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Queen of the World I wonder what it’s like to be queen of the world; To straddle your reality and dreams, And see no disparity, For wherever your starstruck stare ventures, Every tree is evergreen. The wind embraces your every movement. Rainfall, the joyous tears of gods, That descend from the sky to fall upon your crown, And waves only crash to derange millions of granular crystals, Into piles of perfect constellations, Created in your image. After all, You are the muse that makes oceans roll over and sigh. I wonder what it’s like to hold the universe inside of a crystal ball, and marvel at it in all its rose-tinted wonder, As you feel it marveling back at you; To never tremble, For there are always plenty of love letters, Always plenty of offerings, Always plenty, Always there, To keep your palace alight, Your temple, forever warm, Forever peopled with thrones and reverent masses. No one would ever go to heaven, Because heaven is where you’ve always lived, And your crown is your eternal halo. I wonder what it’d be like if we only died to donate their bodies to needy soil White lilies would ascend from blemishless bodies. Neither would decay or be victimized by time, For it was refundable (with interest), And if we chose death, We died in love and stayed there, Until death lost its luster and we came back from holiday, Only to discover the expected: no one had ever mourned us, And grief only happens in nightmares that never existed In the end, we would live happily ever after. Only the most royal highness can make me the queen of the world. #Poetry #RoyalHighness #QueenOfTheWorld #ThisIsNotALoveSong #Heaven #Paradise #Utopia #Dreams #LivingTheDream Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Spring Leaf Tea House In the tea house, tea cups are suspended in the air like frozen raindrops. As you walk in, you will be overwhelmed by the aroma of jasmine that wafts in the air. You will try to wave it away, or cover your face, but eventually you will stop. You will let your arms hang limp at your sides. The smell will enter you and you will forget why you are here and how you got there. Tables with lavender cloths clutter around the room, and when you walk past, you will notice shadowy figures sitting at each table. An old woman with yellowed eyes sits at a table, vacantly staring into her empty teacup. You will say hello but a gentle tug at your elbow takes you to a table with a lily poking out from its vase.
When you are at your seat, you will forget that you only wanted to peek in through the front window. You will forget the woman with dark hair at the door who spoke to you in soft whispers, imploring you to come in. A waitress will pluck a delicate pink tea cup from above your head and place it in front of you. The jasmine will burn your eyes and tears will form. The waitress with emerald eyes will brush a tear trailing down your cheek, then place a menu into your hands. You will order the amaretto tea and bread pudding, and after the menu is taken away, you will hear the voices. An invisible man’s voice will whisper “good morning”. Your body will relax, like a loose string. You will breathe in deeper, a small sigh escaping your lips. You will see visions of white sand, the back of a man as he walks into the waves; somewhere in the distance, a sailboat bobs in the sunset. In your dream, you will walk towards the man and place your lips between his shoulder blades; he will smell of cut summer grass and pine wood, and there will be a scar on his left shoulder: a perfect circle. You are in his arms but also hungrily eating the bread pudding. You will not notice the burns on your tongue as the hot tea slides down your throat. You will only feel the ocean breeze lick your body as you sit up in the sand. You will not know that you are dreaming of your honeymoon. You will only vaguely recognize your husband. You will not remember he is dead. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Remember When Remember when-- It was good at the beginning It was random as heck It was quirky But then-- I watched-- You killed it I took one for the team It was scary It’s silent now. Outcast-- You know what I’m talking about, What happened? I want to capture the moment You kept laughing, Over and over and over again. I haven’t had one of those moments in a long time. Can I have one again? #Unreal #Poetry #NaomiYung #Photography #Infatuation #Playful #InTheMoment Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Washington Quail Bell(e)Editor's Note: This poem was originally written in response to the image on the cover of The Washington Post's Fall 2014 Arts Preview print supplement. This image is not available online. In a Congo of rain, she walks, firm and pink-faced Through a district which wants to claim her As a work of art, a source for the cool, The next designation the capital wants to adorn itself. She resists by not refusing to pose or declining To color in the blue and gray spaces Of this city locked in a civil war of peace, Where struggle is strangled before every election. If another takes her picture, she gives it no mind, Her yellow tights and orange skirt remain. No camera can take their color away, Nor the pattern of snowflakes on her denim jacket. Her main controversy? The puddles in the potholes, They will wash away the petals on her shoes, Observers with their observations will come and go, And if one writes a poem about her, she will never know. #Unreal #Poetry #BenjaminNardolilli #NeelyJohnson #Individual #Photography #History #WashingtonDC #WaPo Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Making Your Mark Words + Image: Garrett Riggs QuailBellMagazine.com When you painted yourself, the floor, the cat, wall—everything—blue, I laughed. When I tried to scrub the walls knowing we wouldn’t get the deposit back, I cursed. But, your handprints were your signature and my heart didn’t want to erase that. In the end, the paint left a stain like smashed blueberries. Your handprints bled through layers of the landlord’s paint, ghosts of the happy years before work and worry take their place in your life. Drive those dark spirits out with color and mess and love. Paint the whole goddamn world. #Unreal #Poetry #GarrettRiggs #Painting #Creation #Childhood #WorkingClass #Family #Handprints Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Battered/Infatuated