[x]

Insert Title _1We, the petty,
we, the bourgeois,
poring over mirrors of reflected, collected verse,
only we could drown
in the shallow pools of our own desires.
Self-worth and efficacy distort, distend,
dilate.
Our longing sighs inflate
gauzy bladders, diaphanous,
and we fancy them substantial because they are large -
(We say much the same of our philanthropy.)
- seeking no synonyms,
though "bloated" comes to mind.

A pseudonym can shelter
the sodden intellect, emaciated,
denigrated by false modesties.
How quaint.
How deep, the brainy poet
who breathes his own despite
behind alabaster walls,
sherry perched atop whalebone fingers,
slosh

GardenIn my head there is a garden
All flowers are in full bloom
Filled with warm beauty of all kinds
Never withering in the light
Thousands of mellow scents so softly
The wind carries along
Floating like balmy breezes
They tell of flower's glory

I my head there is a garden
Which drinks the light of the night
In which many kinds of flowers bloom
After the sun went down to sleep
Blossoms with imaginary glows
Unfold in deep silence
They are of a spectral kind
And as fragile as thin ice

My mind is one single garden
Where flowers of every kind grow
It's even filled with such unique kinds
Which grow and glow only at night
But what ha

Dirty IvoryStrolling out from a
stranger's apartment,
I remembered yesterday's
morning; I
remember the sunrise.

I remember
walking behind the
alleyway in the
mud
rain
sun.
With the gravel beneath
my feet making a
crunching sound, but
not actually
getting crushed.
More like,
getting pushed around like
too many faces in a
crowd.

I remember
warm
orange clouds.

I
remember a
man with a trenchcoat
under one arm.
Lighting a new
cigarette with the ash
of his spent one.
-And the word "silk"
tatooed on his wrinkled
knuckles.

I
remember his
wings, most of
all, his ivory
wings.

Black HoleIn the center of a galaxy lies a dark vortex…
As young stars branch out it eats away at the old
From this path it will not flex,
For none will it a second withhold…
No sun is too big, it devours great power,
Nor, any moon too small to escape notice,
They are all pulled into its depths to disappear forever—
Though, it also the force that spins the spiral…
The engine that drives, from which purpose derives.

THE CROWGlistening feathers,
Blacker than the darkest night
A specter weaving through the clouds
Majestic is his flight

So beautiful,
Piercing eyes reach into my soul
From the netherworld he will come
When I am no longer whole

An enigma,
Spawned from the magick of old
In a lingering mist he waits
Cast in velvet shadows so cold

Silent wind,
Roses fall upon my grave
Talons clasp my fading spirit
A fallen love will he save

Destiny,
Shrieks echo across a leaden sky
Life descends to the arms of death
Scarlet tears begin to fly

Tragedy,
Memories my heart cannot sever
Broken dreams whisper —
real love is forever

— A

I took offMy day off.
I stand in sunlight
without asking.
I can watch it being day.

The mud is soft and cool at home.
I'd bury well without a casket,
I’ll be a naked pill for earth.

I build a garden box from wood,
smash my thumb.
Red bell
peppers;
too late for lettuce.

I had a premonition
I would live like this.
No one will remember me.
I’ll forget by Tuesday.

running through the rain.I used to feel so many things
I used to feel

you broke
you twisted
them

it was warm, safe
encl(in your arms)osed

but your words were too

F R
A
G ME

N
T
E D

you cannot reach me entirely not all of me.

I don't want to feel your pain
your anger any more
I don't want to accept that all I have left is nothing.

you didn't encircle me
you had no loving embrace
reminding me sorely
a collar
a choke-chain
a NOOSE

breakmyneckbruisemymemoriesdrinkmyblood

because I'd do anything for that warmth
the sun goes behind the clouds
I'm vanishing-
beyond the horizon

I want to hurt you stand beside you once more

TrellisI teach a caterpillar
How to conceal its markings
On a grapevine that grasps
The trellis, trimming

Chewed leaves. Bigger
Bite marks upon bite marks.

A rotten apple-core chrysalis
Is hanging on a vine.

All it ever does is change.

I taught the grapevine
Where to grasp the trellis.

And all it ever does is want.

Memory bankThere are things you save
for the end of the world.

Hidden paragraphs, streams of images
unwatched, unread for years and years.
Pieces of straw, bits of that one tree,
dried grass in old shoes, strands of their hair, the
important ones.

In boxes, in folders, in closets, so high
and lower than kissing dirt.
The untouched places
you never look
for fear
of lack of recognition.

