30 Writers You Should Discover: Volume VI

Oct 20, 201155 min read

Deviation Actions

Published: Oct 20, 2011

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What's This?

Below you will find a new assortment of various writers on DeviantART who are worth getting to know. All of their respective galleries are packed full of tremendous works that I enjoy and hope that you will too. If there is a writer that may not be listed in this edition, you may wish to read the first five articles in this series.

Let’s Meet A Few More of Them:

Adeimantus

Anthony-Ryan
orangeorange,
simply;
an impression,
a handful
of summer;
a year cut
into four quarters.
rotund angles,
juiced nodes,
thin skin stuck in teeth.
fertile cervix,
rind pores.
the birth of taste,
light beyond visibility.
memories,
mother's terse fingers
undressing the orange,
making it easy;
rolling cloth away
from a wound,
the warmth of careful touch.
sound of knife laid
on the countertop,
fingers sharp with scent,
flaring around the fruit,
accommodating,
shiny with the
clean invisible cling
of survival. what poolsyou emerge wet
upon the sand
     having swum:
     canted thru downs
     fish-wise
to
view
the sound,
     land & enough light
     having slept deep,
     keel-large,,,,,,,,,accordion of lake
heaves      every note at once
the colors
as genealogies of fish
fold
and separate:
you walk
in the midst of
lakewater met with rain
breathe murk
of
storm,
      work it inward.
watch thru light
knowing anything.
all knowing
     like a jar t-
     urns      through space
you can feel.
the success of the heart--
beaten, beaten
beaten
inside a wave
as it rises.
you move like a fawn
in
1st
2nds of thunder.
sand bottoms
the green dark.
silence & word
float easy
as brochures of air
upon invisible sifts.
you head i limitwords are the translations
of lifetimes.
and i speak the invisible architecture
of my body.
there are back-lit hills
in every direction;
dark crests that hold
the inevitability of the sea
on the other side.
recollections go out like
the vapid ribbons of breath,
occupy their origins
as fragments of myself.
i am everywhere
i'll ever be.
ever been.
the other side
is a perpetual expulsion;
is exclusive and perpetrating;
is the establishment of desire.
i follow the iron shove of the river
to the lake, green with cold.
ice rides the water
and the careful geometry of chance
like triangular wax sheets.
they overlap,
hold what might be hands
on their way out to where
the river widens absurdly
into lake.
gray ascends, turns the clouds
a dirty purple.  the wind never stops,
has nowhere to stay.
i reach the end of possibility,
the border of limitation;
i am the only one here,
so i speak to myself
about what is already well known.
the tongue curves over the living paragraph
of the voice,

BarbecuedIguana
The Most Evil Holiday of AllIs not Halloween.
Why ever did you think I was going to write about Halloween?
As some of you know I'm a bit of a time freak. Like the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, I am always rushing about and complaining that there is never enough time. But I am also a freak about time, about the cycle of the seasons and how the time of the year can subconsciously effect our decisions to do what we do. For example, it's no accident that the month of March is named after Mars the Roman god of war and is a time when the general populace is most likely to support a war effort (even in this day an age, ex: Operation Iraqi Freedom - launched March 20, 2003). Even though we now live farther from the influence of the seasons than ever before, these agricultural rhythms are still in us. Don't believe me? Try the modern May ritual of "getting a bikini body for the beach" in October or November. For most of us this is just not going to happen.
And no, these are not the most evil holidays of all.
The

