Daily Poetry & Prose

Small pieces of pride and shame scattered all around how about you pick them up  and put them in a hat? There's a guy in the subway playing a million notes a second totally oblivious to everyone somewhere there's a concert hall where they're hanging on every word Not really sure who is talking to who. I have a few dimes to spare. The cabinets are not so bare. Yet here I am busking because meditating with the muses is far too rare.

Well the rivers were running downstream and the hill was bending toward the sunset then the night was coming and crickets were chirping the earth was going around the sun like a slingshot and then the morning arrived its eerie stillness hung like the edge of a feather. Then the fog was lifting and the heat of the day was settling in I was leaning on a leaf gleaming in the sun,  being a water drop not quite set yet, about to fall, for, due to gravity, suspended I could not remain I was ready to tip topple over like a drop of rain Due to the drought the cracks in the dirt were wide open, like the mouths of those who blame. Water I am, and fall I may. I am not rain. Yet I know although I'm made of dew-- to the scorched earth I am all the same.

I tug at my dress and put my torch out, close my eyes and stare out at the Atlantic Ocean once again. I have watched the British and the cavalry, the slavery, huh and the parades. This year, I sighed. Gun shots rang out but it wasn't minutemen. A bird flew by its right wing straight its left wing bent and it went back into its cage, after flying free for fifty years. I tug at my dress, this old thing— a French robe made when the world smiled and Romantic ideals of democracy were the rage. Now, I just sigh and hope for better days for everyone. Irony is in my backbone yet in my stern face I still try .

Him and I were in a practice space. There were no windows, just guitar amps, bass amps, drums and cables covering the floor (and about five people crammed in). Meeting the band that I was going to sing with, I was looking at each member of the group, then I saw him. He had on a blue suit coat and smiled. I felt at ease immediately. He introduced himself and joked about not being able to turn around. We laughed a little and I said, "I feel like I've seen you before somewhere." It could have been at a music club, because I was a sound engineer at a venue in town and worked with many bands each weekend. It was possible he was one of the dozens of musicians I had seen performing...among all the blaring music and clinking beer mugs. It was reasonable to presume I had seen him, and now just recalled his face. He paused. He stood straighter. "You know, I get that a lot." He leaned in closer as he picked up his guitar, and shook his head with aplomb. "People say th...

At the coffeeshop where the torrential downpour fades the streets outside into covered up dreams and the water runs across the ground like liquid bedsheets folding and refolding as they tunnel into the sewers and drains I sip a sip of dark liquid, it's acidic on my tongue. The pals next to me speak of addiction, their conversation bubbles up like a boiling pot just before it steams and I eavesdrop while sketching in my journal. The woman at the counter has a T-Shirt that says The Death Penalty Kills Innocent People I ask for a refill and I have a five dollar bill Then I go back to looking out the window and checking the Doppler.

On the edge of the world where doom meets daylight and soft roses bloom amidst twisted thorns and jackrabbits foaming at the mouth for bee stings while honey soaked apothecaries roam in robes Do you hear  On the edge of your nose, where the light casts shadow and the twist of your lip heaves a smile to the heavens for a moment Do you see On the edge of her ballet slipper as she rises and struggles to maintain the position that doubts fester like sores among the lepers in the brothels of Bangladesh where she mentioned in hushed whispers that her phone was off the hook  when you hung your jacket in the hall and the door swung open blasting music into the street Simon says it's time to seek your medicine you've been led within only to find the edge of the landscape, where sunlight stretches into the horizon and the grass sways and bobs with the wind where the long tile floor echoes and exhausts itself into M.C. Escher patterns into the blinding light of infinity you're on the ...

The phrase I lately like the most is "I don't have to...______, I get to ______." Kind of like the gift is the present, but not nearly as cheesy.

I have long wanted to do a series called "Ripped from the Notebook" with writings well, ripped from my old notebooks. This one is kind of stunning with some neat imagery... Galloping Ghosts - Unghost Me it was a police officer standing on the cement, his shadow drawing a think black line in the heat For what on earth are these times, our men, yet to be born born jumping through hoops from their mother's wombs to the moment in which all men are free the moment which the blind horse jumps from the rafters into the reflecting pool three stories below where women are waiting with outstretched hands waiting for a wetter god. Standing there in pajamas, she left me much sooner than she should have as I feel the earth like a horse heavy and crumpled and unable to lift myself up they had to harness me and carry me over the city like a hot air balloon - Hannah Frank circa 2014 Photo source