I loved you more because you crushed my heart into dust and blew it into the sky. A dreamer might have confused it for glittery grit stuck in the moon's eye. As I dreamer, I dreamt, head pressed to my pillow, surrounded by the dark as you pummeled and pushed harder and harder, as hard as you desired. I loved you more because you pushed me into a well darker than night or hell. From there, I saw no constellations, only the ghost of your sleeping face. The next morning was not just wet but bloody when you found me. I started out seeped, soggy, and soaked clear and then crimson. I loved you more because you yelled and ordered me never to tell of the times you nearly turned me into a pile of hair and bones. Every morning meant your muscles pressed against mine. And I loved you because I thought cuts and bruises meant love. And I loved you because I thought welts and bandages meant love. And I loved you because I thought loathing meant love, sweet love. #Unreal #Poetry #CreativeWriting #Photography #PrettyPic #NightSky #MilkyWay #StarryNight #DesertSky #NaturalBeauty Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Old Letters I am reading old letters to a friend. From time to time I do this, try to sneak behind the curtains of prose catch a glimpse of my fingers in action, weed the root of all honesty. Words, under the stilted occupation of punctuation, subject to the laws of gravity’s grammar, maturing on the page, but unlike wine, lose all flavor, turn spontaneous thoughts into catch-phrase. In that moment as my eyes assimilate the comma and the onset, in the nucleus of a sound where creative material simmers, the hole has been pillaged, the trove emptied of content, unleashing shameless phrases to chase the line down into silence and heartfelt goodbyes. Goodbyes come too late. The pen moves under the invisible hand. The traces of footprints in the sand are left from boots I never wore. #Unreal #Poetry #AllanGould #Letters #Calligraphy #WordFlow #ShamelessPhrases #Goodbye Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Desert Woman I.
Between sapping limbs of plum and bark a child breaks the skin of her hands. Stopping the blood with sap, she licks off her fingers what she thinks will taste like honey. It tastes like sick and bedtime and she roars to me on the other side of the window sounds like war. Here is what her nature did: II. “It's easier for them to shoot you if you're up in a tree,” the father says, “Never climb higher, keep low-- hide behind cars or big boulders, telephone booths.” And the daughter. The daughter taciturn by the advice, the thought that someone would try to kill her is a thought-- I did not create-- I didn't create it—is a thought, I did not create, it is a thought, I did not thought to create, I did not create is a thought I did not create. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
You Were Asleep When chimes rocked her out of her chair, Emily’s face smashed against the cold floor. Coughing the dust from her lips, she pushed herself up as the clock tolled on. Groggy eyes panned the stained, thick wood panel walls held together by the black and white tiled floor. An ominous green velvet ceiling held the box room down, casting a cheap chandelier though the center. Directly across the poker chair she fell from was a grandfather clock, from top to bottom, clunking its pendulum to and fro as the face droned its last bell.
Emily rose on her failing legs and teetered to the clock, her hoop skirt tipping her over as if the room swayed like a ship. Swallowing and shaking her head, she made the last swoop to run against the glass handle on the clock’s door. Grunting, Emily heaved the door open. A hallway opened to her, only lasting a few yards before it collapsed into the darkness of the forest. Trees grew in the fallen structure, the branches sighing in the wind. The sound of running water pulled her attention to the left a stream stuttered down the cracked drawers before unfolding into a small pool. Emily pulled open a drawer. A key sat against the waterlogged drawer. Eyes narrowed, she started to reach for the key when a tentacle came out swatted her. Shocked, Emily jumped back with a silent shriek, the sound never leaving her lips. She was mute. A growl punctured the silence. Fear shot to Emily’s heart as she stared into the darkness, breathing hotly. A rustle and a pair of sharp, brown eyes unfolded to her. Silent cries spilled out her parched lips as she looked around frantically. The clock door behind her sealed shut with a click when she turned, and a whimper pulled out of her chest. The brown eyes started bobbing closer. Bolting to the dresser, Emily pushed her hand into the steely water. The tentacle grabbed her wrist. Whimpering, Emily turned to the eyes nestled in the head of a bear-like wolf that towered in the hallway. It arched its neck back, a stench thrusting into her nose as it snarled. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
I Worry Therefore I AM By Jessika Malo QuailBellMagazine.com I worry that the sun will forget to wake up to awaken the world I worry that the man in the moon will confiscate all the light I worry that the wave will forget the way back, then midst its return, its foam will suffocate its breathes I worry that although the tree tops prance over the back of the horizon; their roots are withered and sick I worry that we have lost the count, or the count have lost us I worry that you have confused the shades of my smell, That you have taught your body how to survive without me I worry that my skin keeps rejuvenating, farther and deeper, away from you I worry that you no longer can read my smile that you still draw yourself I worry that you have colored our memories with fade That you have erased the silhouettes of our bodies from the hearts of the walls that have leaned on us That you have picked up the noise, which I fell in love with, of nails dropping to the floor every time I shave for you That you have smothered the happiness of my face touching yours, like a secret handshake to the contract of eternity I worry that you no longer sip on the dew of my eyelids, announcing my mornings And without my mornings, I no longer am, Therefore I no longer worry, and that’s my biggest worry of all… #Unreal #Poetry #JessikaMalo #Photography #HumanCondition #Lost #Found #Peace #Worry Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. |