HALLOWEEN NIGHT

Wish to remain anonymous on this one:

He dressed himself as Zorro,
and quoted "Finding Nemo".
But added his own twist:
"Just keep fucking, just keep fucking."

I thought he was just being funny:
synonymous with drunk.
But when he pulled me into a room,
I didn't think at all.

Until he was inside me,
and taking me by force.
My screams wouldn't do,
not with his gloved hand over my mouth.

So I threw some punches,
but he only punced me back.
And when he was done, he zipped his fly
with a smile, and said, "Thanks, love."

And sauntered down the hall.
"Just keep fucking, just keep fucking."
And I lay bruised and bleeding.
"Just keep breathing, just keep breathing."

I'm a Primate

by shira (amy lipman)

I feel relief when your voice is flat
End of an era
Back to the Midwest
Far past the mountains
Onto a landfill
Satiated with sewage
Reaped from your cleanser
Kept in the shower
When you wash yourself clean
After a night with me

The pipes reach below ground
Then wind past my house
My parents inside
Tell me you’ll be my husband

I make your chest toned
When I weigh your heart down
With my airy head
And my plummeting neck
Onto your left side
I hear a mouse run
Round and round on a wheel I’ve coined
As my new invention
Stolen from primates
I keep at my sides
The id is released to scramble; hides

I took my first drink

by shira

The carpet was coated
With bottoms of a crowd’s cups
That stared at shoes
Blury and untied

He whispered across the table
Telling all his secrets
Girls he had this summer
And the one he loves right now

Anna asked why we all
Talked about relationships
And no one had an answer
But their mouths and drinks kept talking

I cocked my head and shook my drink
A milky mix of soy and crème de something
I was a part of the group
And my breath still smelled like mint

I didn’t really like it
Wanted to feel less light-headed
I poured the rest into the sink
And joined my friends at the table

Salty Memories

by: Starlight (Lissa Marques)


Do you remember
laying me down
on your weathered blankets
that you wrapped tightly around my trembling body?

And how you sang sweetly in my ear,
...you needed me so much closer.

Every whisper and breath
tingled down my shoulders,
my arms,
my chest
only to be soothed by your warm lips that pressed down deep with every kiss.

My tears slid down my cheeks.
A hot stream melting into your hand
as you wiped away the heat.

I looked up into your eyes hidden behind glass.
The corner of each eye gleamed with the sweetness of your salty tears.

I kissed them to never forget
...the taste
...the feeling
...the warmth
...the love,
your love

I will never forget.

I Learned One Thing or Two From Foer

By Surreal as Sunlight ::: Nik Bajaj

At first I thought it was wrong
That you lie to him
That you've kept our whole history safe
From ears that would ravage us apart

I thought his knowing of you
Was incomplete
He loves you for who you aren't
He loves his own little idea of you

It's just so cute and perfect
He slowly caresses his image
Smooth and grooveless
Never quite finding that imperfection

And then I remembered how one can love
Without even knowing
Like a foster kid to foster parent
Where is your past? Where is your father?

It's doesn't matter
Here I am for you
With this unconditional love
You don't need to prove anything to me

Just like Brod and her father
Yankel, the poor man
He loved you with all his heart
Though he wasn't your real father

And you never knew
He was always your father and nothing less
He did not need to prove it to you
You just loved him unconditionally

And just like your mother and father
Each had past lovers
But when you found out
It was so easy to forget

And maybe that's why I lied
So I shouldn't feel heartless
And sorry for a brave soul like his
There's nothing wrong with loving an image

further uninspirations.

by bachelorette

Since I knew you, I haven't been inspired to write a single word.

I haven't been inspired to do anything but eat the words I ordinarily would say and the emotions that would ordinarily weigh me down.

unapologetic
but apathetic
bed
bug
bum

(no, you don't make me feel anything)

a little bit of fact and fiction

by bachelorette

1 2 0
is the magic number
& i have fifteen to go
before i finally make it

1 + 2 + 0 =
content;
fulfilled?
appealing and firm.