Mature Content

Celtic Shelf TrailerQueens of the Stone Age
A giant hawk-nosed salmon with the purple splotches of many years rushed forward beneath the school. With a sudden burst of speed he vaulted up and split the sparkling surface with amazing strength. Time slowed to a near stop as the fish rose above the others, his huge pink belly waggling from side to side, sparkling droplets of ice water fanning out around him. Aegia whipped her spear up to get it into position but just couldn't seem to move fast enough. She screamed. The sound crept like a slug up her throat. The fish twisted sideways, flopping and flowing and heaving its brilliant silver flank about until finally it walloped Aegia on the side of the head and sent her crashing backwards, arms reeling for balance, spear flying off into the sky.
Black Magic
Without a word, Atouk's elbow flashed backwards. It caught the guard who had snuck up behind him in the solar plexus and lifted the man up on painful wings into the air. The

callerofcrows
Atlantic DreamingIt smelled like the ocean outside,
but there was no stretch
of rippling blue
basking on my horizon.
Outside my window,
suburbia sprawls;
yet with eyes closed
I see the surf-beaten shore,
foam gathered in the craggy rocks,
catching on urchin spines
like trinkets of the deep.
In reality,
this scent is no more
than the salt of the kitchen
mixed with breezes made
by moon-shine on the grass.
Perhaps that same lunar shepard
herded scents of seaspray my way,
a gift to the girl
who misses the gull-cry
and pounding rhythm
of the shore that once boasted
her footprints fading. Clair de LuneSometimes I imagine
That when Debussy penned this movement,
He hesitated with the title.
"Clair de Lune"…moonlight.
Perhaps he didn't have the courage
To add an "E" to the end of her name,
Immortalizing her in music.
The gentle chords pouring
From his piano describing
The peace with which she slept.
"Claire of the Moon."
She was the embodiment of dreams.
Indeed, with her hair spread out
In messy ringlets across the pillow,
The pale, spring-time glow
Of the moon hanging heavy
In the April sky
Gently casting its cool light
Through the half-open window,
Onto her faintly blushing cheek.
She looked ethereal,
Like a flower that opens for moonlight alone.
Imbued in this music is the tenderness
With which he desired
To move a stray curl from where it lay
Draped across her brow.
As the movement sweetly closes,
She gently wakes, smiling,
As I gently wake from the scene I created.
This exists in my imagination only,
The romantic in me dreaming
With the fictional Claire. PapaThe halls of death are cold and dark,
I don't know why they beckoned to you.
Please tell me you at least tried
Searching for life before
Giving up your faith in its glow.
Please tell me you read
the card I made you,
That you tried to get better
Like the crayon drawings pleaded.
Tell me heaven welcomed you
Gates wide like the arms of a cross.
I miss the sandpaper scratch
Of your mustached kisses.
How your laugh was loud and heavy
Like your cannon-fire humor.
The way you sang all the wrong words
When you bustled in the kitchen.
You won't dance at my wedding,
Or whisper love to my babies.
But I pray you'll lend me
The fire of your spirit
When it's my turn
To step over the threshold
And follow you.

choirsoftheheavens
from the star.I tell myself I will tell her that I love her before
it's too late. but not a moment sooner because
each time she doesn't sleep by midnight, neither
do I. each morning she doesn't get up on time,
we rush pell-mell to school only to be late, each
time I lose something she gives me and she says
it's fine even though I know that she knows
that I know she's hurt each time.
but each time that happens, this happens:
I remember what day she will go away, and
God, that puts me back where this all began.
back when she made me Ribena even though
it was her favourite drink too and it was the
last few drops of cordial. back when she told
all the jokes. back when she used to be my role
model, my fold-out bed, my fall-back-you'd
-better-catch-me. back when I told myself
all I need to be is just like her. but, look,
those dreams got old fast, and now all I want
to do is either punch her in the face or say I'm
sorry. those ideals never matched up with the
reality of how human she this one's four you three twoher name, if i remember correctly, was laura, melissa and purple.
picture this;
a girl stays far away from the swing, too scared to touch the sky and follow in the footsteps of wax-winged men. her mammy said the branch would give in. her friend crowns the tree with whispered words, and tells the petrified bark never to give up on itself.
they learn how to spell, fumbling fingers holding fat crayons in fists, racing each oh-tee-her, el-ih-ay-ar-ning to-get-her. it doesn't matter to them that they don't get full marks even though "l-e-a-r-anne" and "d-e-c-laura-t-i-o-n" are clearly wrong.
they are four and nothing's stopping them from living forever.
[now picture this;
moving away is so much sadder when it's further than just across your backyard, feels like accidentally squirting lemon juice in your eyes when she was your friend and you promised 'best', hangs like eyebags and premonitions because you left her number to be lost amidst the grass when you sat on that swing faults between the lines - cthe moths are dying, and she
is sitting on a swing screaming silently
into the sky.
__
the lamp is fading, and he
is standing by the table tinkering tirelessly
with an inkless pen
and three sheets of blank paper.
she doesn't see
because she is too busy hating herself
for the creak of grease
and the corpses that litter the floor like leaves.
he can only see
because he is too free wishing for autumn to come quicker and
scrubbing the stains from echoing floorboards
and where her footsteps used to be.
it was on a rooftop in spring.
they were sitting among loose tiles holding hands.
he said, 'sometimes I think I don't exist.'
she only laughed.
it was on a porch in fall,
they were sitting on opposite ends of the swing.
she said, 'I know what you mean now.'
and he said, 'now I don't.'
they became strangers to each other.
they kissed in the locker room but it wasn't the same.
his laughter awkward and stumbling from his teeth.
she smiled so much her lips peeled. she didn't

