[x]

WordsmithsHow long did you think
we could pound our vocabulary with hammers
before it fell flat?

RecollectionsTan-orange waves break
Upon a magenta
Ocean.

Someone
Is touching my shoulder,
Their purple breathing
Overwhelming my mind.

Why
Am I lying on the
Floor?

And now I see that grey footprints
Surround me,
Encircle me and then fade.
Solid, translucent,
Gone.

Just as I open my eyes,
More voices are starting.
The overwhelming medley that
Usually, I can recognize,
Is pushing me back into a gaping
Darkness.

What has happened to me?

Between sharp bursts of color,
I can see eyes,
And the eyes see mine.
Someone is pushing me upright,
Repeating my name,
A fire-red mantra.

My own voice is shuddery,
A small purple cloud,

Of Children and SweetsI see the faces of angels
Where laugh lines have freshly started
I see chocolate-covered wings
Dripping souls of youth departed.

There- upon their candy-coated fingers-
Innocence lies sticky on the nail-beds
Hope and pleasure are stuck in their robes
Tangled close in the loosely woven threads.

The glitter that used to dot their eyes
Is littered on their dirty, crooked toes
The blooms that found homes in their cheeks
Have left for that dark land called No-One-Knows.

They bid me to speak and to sing
They ask me to remind them how to laugh
I show them and they try to do it too
But the closest they ever get is half.

They have busi

Humanityi. Creator

Flicking through yellowed pages,
The crinkles smelling of dust and tears.

A human-induced God complex - authorial authority.

ii. Photographer

At parties, she hides behind her camera, just so
Someone gives her a smile once in a while.

Too bad she only sneaks candid photos.

iii. Conspirator

Vindictive whispers cloy behind closed
Hands and hardened hearts. They vent.

An immunity to gossip; a cathartic release.

iv. Voyeur

Peeping toms on laptop screens and
DVDs - it's only natural, apparently.

What is normal anyway?

flowers and rainI don't deserve the way you comb my hair on rainy days
To braid in flowers to make up for the gloomy weather.
I say "mother, I love the rain, and the thunder and lightning
Don't scare me, they protect me from the silence that threatens
To swallow me whole." but my mother only shakes her head and
Smiles at me as if I am a naïve little child who wears rose colored
Contacts that can show you the sun even while sleeping under blankets
Of clouds, and that's when I thought that what she was doing was for herself.
She was in another universe while she turned my straw like hair into gold,
Immersing herself in a good memory for every f

Stepping StonesI rip pages
out of poetry books,
the titles of
Shakespeare
and Plath
and Dickinson
littering the floor
like trash,
and I wonder
if we don't all
wind up stepping stones
in the end.

The Iron MenI.
Holding hands
Fingers clenched tight,
Tangled
Like knotted hair
We are birds today
With iron
Feathers
And we will never
Breathe
Alone

II.
Yesterday,
We grew
Up.
It was the sort of thing
You don't see coming
Till the needle hits your arm
And your fingers brush stubble
I never wanted
To be
Alone

scar-crossed(my fingers are colder than the solemn blue
buried in her eyes. so much dead beauty,

like an ocean without waves).

she is fading and i cling to her,
and in this tiny little moment
between breaths

we barely even exist.

nobody ever texts her first. you will tire of her. she will not always
be there to turn sealife to stardust,
or be the receptacle for your anger.
she will become that girl you used to know,
the one with the notebook and no friends.

she's been hanging with unloved kids,
underachievers-- just to remember
the insanity of a smile,
the feeling of being noticed.

already she has forgotten
what it feels like to dodge quick remarks, the thrill
of apprehension in quotation marks & parts of speech.

she sleeps backbone to floorboards
because they're softer than regret.
she wants to bleed through
someone else's wounds.

already she sees the frays
in your interest

ExhaustionExhaustion

I wake, swollen with noon heat.
Half dressed, I stumble,
elbows and toes catching
on the clawed feet of chairs,
the blunt holes of open cupboards.
I sometimes forget my name.
In the kitchen, I pepper the rice
instead of salt. Black flecks surface
in the boiling water,
sea turtles migrating.
If I knew where you went,
I would follow. But all you left behind
was an old sweater, an empty notebook,
an exhaustion,
complete and infinite
as the space around a closed fist.

The lilies she lent

In some mystic woods, bloomed an innocent bud
It nurtured delicately; from the vile world she was shut.
But alas; 'fore she left, ten love lilies of red,
that withered only at her will, she plucked.

She roamed the wide plains, with her beauty ablaze;
her scent aromatic, earning many a praise.
Yet gullible was she; the sprout of love
homed in her when she met the boys gaze.

Such charm and enchantment; oh what lovely art!
His ways did betray purity of the heart
his wines curled around the innocent girl,
poisoning her soul with his impulsive darts.

Yet one, con by birth, never has a strong hold
over one true love only, thus her l

An old kind of loveOne hundred years from now
The paint we picked out
Will be seven shades different,
Or old bricks made wise
By some graffiti prophet.
The note you hid in my mittens
– All I dream about anymore
Is the ocean
And you
(But mostly just you) –
Will be drifting through dream-catchers and
Those sapling hopes with
Roots tangled like our fingers and
Branches trembling with the vastness of our memories
Will be driftwood adventures
Nodding off with the tides
But I know in this heart of mine
That the smooth-bark-rain-soaked Beech Tree
You planted for me (there's a swing on it now)
Will still be there
And it will remember wha

Other Girlsit's not a simple thing
reading old magazines
like that
by yourself
like other girls
with other girls
in the same room
with the same shame
but they're not you
and they weren't there
but they know
they know

Waiting rooms that get stuck in your joints
Like screwdrivers
flat heads
how different names seem spelt now
closer to a gamble than a title
now, you're gonna have to spell
selfish
differently
closer to this hell
than hellish

your good sense
chirps in your sleep
chips at your teeth
too smart for that
right?
too determined
too you (makes sense)
to end up like other girls
who look like other girls
with other g

PersephoneI fed her
pomegranate kisses

and she cried
at every frozen sunrise
for 180 days.