You think you remember the songs,
the smells, the liquid chime.
You kept them safe
as copies.

But when the day comes
and the light slides shyly in,
there may be only
dust and
dust and
dust.

Everything
runs from
everything.

The Siren - 2In the dream, Sandie was weightless. She had dreamed that sort of thing before, though, and understood that it would not last. When she dreamed that she was floating, it was only a matter of time before she dreamed that she fell.

It was an odd sensation, floating there in the dream. She could hear the world – cars and a dog and the rumble of a jet passing overhead – but there was nothing to see. She tried to raise her hand in front of her face, but she had no hand, either.

I'm a Presence, she decided. A Presence floating in space. That was comforting, because a Presence could not fall. She listened to the sound of the highway.

da

Reflecting VisageA presence always sends ripples running across the water's surface
Disturbing the image of Heaven it holds close
We are able to touch the skies for its generosity
Cold and clear
Embracing and universal, yet unique
The sky defines the face
The day, the identity
The world paints the visage
We see and may touch
But to touch is to send a ripple
Obscuring features and the words of a picture
Looking at the Heavens
Made in God's image
Humanity's face is a subtle water
Always reflecting.

AN ANCIENT MUSEI am an oracle blazing, bleeding worlds in ink
and smoke, gilding creation with my navel's illume
of temple light, a thousand serpents hide in my
ancient tissue, they taste the secrets of the tomb
as the Dark splits open and the Light spills free,
these serpents who coil inside my primordial womb
I know them as I know myself, in me do they grow,
I give birth to them and my inner moon.

I am a jewel exhuming a memory from Winter's
ice-milk silhouette, soaking my crescent eyes
in honeyed wine so they will be intoxicated on
Purity's ethnicity, under gently kindled skies
I soothe the creases from the seasons with my
Pythian clarity-trembling vows

Half-Past a Different Kind of BrokenTrauma looks like my kitchen clock.
The hours,
minutes,
they are dead
and the second hand stutters,
heartbroken.
I imagine every inconsequential twitch
is a plea for the freedom
it will never see again.
When its futile heart finally gives out,
I won't try to fix the timepiece
because after all its wasted sufferings,
allowing again such a disjointed tic
would be a deeper level of cruelty.

CombustionI can smell the smoke from fires
that tease the sky outside,
in suburban gardens
that make up this city;
set around a cathedral
like the centre of a clock face.

From the inhalation
I have ash on my tongue
and on my teeth.
It may whiten the enamel
the way bicarbonate soda does.
My smile reads like a newspaper,
may I replace it daily
as I press the grey into my gums
and try to outwit my reflection.

I have gathered cuttings
from new growths;
the saplings are far too young burn.
They must know the flames.
I hear them scream
from beneath the bark –
it does not burn but blacken.

The blossom is browning
having fallen from the branch
beside

let's gosusurrous, the whispers you form
when you become citrus and star
shaped, ladling
those lightyear sheep, fishing for
words that bob and slip
before they sink
in;
we are, we are
free
you remind me
that we are, we are;
hawkish and sun-scorched,
diced and divided, pilgrims scurrying through
cement-swollen grocery stores with salmon-bone
shelves plying meat, boxed fruit and rectangle
cheeses and lines built to breathe all the same
way -
but we are, we
are free, you
remind me
of cinder-sky puddles and deserts
where the very stones are pilgrims,
the hand raised to fend off lemon light
and so makes a web -

Browse More Like This

Download File
HTML, 487 bytes more ▶

More from =QuiEstInLiteris

Morning VerseThe morning makes me reckless
with the smell of coffee curling
through my veins in electric
tendrils,
and the pen betwixt my fingertips
shooting feelers through my brain,
and a single dying star
burning in the dawn-green
East.
The morning makes me restless
with the promise of the day
and the breath of open windows
and the smooth relief of
ink;
so in the morning, like a child
celebrating life
I turn my words in dances.

The Vigil - 4

The Chief

The screamer docked alongside a row of similar craft, each with just as much damage and innovative repair as Qaar's own boat. The hangar was empty of people, but no welcoming party was necessary; Qaar knew her own way through the Ziwa archipelago's flagship. She released her screamer's seals and swung herself through the hatch, landing hard in the ship's heavy artificial gravity.

"Glad it didn't fall apart around you," said a rough voice from the comm by the door. "Come down to the hall, and we'll discuss your fare."

Qaar laughed. "What," she said, "pay for passage on this scow? It smells like an exhaust filter."