distortified

Mature Content

She wrote me:
This is the time of all things read;
the time of books, clean hands, straw dogs,
shared looks. This is the time
that finds the time to settle down;
to open that smile with enormous plans;
to pound on metal rolled with rust;
to lie when lovers lie, alone, quiet,
in kitsch and style.
She wrote me:
Death for some is a careless cat,
one that lacks a voice—and love—
and never plays chess.
But that is not my choice.
You see, I prefer the quieter sort;
the kind of death that stalks one
through shapeless blur, a caress of trust
and a lack of breath—now three, now two—
a sweet bluff and a face that looks
of you, only that's not enough.
I remember the films during which you cry,
and the way you hide it, fiddling
with your change to make your eyes avoid
the two mice riddling some pocket full of holes.
I remember the nights you tried to pray.
You clasped your hands and dreamt up God
and what he may or may not do. And I,
following November, came with you.
I remembe VelvetWorn velvet,
wrapped with grace
and deliberate speed to cover nothing
but my face;
flows down until my breath is stopped,
and I am sure I do not know
how far down my throat it still goes.
Shorter is the distance
between your lips and I;
just apart, they voice the air
that I have lost
and make it mine.
I see our nights and the people in them:
you and I, eyes wide
and mouths moving with bad timing.
But others,
tonight,
are better blind.
I open my eyes
and see nothing. AnatomyI am up all night,
pen on paper, drink in hand;
I have not worked so hard
in years.
The floor is filled with ruined letters,
letters half-written and stopped
because I put a lo
when I meant to put a li.
A simple mix-up
that could not be fixed nor allowed
to be seen.

KreepingSpawn
The Arms Of RomeI met Ed when I joined the Marines for the first time.  Her name is Jessica Edwin, but in the Marines she was Corporal Edwin, or Ed.  It stuck.  She was tough and pretty, smart, driven, and two years older than me.  I was nineteen and foolish.  Somehow it worked.
We got married when we found out she was pregnant.  My parents were very nasty about it.  They felt I'd somehow taken advantage of her.  Good as raped her.  Her parents were wonderful.  They hosted the wedding, Ed and I wore our dress blues, and took an oath that meant even more than the one we swore to our nation.
Tiger was born just a few months after that.  Ed's four year contract was finished, so she found us a little house near the base.  She found a job, and she raised Tiger, almost by herself, while I ran PT, stood firewatch, crawled the obstacle courses, fired my rifle, shipped out on West Pac, and ca AFortress...His embrace… a fortress…
Her bumper sticker is peeling.  The one that says 'I (heart) my Marine!'  It's been months, but it's still true, so she keeps it, letting it peel and fade in the weather like a scab.  Like a scar.
The sticker is hers, the truck is his.  Nevermind that all the paperwork is now in her name.  Nevermind he hasn't driven it in a year or more.  She drives it to work, and pumps the high-priced gas, and pays to have the summer tires swapped for the snows.  But it's his truck.
The wall above the bed becomes his shrine.  She papers it with photos.  His high school senior photo.  Their prom photos.  Photos of him with his brother, his sisters, his dogs.  Photos of him hugging his mother, laughing with his father.  Photos of the two of them hiking, swimming, lounging on the couch, playing touch football with their friends