With cracks in my heart
and souls
caught in my hair
I counted 180 more.

dead wordsthe poets and novelists are dead.
dead poem analysis
dead novel deconstruction
multitasking:
dead words
on a dead tree sheaf
stained with dead food
and possibly being contemplated
by a dead mind.

who is to remember the words
of the now-unfunctioning,
only for those who have breath?
“you love literature
because of what it is,
not what it does.”
oh for the love of intrinsic value.

the poets and novelists are dead.
but we are alive to connect
to their worthiness of writing.

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More from ~modestlyvainglorious

Cc is for chili, children, and something better.

it was winter and we were just old enough to know better.
your mom's chili wasn't quite enough to keep us warm
so we resorted to blankets, flannel shirts, and the glow of a hickory fire.
you said you couldn't wait for summer.
you said that every time i smiled it reminded you of the sun
and my laugh reminded you of the sing-song birds that came with it.
so you left the sweet nothings in the dust and
replaced them with the jokes that brought those bird songs to life.
we were just dreaming of something better, something warmer,
but we were children and we didn't realize that something b

average.We are nothing special, dear.
We are not poetic or beautiful.
We are average, at best.

There is nothing special about the way we hold hands
And we never try to count the stars because we know it is useless.
When we kiss there are no fireworks in the sky.
We don't sneak out in the middle of the night
Nor do we take road trips in stolen cars.
When we look at the ocean we don't see lost souls
Or hear the cries of sirens from long ago,
We just see water and if we look hard enough
We might see a piece of driftwood.
We don't understand the beauty of bleached bones
Or storm gray eyes.
Nor do we appreciate the artistic nature of lowerca

caged birds don't fly"you are a bird."

"ha. right. i have two little legs and two little wings and a little beak? and i fly around all day and sing my pretty little song? i don't think so."

"when i say you're a bird what i really mean is you are like a bird."

"well enlighten me, oh wise one."

"you are twitchy; itching to take flight, to get out of this god-forsaken town."

"it's just a nervous disorder."

"i'm sure. back to being a bird. you are bright, like a canary. and just like a canary you sing a sad song, for you are caged and your wings will never take you far. and you are fragile. with tiny bones and your only defense is a beak that won't break throug

one, two, three, four...one, two, three, four...
        one, two, three, four...
we are dancing to music that cannot be heard.
twirling around in waltz,
                                         after waltz,

to caseyyou were fifty minutes too early for me to do anything with,
but you were right on time for fairytale dreams and one too
many apologies because i was hoping for prince charming
and you were too busy fighting dragons to notice me.

you were whispering promises of the ocean in my ear and
scribbling all your secrets on my arm. i was falling in love
with all your scars because they were dangerous and
mysterious and i was creating stories for each and every
one of them.

you were artistic in the most unpoetic way and your
dreams were so cliche. but i was caught off guard with your
rain-playing and ballroom dancing as you swept me off my

scrub 'til you bleed.i.
i am stacking things into neat piles.
into some form of organization to
keep me sane. because if it looks
like i have everything together on
the outside then the inside must
be okay.

ii.
i make two trips to town a day.
because the first time i bought
two apples and i had to take
them back because i don't
even like apples and i'm trying
to pretend that i don't even
know why i bought them.

iii.
i take three showers a day
because i wake up with a
ghost trail of your kisses
down my spine and around
lunch, your arms are
suddenly wrapped around
me again and sometime
between dinner and insomnia
i am starting to think that

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of broken hearts and magic.

by ~modestlyvainglorious, Nov 27, 2012, 9:37:27 AM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

_{tonight, the stars look less like stars and more like the giant balls of gas people have been telling me they are.

tonight, i cannot find the constellations that i used to call my friends.

tonight, the ocean is a little less mysterious and a little more salty.

tonight i am wishing i knew nothing of magic because this would hurt a little less. i could chalk it up to chemicals and scoff at the idea of a broken heart.

i could leave it at let's be friends [or casual acquaintances] and never worry about what will happen if i run into you at the park.

but i know everything of magic and i felt it in my soul when i was with you and that i cannot forget.}

of broken hearts and magic.by ~modestlyvainglorious

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

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~Dot-Desperation Nov 29, 2012 Student General Artist

I love it ^ - ^

~modestlyvainglorious Dec 1, 2012 Writer

*xlntwtch Nov 28, 2012 Writer

on the DLD "Pick of the Day."

The speaker in this poem at least knows about "magic" and one (well, I) am left with the hope it'll be found again.

~modestlyvainglorious Dec 1, 2012 Writer

Thank you!

*xlntwtch Dec 1, 2012 Writer

=DailyLitDeviations Nov 27, 2012

Your wonderful literary work has been chosen to be featured by =DailyLitDeviations and has been selected as our "Pick of the Day". It is featured in a news article here: [link] and on our main page.

Be sure to check out the other artists featured and show your support by

ing the News Article. Keep writing and keep creating.

~modestlyvainglorious Dec 1, 2012 Writer

Holy crap! Wow! Thank you so much!

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of broken hearts and magic.

of broken hearts and magic.by ~modestlyvainglorious

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