"Insulting my s

The Lions' Den - II have no wish to chronicle the events of that first year. Much of it I spent sunk in a mindless and fluid dreamlike state, aware of but unable to control my actions. I passed, drifted, from town to town through the country, killing by night while by day I haunted the crossroads and squares like a vagrant. In some places, the people pitied me, and I slept warm for an hour or two before some peasant's fire until my fragmented mind again drove me into the cold, or my altered flesh again drove me to kill. Never did I cease to move across the landscape, always fleeing the grief and horror that sprung up in my wake. Never did I speak to a soul, th

Autumn RainsThe Texas autumn, breached,
pours forth cathartic drops,
an ecstasy of tears
to cleanse her dusty eyes of the agonizing fall.

The brow of Texas boils
in cloudy greys and thunder
amid coyote calls electric
down the city-slicker's spine
dropping low.

The breath of Texas chills -
a saw-blade through the heat -
and screams the cloud stampede
across the hills.

The voice of Texas condescends
to whisper in the huisatch
and whistle in the Spanish daggers
sparring with the mockingbird
to sing before she roars.

The mercy of Texas
is no relief -
this wild trickster goddess burns

then drowns.

SacrificeYou are gone
but I remain
alone and mourning
impotent.
I would devour the earth
I would drink the seas dry
I would burn the sky
and boil all human tears to nothing
I would put out the stars
I would spit on the sun
and salt my wounded eyes
to touch your hand once more.

But I am a servant
the lowest
a child of dust
with no power to touch the sky.
So I will touch my heart instead
and since you cannot come back to me,
I will go to you, my hope
touch my heart and still it,
and I will come to you.

Chance of SnowA quiet man in a camel-coloured sweater sat alone in the far corner of the cafeteria, where the lunch line met the freethrow line, as it happens in very small schools that cafeterias and gymnasiums often exist in tandem.

The quiet man in the camel-coloured sweater sipped from a steaming mug of gritty coffee, that thick and restorative staple of the educator's diet. He was eating a red pen in place of a lunch, grinding and rolling its butt between his teeth as he contemplated the papers before him. A stack of problems in various phases of completion and in various states of legibility, some stained with cola and some with dip, others spattere

View Gallery · View Prints

Featured in Groups:

#written-from-within
Written From the Soul

#Writers-Guild-DA
writers everywhere

#Constructive101
Contructive Criticism

#ThePoetryofDA
DA Poetry Club

#dA-Literature
Write to live, and live to write

#The-Write-Group
You're in the write place.

#DarkFantasyArtists
Emotional dark fantasy worlds

#Eerie-and-Enchanting
Art from the Heart

Show all (46)

Details

Submitted: June 18, 2012
File Size: 487 bytes

Link

Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 79
Favourites: 205 [who?]
Views: 2,906 (0 today)
Downloads: 35 (0 today)

[x]

Fortunato's Prayer

by =QuiEstInLiteris, Jun 18, 2012, 5:04:41 PM
Literature / Poetry / Horror / Free Verse

Lure me in with silk and gold,
beaded velvet, satin threads
drawn across lips still red with wine.

Draw me down beneath the world
into some secret, wanton lair
while Carnival still beats within our veins.

Wall me up behind the dark
and leave me with my silver chains
to think on wiles byzantine,

Montresor's bleak design.

Fortunato's Prayerby =QuiEstInLiteris

Literature / Poetry / Horror / Free Verse

©2012-2013 =QuiEstInLiteris

Written for

For the original image, visit

by

~~joy 0 0~~

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

=LadyofGaerdon Jul 26, 2012 Professional Writer

Hi! Your piece has been featured in #Lit-Visual-Alliance's Third Allied Artwork Feature! Please

the article to bring attention to the feature.

Reply

=QuiEstInLiteris Jul 28, 2012 Professional Writer

8D Thanks!

Reply

=LadyofGaerdon Jul 28, 2012 Professional Writer

Sure.

Reply

`thetaoofchaos Jul 2, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

very nice.

Reply

=QuiEstInLiteris Jul 3, 2012 Professional Writer

^^ Thanks!

Reply

*tanafeyroyale Jun 27, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

I really love this

Reply

=QuiEstInLiteris Jun 27, 2012 Professional Writer

Thank you! ^^

Reply

*tanafeyroyale Jun 27, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Welcome

Reply

Mood: Love

~blackwolf5496 Jun 24, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

such a beautiful piece! i absolutely love Poe's Cask of Amontillado and ur poem fits it perfectly!
lovelovelove!!!

Reply

=QuiEstInLiteris Jun 25, 2012 Professional Writer

^^ Thank you!

Reply