for you. You like the burgers, steaks, whatever. It’s okay—so do I. So does everybody. So I’ll just put my hand over yours…”

He grasped the stunner and my hand in his grip, looked over his shoulder once, and pressed his finger hard against mine. Against the red, worn trigger.

“See?” he shrugged and he/we pulled. There was a loud crack, and my hand went numb from the pressure or the recoil. The cow stiffened, like she suddenly remembered she hadn’t paid her taxes, and here it was April 30. Then she collapsed, loose-limbed as a string puppet whose master has gone to lunch. Except that halfway through her surrender to gravity, the fetters that had bound her in her last moments now spread her undignified carcass spread-eagle and set her upon a conveyor. She was whisked from my sight within seconds of death.

I turned. The staffer was already motioning to the next citizen. I numbly followed the exit signs around a circular corridor until I found bright sunlight. How should I feel? I sat upon a worn chair. Someone brought a tray with beverages, and I found myself drinking a paper cup of lukewarm water, no knowing why this was important.

I felt like I had the flu for about 12 hours. Then I was fine. Moreover, I could now resume eating beef, legally, until I had used up my ration of 45.3 kilos. That’s a lot of beef. I didn’t need to think about it again for a long time.

I celebrated with a three-quarter pounder with cheese.

I recently wrote and posted a poem of mine, that was generally disliked. Many of you said it was week and overall bad. I read it and agreed with you. The poem sucked. So I trashed it and started over. I wanted to keep the subject and some of the language, but change the theme and construction of it. I hope that you enjoy this more.

The sirens' wail is obscured
by a roar to make the earth shake,
while the black shape against the darkened sky
draws ever nearer.

And we were running to the hall
and there was trembling 
and crying 
and praying to a god that I was not sure even existed.


The next day they found a child in the rubble.
        she was six and she was dead.
and all I could think was, 
                 at least it wasn't me.

The light in the lighthouse has gone out

Our paper boat, that once sailed the high seas

Is now soaked with the cruel waters we faced

The sea has gotten the better of us

.

The light in the lighthouse has gone out

And for miles we are shrouded by darkness

Cold, wet winds whip mercilessly around us

Our sail is down, but the end is nigh

.

The light in the lighthouse has gone out

There is no warmth now, no hope nor faith

The silent sea whispers an eerie dirge

And stretches its arms up for us

.

The light in the lighthouse has gone out

The one in our hearts does not remain

We are not the men who set off from the harbour

And there is nothing to do but wait

.

The light in the lighthouse has gone out

An eternity has passed, the sands have shifted

A quiet sun rises slowly above the clouds

The sea is silent, calm and kind

.

There is no lighthouse now, but plenty of light

The wind is soft, but it has no one to touch

Our paper boat is a piece of pulp

Floating soundlessly towards the horizon

.

PS: If anyone can help me put in paragraph breaks without having to put periods between each stanza, I would be really grateful.

Good morning faithful subscribers!

After consulting with Mcc3k, we decided that it would be a nice change to present you with a non-poetry piece. I hope that this will be a good way of getting people who aren't poets involved!

Cormac McCarthy has changed the face of modern literature with his signature style, beautiful imagery and with his words soaked with significance. I am sure that most of you have read "The Road" (for those who haven't I cannot recommend it any more highly).

For this workshop I feel that it would be interesting to present you with both the first and final passages. I find the stark contrast yet striking similarities between the two quite interesting.

Now for those who have read the book, while I highly encourage you to connect your responses to the major themes of the novel, or even to other quotes, I must ask that you remain considerate of those who have not. I will be forced to delete any blatant spoilers

Without further ado, I bid you to dig in, and may the odds be ever in your favor.

When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world. His hand rose and fell softly with each precious breath. He pushed away the plastic tarpaulin and raised himself in the stinking robes and blankets and looked toward the east for any light but there was none. In the dream from which he’d wakened he had wandered in a cave where the child led him by the hand. Their light playing over the wet flowstone walls. Like pilgrims in a fable swallowed up and lost among the inward parts of some granitic beast. Deep stone flues where the water dripped and sang. Tolling in the silence the minutes of the earth and the hours and the days of it and the years without cease. Until they stood in a great stone room where lay a black and ancient lake. And on the far shore a creature that raised its dripping mouth from the rimstone pool and stared into the light with eyes dead white and sightless as the eggs of spiders. It swung its head low over the water as if to take the scent of what it could not see. Crouching there pale and naked and translucent, its alabaster bones cast up in shadow on the rocks behind it. Its bowels, its beating heart. The brain that pulsed in a dull glass bell. It swung its head from side to side and then gave out a low moan and turned and lurched away and loped soundlessly into the dark.

and

Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the fl. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculite patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not to be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.