I tried to hold my hand away from my mouth and together we decided to endure the hunger pains as a sort of battle for our fat America and for our bodies

YOUR JEWISH NAME is more lovely
Than the names of any of my gods
by m t swanberg

Between her legs
I was a god
In complete control
of her breath

I was the god of
how she moved in time with me

of the way we tried to work as one
even though we both knew
that wasn’t the truth
there was a distance between us

yet
I still pushed into her
To leave myself
And she took me in
like a refugee Of some distant war
In some small European country

And she taught me her language
so I filled books with her dialect
I practiced speech in the dark
I read whatever she put in front of me

And I came to pray at her altar
On my knees in plush carpet
Kissing the rings on her fingers
Burying my face in her lap

And we were wed
In a small ceremony under her sheets
she asked me if I took her
And of course I said yes

hello out there

anattempt has been around for over a year.
that's still seems pretty crazy to me

i remember when it was just mike and i last summer. i wasn't sure if it would catch on... but like everything mike swanberg puts his mind into, it did.

i'm glad so many of you are posting and i even though i don't post as much as i should, it's nice to check back and see something new every time.

i was wondering who's really posting and who's reading. i thought for maybe a little while, the codenames could be revealed so some familiar faces could come through.

just a thought

love to naperville from minnesota,
turtledove - sarah bassett

I am not in my right mind

by shira

You listened to my fingers
And said they’d turn the pages
Of a leather-bound book
I’d write while lying in a grave

Of a man I wished I’d known
Before his brain was served to ghosts
On a wooden platter bathed
In smoke and hailed for its flame

When I sing and when I kneel
Know that I’m only shitting truth
Out of my gums
I’d rhyme with lungs here
If I meant I were still breathing

I am a light without a match
Sparked by a dry eye socket
Drenched with pins and needles
From every night till this one

Griefcase

by Surreal as Sunlight

The dead leaves sponged out from under my feet
I held my black and white print newspaper over my head like a business man
Except I was not wearing a suit

Yet I swiftly walked the street like a New York business man
And I held all your troubles in my hand by way of a griefcase

And this is my work
My case is full of my concern
For your well being
Business as usual

Let me take your troubles.
I'll file them awayto be organized years later

And every other Friday will be payday
Where I'll realize how much love I have
I'll just gain more and more
As I am promoted through the positions

I'll bring home the love for everyone
and we can share it together and bathe in it
And we won't need anything else
Because all you really need is love.

Purple Petals

by: Starlight


The azaleas always bloom once more in the fall

Something that only the chilled air can bring new life

While the leaves of tress lay lifeless,

New life breeds beauty...Purple petals

My only cure for new life consists of endless cups of coffee

Sleep never amounts to anything

Unused hours of dreams that never come true

I have so many thoughts I can only feel blank

Like how every color of light mixed together makes white...

Domestic Disturbance

by shira

Turn the lights out and
We’ll leave your house
On its street
With crumbling rocks
Of cinder and ash and pine needles
Take the sap from a spear and stick it to a shingle
We climbed the roof when your parents were gone

I’m writing poems
When you’re taking punches
At last weeks leftovers
I burned in the oven

You’ll raise the children
I’ll write some more words
About the golden hair they could have had

I didn’t think they’d turn out so dark
Who knew they’d make me lighter
Out of my body
Into my arms

I have no children
We have no union
Only under a roof
We stood on as kids

By: Starlight


She wants to go home,
to her bed,
to sleep,
to never wake up.

He wants to be set free,
to fly,
to see.

She cannot sleep without
capturing him in her thoughts,
her dreams.

He cannot fly being bound;
her chain
keeps him down.

She walks in the pouring rain;
it drenches her skin.

She clenches the key

He pecks at her fist

She looks down slips the key in its place and turns.
With a click he rises to the clouds.

She falls into a mass of pillows and blankets, wide awake.
"He will return, someday."

Honest Lover(s)

by Surreal as Sunlight

He sat next to her in the sand
The breeze blew hard in their faces

Why do you always ask me such deep questions? she asked.
It is the way I kiss your mind, he said.

Then why is it that you kiss the backs of my earlobes?
You decorate the front and try to make it look pretty, but the back is just as beautiful, so I kiss it.

Then why is it that you kiss my back?
Your back is deprived. All the past men spent so much time kissing your chest, I think your back is just as beautiful.

And why must you blow kisses if I can not see you blowing them?
Because I know they will reach you through my love, he replied.

Why do you not kiss me on the lips anymore? he asked.
Because I do not love you, she told him.