Mature Content

LaMonaca
Questions and ConversationsAs a writer, one should always keep two questions (adapted from Raphael's QAR strategy) in mind:
What's in the paper?
-- (What did I actually write?)
What's in my head?
-- (What did I want to write?)
Sometimes answering those two questions is not an easy task.  How many times have we heard (or said), "Well, I was trying to say this, but..."?  How many times have we been very proud of something we've written, which we thought was clear and precise only to have a reader say, "I don't get it.  What are you trying to say here?"  It's a frustrating experience - this written communication - but there are many tools to aid us in our attempts.
Editors and proofreaders will talk about your grammar and syntax (among other things); Critical Friends, however, are most interested in your ideas.  Remember, the cleanest, most grammatically correct poem or story can still be awful.  Writing begins with an idea, an im The Writing ProcessWhat is the Writing Process?
Many of us learned that the writing process is made up of five parts: Pre-writing, Writing, Revision, Editing, and Publishing.  Indeed, this process has been so ingrained, and the vocabulary and terms have become such a part of our education, that some students (and adults) feel as if writing is a formulaic, rigid thing—not unlike learning mathematics—that they simply never excelled in.  Fortunately, this simply isn't true.  While the five basic steps of the writing process are effective, they can only be effective if the people using the process understand the purpose of each step.
Experience has shown that many students do not know the purpose of drafting beyond a certain, vague understanding that you're supposed to "correct" or "fix" something for each new draft.  It’s unfortunate, but it’s also been shown that students who are forced to Pre-Write in certain ways, even when they have been Punctuating Poetry Part OneSome people believe poetry shouldn't be punctuated and others are still taught to put a comma after every new line. So where is the balance? What does one - especially one new or growing in poetry - do? Well, that's simple: a poet must punctuate with purpose!
In order to punctuate with purpose, however, a poet must understand two things: what she wants to achieve with the poem and what a piece of punctuation can achieve in a poem. This means a poet must understand more than the common rules of punctuation; she must know the effect that certain punctuation points can have on a reader or in a text.
This overview tackles punctuation in poetry from a practical standpoint, but it's important to note that while there are "rules" for punctuation, and while there are even some "rules" for poetry, there are no set-in-stone conventional rules for punctuation in poetry.  There are schools of thought, and linguistic philosophy runs amuck, but there is nothing definit

manadrake
Grass Song for Rainy SkiesGrass Song for Rainy Skies
Beneath me, the ember-grass kissed fire
upon bare skin, a silent disease for watching sky paintings
shift and meld in billowing cloud-bird-dances
upon the vaulted edifice of heaven.
The grass beneath sizzled in anticipation of caress
weaving siren songs into shimmering lures
To tempt sky children into sadness
and wring tear-drop banquets from innocent eyes.
And when the symphony of pattering rain-feet
dredged craters in the blanket of earth
clutching close to my bare skin, I heard ember-grass
moan in ecstasy, an accompaniment to my shattering shell.
I, casualty of redemption. NeologismThere is a moment, tired and quiet,
that lingers in the inside of a person
drawing symbols on the inner walls
in fingerpaints and blunted charcoal.
People ask for things, in passion
in passing fancy, in desperate need...
people ask, and they ask, and ask
loud and bleating sacrificial lambs.
Why must it be for passing joy, floating
through the air like prancing butterflies
from marigold to globemallow and lilac -
fleeting things no sooner saw then gone
There are symbols I've been reading
symbols that tell a story of things
more than marigolds and nectar -
symbols to connect impossibilities.
It is a quiet jargon of signs, of angles
all very sad and abundantly peaceful
that somehow caused a reckoning
and set me at odds with reality.
It is all so very beautiful, and angry
the way a newborn enters the world
the way some seem to leave it
full of empty and so very meaningful.
Longfellow saw, he called them a bird,
a tide's rise and fall, a simple moment
that reached out quietly from the ages God of our FathersDeo. God of our fathers
Understand, he was an old man,
very old, but not wasted. Like a tree,
or an old steel Buick, eroded by the wind
sluffing off the snowy cascade of days
standing in a crater of years.
"I've fallen" He said over the phone.
Deo. God of our fathers
I read about many book burnings,
about the Torah, and Wycliffe, and Luther.
How the communists burned,
and were burned in turn,
how "The Grapes of Wrath" burned,
and "Ulysses,"
because knowledge lost, is gone.
It is no longer there. The things seen,
things believed in or feared and revolting:
They vanish, and are gone.
Deo. God of our fathers
I shall not let you vanish, grandfather.
Not the things you've seen or done,
not the things you believe in, or denouce.
If you are to go, it will not be by my will.
I shall be your shield.
"Let me help you. I'm coming" I said.
If there be a speck in me -
a human part - let it grow and become.
When the wind sheers off my face,
let me know there is a dawn coming
tha

nonamepsalmist
Neo LinguaI did not grow up speaking
this way. I shuffle through your language
with unsteady footing, with my tongue fat and
defiant. I am not a native speaker.
This dialogue comes up the promenade
on literal legs. You, to the brim with
word pictures, prefer them without the
fluff and fiction. In your tongue,
the best literature is in a pamphlet.
I have made sure of it- the little dears
are not bothered by this.
I did not grow up speaking this way.
I would leave the earth and wander,
finding new tools, new friends.
Narrative gave the shape to
my round mouth.
Their compliance found a calling
in my strong hands.
Your words sit funny and
feel funny too. I do not speak
this way.
But I will to speak to you. The North Girls                             The luxury of wondering
                                      where
e   v       a             d                   e                              s                me-
I don not speculate about how
Black and White PhotographyYou smell like half-hearted sex,
she said, recalling the afternoon’s events.
I was tired.
It wasn’t working.
Our bodies- bent on the same end-
could not agree on a beginning.
          On top of my bedspread
        we repositioned limbs and you removed
               my heavy sweatshirt.
I was hot.
It wasn’t working.
Left in a black tee-shirt,
I wore a white flag and
    no underwear. You covered yourself
as you quickly dressed- while I,
in fashion, lay motionless and
mourned for the stillborn thing.
Later, we bought a jar of ink
and a journal bound like a book.
I don’t wear perfume, and
      this smell is only growing.
The ink is like oil.
The white of our page is a new
kind of lonely.

OokamiKasumi
Fishing for INSPIRATION?

Fishing for INSPIRATION?
~~~~~~~~~~~
Your imagination is a pond that you fish your ideas from. Like any fishing pond, what you catch depends on what you've stocked your pond with and how much you put in there. If you fish for only the occasional idea, your little ideas have time to breed creatively until they overflow the pond, leaping right out into your hand -- and onto your keyboard. If you fish a lot, you will have to restock -- Frequently.
A Dry Pond = Writer's Block
What's in YOUR Imagination?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What do you KNOW?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What do you love to Do, to Study, to Think About, to Talk About...? Make a list of all the things you know well and all the things you've done -- seriously! Mythology, history, any retail jobs you might have had -- anything you might have seen, done, or studied.
WHO do you KNOW?
Have you ever met...?
• A real Criminal?
• A real Hero?
• A real Romantic?
• A The NonVerbal Thesaurus

NonVerbal:
Not spoken > Body Language.
Thesaurus:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Latin thesaurus, treasury, from Greek thesauros.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
n. pl. the•sau•ri (-sôri) or the•sau•rus•es
1. A book of synonyms, often including related and contrasting words and antonyms.
2. A book of selected words or concepts, such as a specialized vocabulary of a particular field.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009.
Dialogue is VISUAL
-- Not just a bunch of words.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Watch the average conversation between two people. 90% of that conversation isn't in what's Spoken, it's in what they are DOING while they are speaking. It's in their Body Language. Body-language cues in your story alert the reader by SHOWING them what is going on in a character's head without Telling t Writing Emotions VISUALLY

Writing Emotions VISUALLY
"What is ...VISUAL writing?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-- Visual writing is when the reader can SEE your story unfolding in their imaginations just like a movie.
    * Non-visual: It was a dreary day.
    * Visual: Icy rain slithered down the window glass from an iron gray sky.
This is more commonly known as SHOWING vs. TELLING.
    * Telling: It was a dreary day.
    * Showing: Icy rain slithered down the window glass from an iron gray sky.
"What's wrong with just...Telling them?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-- The problem lays with Reader interpretation. Abstract (poetic) words and ideas rely on the readers' interpretation of what those words mean to them personally.
For example:
She was woefully depressed.
Consider:
    * How does Big Bird act when he's woefully depressed?
    * How do Y

Nichrysalis
SojournerRevisited 10/28/2012 - Read by disrhythmic HERE.
I.
Salt in the cemetery licked at the lacking and
Lacquered ribcages of centuries old hulls—
Hulls and albatrosses overhead like
Broken ribs and severed sternums.
Masts akimbo and off-kilter, wood stained
To the marrow by the fresh saltwater from the shore
Of the Aral Sea; beached, sunk in the speckled
Sand, like the words of a guilted verdict,
A flotilla of past-flown ships and craft
Plunge further into the pebbles and topsoil.
The decay of humanity and humus emergent,
Each vessel was a well-rested relic reliant on
The sun to circumnavigate the pearlescent skies,
For the vessels could no longer circumvent the
Dusk that plagued each day.
Coerced to acquiesce and reacquaint with
The night, the marquee moon beams upon
The shoreline where sea-stricken ships offer
Shelter, like a light Only as Old"Frail bones predict what fragile minds can't detect,"
He trailed off slowly, "And my bones are achin'."
The air around me hung low and depressed,
Sticking to the back of my throat like a stormy syrup
I'd tried to swallow down.
I peered out the kitchen window
And caught an inklet of patched-over-grey sky;
I wondered what was in store for the day.
Impartial to the gloom outside, we stepped out onto the back porch;
Grandpa wobbled out with his cane in hand and we waited.
In the hushed stillness the trees traded birds—
Robins, swallows, whippoorwills, and cardinals.
If you squinted hard enough at the sullen shrubbery,
You could spot the caterpillar creeping to the underside of the leaf.
That's when I looked at Grandpa,
And saw through his eyes nature receding
At his prescience of a storm.
"Grandpa, how do you always know?"
He chuckled and simply said: "The world tells me."
It was left at that, but years later I have found
That the world is only as old as the person to whom you speak. Metamorphose Teaser        I.
        Met-uh-mawr-fohz – verb (used with object):  to change the form or nature of; transform.
        Ta dum.
        Ta dum.
        Ta dum.
        Pulses felt by palpating and pressing hands manifested an arrhythmia. Her breath breached consciousness and eyelids unsealed, irises constricting their pupils as they flitted from white wall to weighted, slate hinges.
        Ta dum.
        Ta dum.
        Dum ta.
