Month: November 2020

Millions of lights
Each with a story

Across the city lines
Eternal beauties

Horns and neon
What are they hiding

Towers and bridges
Where is this ending

Let the wind roll off your back
Like a drop of rain
Feel the cool drop
As it falls from the sky to meet you
Its journey has seen many things
Been many places
Let its lessons ease your soul
And take you to places
You have only dreamed of
Let it ask your heart to dance
Become wet with its essence
Find a place
Where you feel safe and secure
Love yourself a little
And realize you too
Could be that drop of rain.

“The day President Harding died, Paul picked me up
in his Ford Model A Pickup. We worked
the gold mine near Franklin Mountain. I swigged
A & W Root Beer, chewed Slim-Jims. Paul rolled
a cigarette, then we rumbled toward the mine.

That Thursday, another cloudless day, sweltering. No breeze.
Hot enough it’d about wilt tobacco. Bearable 100 feet down.
I picked and shoveled rocks and dirt into wheelbarrows.
A few young bucks toted them, dumped into a large bin
attached to ropes. Mules pulled it to the surface.

Hell, we might get a few cents per ton. I must’ve sweated a bucketful
by quitting time. Most miners had no shoes. Damp black soil
stained our bare feet over our ankles. Locals called us ‘Black-anklers’
but shopkeepers didn’t mind our money. After work
that Thursday evening a few of us miners climbed

on a foreman’s truck and he drove us toward Steeds,
the truck kicking up clouds of dust—the fool drove real fast.
Quarter mile from Steeds, he gunned the pedal on a curve and
the truck listed—we slammed to one side, headed down a slope,
flipped over and over. I struck a pine tree and was out like a light.

I woke, black as night, on a speeding train with all sorts of people—
some dressed highbrow, some in rags. Behind the engine, our car had
no windows. Some dark figure shoveled coal into the roaring furnace.
The engineer turned his head—face was dark with soot and evil looks.
The boiler roared. We zoomed faster and faster, got hotter and hotter.

We yelled ‘Stop!’ but the engineer waved as wind whipped our cheeks.
He yelled “You paid full fare and now you’ll pay your due.’
He slammed brakes and we screeched to a stop. ‘Welcome to paradise.’
Dark things prodded us off with burning rods. It was so hot my shirt
and dungarees singed, burned my face like splattering grits but

it was darker than a mine shaft. We were blind as moles.
It smelled foul—like sulfur, rotting roadkill, sour milk.
I screamed, felt like I was thrown into lava. All around me
yelling, screaming, crying, cursing. Never heard the like. Tried to run
but the ground was hot as roofing tar on my bare soles. Kept jumping.

Then I felt someone snatch my wrists, pull me upward
and I blinked awake by a tree at dusk. The other miners stirred,
inspected scrapes, bruises. I felt a goose-egg on my brow and a bloody lip.
We staggered to the road, hitched a ride to Steeds.” The reporter paused,
put in another cassette. I rocked, sipping black coffee, smoking, flicking ashes.

“That’s about it. Never drank no white liquor since, near sixty years.
Joined a church, got serious about the Lord and the Word. You saved?”
The reporter cleared his throat. “Well, this isn’t about me; it’s about you.”
“Cannot remember those verses dad used to read about,
about some train, but I swear, I think I rode on it.”

Performed by Hannah Ehman

Performed by Hannah Ehman

POEM:

I’m lying in bed, and the curtains are certainly drawn. The sun is peeking through every crack, and peeling my eyes open with morning. I don’t wanna get up. I wanna fight this morning with every blanket and roll over I have. I could win with my fists full of air punches and leg kicks. I can feel this sleep haze consume me and it’s impossible to shake. I wanna curl up and ball the fuck out. I’m not feeling lazy but I’m feeling so incredibly lost that I’m nowhere. I’m in a white room drowning above water. I’m in a large crowd screaming with no voice. I can’t move. I can’t breath. I can’t live. There are no walls but I feel trapped. Where am I and how did I get to this point? Who am I anymore or ever? Is this normal? Am I normal?

Getting out of bed and dressing myself feels like an accomplishment. As I walk down the busy street the world feels muffled. It’s as if I’m underwater and people are shouting at me. All I can hear is the gargled existence that life is out there somewhere. Should I swim deeper so I can’t hear them? Would I ever need to come up for air? Do I even want air anymore? Can I just evolve into this is ness and form some sort of gill like substance to stay alive down here in the grey mute darkness…?

I snap to someone in front of me snapping their fingers telling me they want non fat milk with no foam. I blink twice and respond with a blank nod. Barista life is a hard place to work from the disposition of a rock. My entire body feels so numbly hard that if you slapped me, I couldn’t notice. Yet I feel so brittle that I could shatter into the cup I just dropped. Fuck I did it again. Pay attention. Stay here. As I look around the small coffee shop, the only thing still moving is the perpetual background tunes that you can count on. The same tunes that play at every artsy hipster haunt. Everyone is staring. Heck everything has suddenly sprouted eyes and also is staring. Can I shrink or should I just melt at this point.

Suddenly the world around me freezes. All is quiet aside from those constant background tunes. Everyone is stunted in mid action. As I walk around and wave and scream at faces, no one will wake up. No one will move. Now I️ feel truly alone…

http://annualbliss.wordpress.com/

Genre: Surreal

I promised myself
I swore to myself I would never do it again
But the empty glass kept calling me
The drink keeps pouring
All I just want is one more glass
I promise you it would be my last
All I need is One Drink have one more for my taste buds
Maybe hang out with a few of my buds
One more toast for my buds
At least they will show me some love
I hope it would be enough
A glass filled with a little excitement
Let me take a moment
Take a sip
Here comes the excitement
Fulfillment of everyone’s satisfaction to end my drunk mission
Educate my life back to normality and soberness
But all I want is one last thing
One last important thing
All I want is one more glass
Just to make it last
Just One Drink

http://www.shanniealvarez.com/

He is life,
A great, mystical tree,
Symbolic in nature,
Eternally free.
She is root,
Hidden, deep below,
With a foundation enduring,
She is a mystery to know.
Combined is the essence of Him.
Revealed is the depth of love Divine,
Captured, perfectly, over a history of time.
Good and bad,
Back to their own identity.
As it was in the garden,
The One tree of serenity