Some Shells Are Born Empty

by Surreal as Sunlight

Under the seas of
Thailand where the
Sun rays dance drunk

Deeper and deeper
I swim to the bottom
Where this pirate ship has sunk

Further and further
From the shore
I’ve left myself on deck

Off the coast of
Koh Tao where the
Borka had its wreck

The beauty of the life down here
Lets me forget hideous life back there
I wouldn’t dare go back.
I wouldn’t ever go back.

Trapped by the eyes of an octopus so stunning
It creeps up the coral with an attitude so cunning
Floating towards it with no control
Losing any power over this body

A giant white curtain
Clamps down on me
What is it I’m uncertain
It’s all I see

And my back is crammed
Against the pearl
I should not have forgotten
The back home girl

Paralyzed by this bivalve
I’m kicking my way out
But my legs aren’t moving
I would shout, but no one would hear me

Suffocating in water
Drowning in regret
Let me out
Let me fix it

I promise it’ll be better this time
I promise I wont run away
You are lost
Because it is too late

I once had a headache from one too many oranges

by shira

We put holes in buildings
Fresh air is good for breathing
But I need more and
Use a baseball or a fist
Shards of my aquaintances
Get stuck between the panes

Scaling the stairs
To take us to our rooms
Tires out our legs and
Liberates our thighs
We all come in pairs
With our best friends and our bookends keeping words off of their sides

The walls inside my scented oil bathroom pick up grime
Of girls all down the hallway
Injecting color to their faces
Dimensions divide all the rooms
Puff up to wake up raccoon-eyed
And maybe with a drowned-rat boy lying in bed

The empty spaces I stay close to
Make me feel like an orange
Avoided by someone who wants
A drunken scoop of something
Walls between us take up space
Like I would in a punch bowl

too much......

a weeks worth of writing, that i didnt even want to show the attempt audience... i dont know how many of you there are, and its okay if you dont wade through toooo many sentences and conflicted metaphors, well similies at least.

Whitehorse.....mike swanberg



PENWAY COMPOSITIONS
100 LEAVES

These are the first words
To ink this new notebook
And I am filled with the hope
That they might set the tone
The rest of my words could follow
Like children to school
Ducks
Anything

This is the second stanza in my
New notebook
And I would hope
It remains as powerful as the first…
If I have started a firm beginning
Then it is only fair that I continue
With strength, that my later words
Carry the power those first ones did
When I was a few minutes younger

This is the third realization
In a poem about a new notebook
That turns into a poem about
My father the longer you read it
Or maybe its more of a poem
About his dad, who is dead, or
Maybe his brothers who are not.

He is fourth in the line of children
And by some strange twist of
Whatever or whoever twists
These things
He was forced to become his own
Father
Forced to work in a steel shop
To provide for younger siblings

I watched his little brother, my uncle, the fifth
Look at him in the same way I do
With that some longing for approval
With those same sad eyes

These are the first words
To ink this new notebook
And I still hang to the hope
That they might set the tone
All my other words could follow


HALEY, and the blue moon
That left me standing alone

I am writing this in the library
October 4th, a day before you read it

And it feels like every time I move
My wrist I am signing my own death
Certificate

The death of a salesman
Who sold nothing but himself to
Spectators

If you give me five dollars I will
Deny jesus Christ three times
If you fill me with wine
I will fuck you
Then sit on the end of the bed
Glistening with sweat and your smell
Fumbling for pages to write
Poems

About the way I felt, inside of you
The way I felt inside of a t shirt
Some other girl gave me to wear…

And when I say some other girl
I mean blair-----

Do not confuse the name
She is she always…in everything
In ink, shadows the way I would
Kiss you, if I ever felt like kissing

Again

I am writing this the day before
You read it, a statement that will
Only come true once.
But it means something to me
That you understand that

This isn’t a comet
Or a cycle of the moon
There is no reader or writer

Only me, only you.

Tied in the fact that today is
Today for both of us

That tomorrow is tomorrow always



THE WAY DEEP WATER FEELS
I could tell she was beautiful
Even though she was only lit up
In a street light

And I must have been fifty feet away
But there was a certain grace to her.

Maybe it was her hair,
maybe it was everything but

the way it didn’t fit her at all

and I kept thinking I could
be the handsome guy who walks up
and marries her-

if I could ever get over the fact that
I could be that handsome guy who
Walks up and marries
Her-

So my life remains a story I tell myself
As I walk to and from
Conflicted conversations
Where hellos mean –please don’t leave me-
And goodbyes mean –I will call you when I get home-

And maybe im not that person
And this girl might grow

uncomfortable

With my blue eyes
On her tangerine skin
Dyed by the single street light
But perhaps not.
Because what if she wanted to be seen?
Maybe that’s why she was standing
Below it in the first place?



