2024-01-04

poetry/g/garden-gym.txt

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+a garden in the corner of a gym
+2020-01-16
+
+***
+
+the presiding queen rules over her patch of concrete
+resentful of the hole in her chest, woefully incomplete
+and her knees and shoulders have betrayed her too many times
+so she sits on her patch and looks down on us from up high
+
+a coercive building made of ancestors' malice
+she watches the children as she sips from chalice
+contorting their bodies in impossible ways
+but no empathy resides in her stony gaze
+
+all bow down at the command of a robotic voice
+programming the class to believe they have no choice
+to bend, extend, repeat, give false confession
+rear ends in the air, youthful limbs ready for inspection
+
+rain's cold air banished, air stuffy and hot
+a door to freedom bolted shut and locked
+maybe, if we lift these weights on the count of ten
+we will lift ourselves straight up to heaven
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/g/gaze_rank.txt

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+Gaze Rank
+2023-02-18
+
+***
+
+Something that gets worse if left unattended,
+but also devolves the more you poke at it.
+Funny thing it is, a creative block.
+I go for a few days
+without honoring the urge to create
+and I feel like I rolled in a trough full of slop.
+But if I try to push forward,
+the less the images coherently come,
+stillborn,
+unformed,
+uninspired with shriveled lungs.
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/g/gemini.txt

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+Gemini
+2020-06-19
+
+***
+
+the cathedral's bells ring
+horseshoe mounted above the doorframe
+from the pastor's mouth drip words:
+"confess and you shall be made whole"
+
+you stand at the pulpit
+and proclaim to the congregation
+how holy you are,
+that you have rescinded control
+
+baptized in the claps,
+reborn as a shriveled
+ghost of who you once were:
+a person without a soul
+
+bloat as original sin
+that one needs to be absolved of,
+leaving behind the colors and joys
+beyond these gated walls
+
+"out yonder lives the devil
+with his malice and malware and pain;
+'tis an illusion that, beyond the wiles,
+he helps those alive stand tall"
+
+one in a sea of faceless
+made faceless yourself
+give your soul to the gods
+put your heart on the shelf
+
+a landscape of white
+and a monotone hum
+to spill your own blood
+earns a trip straight to hell
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/g/gradation.txt

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+Gradation
+2022-05-24
+
+***
+
+I kept my promise to you, Jett.
+I toed the path until the end.
+Pushed aside the branches that fell
+on the cracking path
+and found detours around those whose bark
+I could not form a painless grasp.
+Through the flood zones I trode
+in puddles and in gasping leaps
+and for those to traverse too deep
+found a different way home.
+The path is bordered now with dandelions
+and violet slips I cannot name.
+So many friends have come and gone,
+but here you and I remain.
+I'm waiting here, Jett. Just like I
+was a year ago, holding my hands high
+and with sore throat pleading to the sky:
+"Here I am! Here my vessel resides!
+Take me home. I've fought the fight."
+I've fought the fight. I've won the war.
+And, Jett, I want to fight no more.
+I see no point to compete
+with those who I'd rather broker peace,
+rather never see ever again,
+rather watch disappear
+on the wind.
+I'll wait here. And I'll wait here
+until you're ready, until of
+this departure you have no more fear,
+until I hear you singing my name like a hymn.
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/g/green.txt

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+green
+2018-02-22
+
+***
+
+does the rain in Spain really fall in the plain?
+what about the rooftops coated in sky's tears
+and empty nests flooded and damp to the point of disintegration
+
+I know it's just a silly rhyme
+but sometimes I wonder if the plain really isn’t a plain
+a line written by the depths of despair
+
+and now someone I hate could possibly know my true name
+not the one put on my birth certificate without my wanting
+but the one that stays hidden away, locked in a safebox
+my golden ticket out of this place
+
+I never wanted to be famous
+stalked or revered or worshipped
+all I've ever wanted is respect
+and a shred of understanding
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/g/grey.txt

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+The Grey
+2022-05-21
+
+***
+
+Even though I have multitudes inside me,
+without you by my side, I feel null and empty.
+I know that by myself I'm still whole and complete,
+but yet remains a void inside, you, the missing piece.
+
+I wonder, do you also feel
+on occasion the urge to self-negate?
+"If I can't have you,
+I can't have myself,
+and I don't see any point in anything else."
+I wonder, where did you and I learn to hate
+ourselves so?
+Who beat us down? Who pruned the branches?
+Who commanded us to kneel?
+
+"Do you know why
+I bothered so long with this dreadful life?
+Why, even facing down an eternity
+of servitude with no way to become free,
+I still struggled on, bothered to take breath?
+
+Tell me first, Lethe, what do you expect
+to be accomplished upon your death?
+Who do you think will be saved if you manage to die?
+What salvation given? What hope signified?
+Do you really think, the moment your breath comes to cease,
+nobody ever again will from violence bleed?
+
+I toed for five years the line
+between ineffectual death and a pale shadow of life
+because I prayed, I dared to hope,
+even if it ebbed more than it flowed,
+that one day would come a world where I'd fit
+and I'd have a reason to cut loose and go.
+It didn't have to mean passing through an Eye.
+It could grow
+inside the shell of the old
+and, when ready, hatch, blossom in the light.
+
+Before the Town, before Yewiffe,
+before precious Sablade,
+you were already my Anima Mundi,
+my soul of the world soon on its way.
+I crawl into your arms and think,
+'This is where I belong.
+This is where I am supposed to be.
+This is where my heart says
+I should spend eternity.'
+
+Lethe, I love you because
+you only ever wanted
+to set me free."
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander

poetry/g/the-golden-cage.txt

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+The Golden Cage
+2019-10-09
+
+***
+
+emboldened by sadness
+embittered by those
+who would meet you with winter
+you bite the thorns with the rose
+
+a bloody mess on the tile
+from mother's womb, freshly torn
+struggle to breath the poison air
+in which you were born
+
+the golden cage shudders
+the door swings wide open
+
+but you don't move.
+
+you sit there and stare.
+
+you tricked yourself into believing
+that it was your time to die
+and when the sun showed its head, you found out
+you'd lost the will to survive
+
+a tyrant in the home
+and a sorcerer in the garden
+conspire to make their kid a doll
+to watch as her once lithe limbs harden
+
+a dislocated jaw
+that only speaks when given scripts
+and a spine that's nothing but
+that collapses come a kick
+
+the needles come to play again
+you've already convinced yourself
+it was just a matter of when
+
+and they pin you up
+like the christ they adore
+
+and the red flows like syrup
+
+***
+
+CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander