MONUMENTS – By Herb Siegel Generals sit erect while marble horses rear high, fallen comrades lie etched beneath. Presidents in chiseled rocks, bodiless soldiers entombed wrapped daily in a wreath. Obelisks’ soar marking feats of heroism, granite arches harbor battles won and lost. Gravestones hiding dead from vandalism iconic landmarks stand in sun and frost. Yet end comes to […]
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I Am A Clone (Dedicated to Orphan Black) by, Melissa R. Mendelson She looks like me. Fate flashes by. She looks like me, and then she dies. I steal her life, walking dangerously along the knife, and now I’m cut open. I’m torn apart. They all look like me. Chorus: I am a clone. I don’t belong. […]
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PLAINLY INSANELY Insanity’s defined as doing many times Exactly as before, expecting different ends. Like beating horses dead, expecting to revive But never with success, yet still repeating trend. When process rules the roost, can never deviate No matter if it makes unquestioned logic to. For once the grooves are set, no possible escape Like chariots from ruts […]
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Because Because of you my heart has hatched its most treasured nerve. I am no longer nagged by the sulphur darkness that carves away the surface from my lungs. Because of you we have two more to join us on our journey. Two children, ruled by humour and the deep-drawn breath. I no longer need false conversation, struggling to […]
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Manhattan Landlord I ran a swell restaurant for many years on a good block in Manhattan. I wasn’t rich, but made a good living, paid my workers well so they were happy and passed it on to customers. Then my lease ran out. The landlord raised the rent, three hundred percent. There was no way I could […]
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Conversations over drinks on the Psychology of Isolation By David Portyanskiy I was sitting alone underneath the dark lights drinking a cocktail I couldn’t remember the name of. The days go by leaving me more and more time to drink and sit in taverns. But now I was not alone, a stranger approached me when I remained in my […]
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Sponging Up Succor I’m suffering through vinegary days, as if I’m Jesus at His Calvary. Arrested from my customary ways by modern versions of its harsh decree, I bend beneath the burden of my cross. Recalling laurels in Jerusalem, I’m painfully reminded of my loss who sport a fool’s cap for a diadem. As I secure my seat at […]
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A Portrait of Wilbur Just as one poet once wrote about a last duchess, so did the poet write about the first Wilbur. The brown clothing, smell of moth balls, scent of age of rows of books that Wilbur rested within. You have to wonder – did he read all those books, are they in progress, or are they simply […]
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There is something deeply suffocating about life today in the prosperous west. Bourgeoisification, the suburbanisation of the soul, proceeds at an unnerving pace. Tyranny becomes docile and subservient, and soft totalitarianism prevails, as obsequious as a wine waiter. Nothing is allowed to distress and unsettle us. The politics of the playgroup rules us all.
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Whispers of Hope (Dedicated to Hurricane Katrina Victims) by, Melissa R. Mendelson Tears pour over endless cries as footprints vanish in the mud left behind by those whose world has been ripped away. Stranded in a place once called home, all the dreams slip away like moments in time that we took for granted. The golden days of life […]
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