THE PEN I KEPT CHEWING ON

The red pen is for corrections
Blue pens for my mother
Pencils for me

But I sit here with a papermate-ballpoint
And consider the poems I might
Write
In red and white

My high school colors
Two thirds of a joke about a zebra
With a sunburn

And corrections
For the day?
For a lifetime?
For my thoughts?

I put the pen down and press
My ring fingers into my eyes
I need to sleep more
I need to need less

And my internal eye explodes
In a fireworks display
Of straining ocular nerves
A clear view of pressures
Response inside the body

Some people carry guns
I guess I should carry red pens
And apologize less








Why we will name our daughter alma
I sit and I write
A life time of false and true statements

Q: What are your new poems about?
A: you

Q: What about me?
A: the way you ask me what my
New poems are about.

I sit and I write
A lifetime of one sided stories

Q: do you think we will ever get married?
A: yes

Q: do you think we will have children?
A: would you like to?

I sit and I write
in one of my fathers
Old wool suits

Q: do you think you will be a good father?
A: I would hope so.

Q: do you tell your dad you love him?
A: ……………..

I sit and write an
Imagined dialogue with her

Q: should we get a dog?
A: probably, im allergic though…

Q: do you think you will be a good father?
A:………….

I sit and write
False and true statements

Q: what are your newest poems about?
A: Me

Q: what about you?
A: you















THE PROACTIVE SOLUTION

She pulled me into bed
With one of those looks that said
If you let me pull you into bed
I will fuck you

And I followed with one of those looks
That wants to know her middle name

Its Marie
Like my mothers
She had brown hair
Like my mother
She seemed lonely
…………….

And we both had a few drinks
So it was okay
It didn’t matter that I didn’t know
What junior high she went to
Or the places she drives
When she’s pissed off

And she started kissing me
And I wanted to kiss her
With my eyes closed
With my palms open
Grabbing for flesh
That isn’t the same shade as yours

But I kept missing
And I kept talking
About my childhood
The places I have lived
And the dreams I had

And the infomercial
That was playing on the television
For clear skin that I will never have
For white teeth, that I will never have
For happiness, that I will never have
In bed with the same girl
Who tried to fuck my roommate
Just last week.

And so I let her fall asleep
with her back to me
and I left silently

And she knew me
Because im the boy
Who plays guitar and screams

because
My words move
Through the vents
While everyone else tries to study
Or sleep
Or fuck
Or breathe

And I just write
And write
And need
















JAMES CASTLE and other phonies

I need to fall into the bed
Of another day
Between sky blue sheets

And sleep the sleep of
Mechanical
Engineers/ coal miners/ janitors
Anyone who spends their day
Actually working

As I sit in the library
And consider the weight of books
And how many it would take
To crush you

How many words that would be
How many hours it took
To shape those words

I sit and chew a pen
And consider

how I should gather up my favorite books
hold them in my arms like children
And jump from the fifth floor

Spread my arms like wings

Land with a clatter on marble
Right by the security desk

We would all have broken spines
And they would wonder
Why
I didn’t chose

The catcher in the rye
















How to gain three inches.

I was walking barefoot
Around campus
With my shoes held lightly
In my fingertips

Like a drunk girl
Who had had enough
Watermelon shots

they don’t even taste
Like watermelon

They don’t taste like
Alcohol either
Is that why she kept drinking?

And I would be the guy
Who offered up his bed
Who kissed her
Even though she didn’t taste
Like kisses

And then I would give in to
Heavy breath
And the pressure
Of my friends back home
And myself against blue jeans
And her against me
In a twin bed.

What if she slept with her earrings on
Would I let those silver loops
Halo
What she heard
Would I consider her an angel?

Or would I slip my hand up the front
Of her shirt
Bring my fingertips
Over the top of a black bra
And touch her like that.

If she didn’t resist would I try to put my hand
Down the front of too tight pants
Right past the Japanese symbol
For heaven

And if I ever met saint peter

Would he judge me as the boy
Who slipped his fingers inside because he could
Or as the boy who walked barefoot on a sunny day
And tried to figure out how to start a love poem










OUR SECRETS SLEEP IN WINTER CLOTHES
I never asked her to swallow
I never thought to

And my friends told me
In darkness’s
About how their girlfriends did
And about coming onto tits

They called it a pearl necklace
And I let my imagination
Run exactly where it was supposed to

And a girl talked about how
You should swallow
Because it lets the boy feel
Like he was inside of you
Really inside of you

But I already knew
That I was inside of her

In the way she wrote her name

And the way she kisses the roof
When she drives through yellow
Lights

And I try to go back to moments
With her and I
In a bed big enough
For the both of us
I was looking up at plastic stars

She was kissing me
And I was breathing so hard

And I knew she was inside of me
And all I had to swallow

Was my fingerprints
Any trace of a life before her
It went down my throat
And coated it

Taught me how to speak
So I did
Taught me how to sing
So I never stopped

And we always kissed on the lips
Even when she hated me
Even when she broke my heart

lost in translation

by: tinny tulle

It's funny now that I am remembering talking to you on a plane
We were flying back home and I had just gotten to know you
Or know what you were portraying-and I liked it, we got along so well
And I remember you saying that I deserved something better something better than him
But you couldn't help you had already fallen in love
And you said something one day and I think you meant it, no matter your condition
But we'll never know, I'll never ask, and you'll never tell
But that's how it got to be
Things change and you and I have grown apart
I know your doing well and I'm doing fine here without you
But I miss our connection
We could talk about anything
I lost that somewhere in my translation
Of what we are or what we were supposed to be

The Soundtrack of Girl I Saw Walking Down The Street and Why I Know She's In Love

by Surreal as Sunlight

The clicking of her stilletto heels
Increased in volume as
She led her music in my opposite direction

forte. Forte.

Her curly bangs
The color of the sun as we see it
Gently rippled on her foreheard

forte. Forte.

Her eyes up at the sky
They are deep in thought
I am invisible.

Piano. piano.

Everything around her silences out
The music stops
She is nowhere to be found

Piano. piano.

She bursts into laughter
Her smile can't be hidden behind her lips
Her palms can't even stay straight enough to rise to her face

Forte!

Her music is erratic
Her legs are weakened
And her laughter can't be held in.

Forte.

Her love fills every note to make it whole
Lasting the full measure
The song is much too loud to comprehend anything else.

writer's block

by shira

i cannot write
poems, no.
more

i'll try try try to try harder.
yes, i can't know
how it is to be
a real writer
since i attempt perfection
the way birds fly south
in little v's
yes yes
that's what my striking lines through weak words look like

vvvoom!
i can erase so quickly
strangling nice rhymes
i'll make clash and spark and smoke instead

not a typist or a novelist or a journalist or a prophetess
i can
write with a pen
and type with my hand
while the other one
is scratching my head
is pounding
with each thought i fight
and kill
before getting down
i let them get away
with murder

they kill the trees
i just throw away paper
when i've wasted the language's time
typing hundreds of words per minute
clapping my hands for hesitant impulses

The Best Medicine (you don't have it)

by Surreal as Sunlight

Yes, she smiles
That goofy cute smile of hers
but there is never the sound of her voice
wavering in and out in a smiling fashion

I'll crack jokes
I'll make my face look so goofy
just to hear it
but nothing comes out

is your funny bone not funny?
does your stomach not hurt after all the laughing
oh yeah. nope.

Knock Knock
Who's there
Your sense of humor
my sense of humor who?

Yeah I know.

How can I spend these evenings with you
Doing what you love
Doing what I love
If I can't laugh with you

What's the point of being with anyone
Who you can't lay around and laugh with.

It's just like the times
You type in the letters
L-O-L

But you're not really laughing out loud.

Maybe a smile.
That's the most I'll get.

So you know what?

AHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAH.

I'd take the medicine to my veins if I could.

.....

lol.

If you were here

by shira

If you were here
I would not be aching
From muscles trying to remember
What it feels like to touch you

And I'd never be scared
Heart beats would be regular
And a healthy decibel
I’d let you hear

If you were here
I’d be here too
Because there is some part of me
In some part of you
That with my best thinking
In your arms, in your mind, in my life, in all these times
I gave it away

So I guess we’ll have to wait
Keeping parts of the other in
Letting parts of ourselves out
To get a little closer
As the days we’ll spend together
Come a little nearer