        Her blood hastened in reverse systolic motions. She could discern the rhythm, flooding into ventricles from pulmonary arteries and escaping

poprocksandcharlotte
:thumb62115427::thumb204196269::thumb124542750:

Quelythe
aquaintancesand I realize:
          you are always there, regardless-- it may be
            the time when the sky is blue-black and
    the ground silent-- and still, I can hear you
          humming to the purr of grit beneath
    my hard heels, the nervous cough of
                  a dry throat; sounds of a girl hunting
         whilst the wise are not watching.
              You hear and yet you elude like
         the lamp-light's flickering; strains
       of crass laughter burn in my ears for this
  is MatchmakingFor her the summer days are long. She is small and sweet, a cube of caramel with an aching aftertaste that lingers for ending too soon. Her arms and legs are pliable as grass, and as grass she swells like a sea with the wind saturating her hair. She is one of the movers who cannot dance, but were meant to, from a tight core low in the abdomen; and she walks the sidewalk on the diagonal, a magnet pulled to a dimly lit room with the bhh-bhh-bhh of good hip-swaying rock 'n roll.
He rides the subway at night, beats rhymes into the stretched skin of the drum. He is an  eagle fledgling, long-haired and brown eyed. His pants are red and he sits on the ground, tapping to the chug of the engine-- the drum is the engine. The next stop is his; for the rest of the ride, the train vainly echoes his rhythms, before stumbling upon a screech and twisting the pulse to abstraction. Until tomorrow it waits for him, to unkink its music.
They could love each other easily-- as much as flame A Confession"The first time I saw them, they were walking down the street together, hand in hand."
It was late fall, I remember, and the day was chilly - the sky dull and bleak, the trees dead or dying. It was one of those days when numb cold seeps into every pore, every crevice, tinging the walls in somber shades of gray; one of those days when all you want to do is to crawl into some corner and let it all go. The forecast had called for rain, but it was holding out for now; just for them, that walk.
I don't know what they were talking about, but I heard their laughter easily, watched their voices rising in the cold. They were so goddamn happy - it was sickening. It was as if they belonged to another world, a world full of sunshine and buttercups, and smiling happy people. As if they were immune to those harsh slivers of pain that fly through the air every day, immune in a nakedly vulnerable way. Aware of the hundred-mile fall around them, but feeling no fear. Untouchable.
I scoffed, then.

JinShiranai
:thumb251146962::thumb84965156::thumb80193318:

Sssorry
Farmers' MarketFarmers'  Market
At daybreak, we make our aching bodies rise,
caffeinate, survey the still pink-patched sky,
pray for a dry day. Once loaded, we truck
bushels of produce, potted plants, sawhorse
and board tables, stabilize crates of pie
between bins and strawberry boxes, drive
down the mountain, into town and set up
the fruits of our labors, hoping neighbors
and weekenders alike will buy, eyeing
vendors wares, wishing there was cash to spare.
Down-street, a bow begins to sweep the strings
softly, bringing bed-headed children out
to watch the band set up. An old pup roves
over to the barbeque cart, gambols
off when the butcher shouts Git! Later on,
after church, hickory smoke scents the air,
tempting travelers- passengers stare, stop
to wander along main street, squandering
another summer Sunday in Vermont. TrickoletThe ambiguities he hides
between the ever-changing lines
of poetry; our romance rides
the ambiguities. He hides
emotion he creates decides
the meaning but never defines
the ambiguities he hides
between the ever-changing lines. CorvusAt times I've seen you as blue-black
liquid scouring  moss-green rocks, or
the cold shock of April's glaze clinging
to windowpanes, but you are the sweat
of a raven spilling over a fresh-tilled field.
I feel you soaring, circling, hear the scrape
of your wet wings raking across my lips,
taste the metal rasp of  laughter and pray
you will land, if only for an instant,
upon my outstretched  limb.

SparrowSong

tightwhitepants
Half-Penny ThoughtYou’re a half-penny thought in the back of my mind,
just a whimsy, a waste of a fragment of time.
You’re a telephone number I forgot to write down;
you’re the least of my worries, the last in a line
of a long list of wishes I’ve wished for.
Yes, your voice is a song that I hum now and then,
not for long, just for fun, never starting again
round and round in my head, nowhere near my top ten,
this refrain won’t remain, when it’s over - Amen
just a tune that I once might’ve danced to.
You’re a memory, fading, a faraway sound
hardly there, barely heard, just a wisp on the wind
like a melody played on a merry-go-round
when I’m walking away from the carnival ground
- in my heart do I wish I’d stayed longer?
You’re a face, you’re a friend, you’re a photograph framed
on the wall of my make-believe home, in the end
you’re not here, you’re not anywhere near, let’s pretend
that it’s all not for real, that it Love Song for DagmarShe’s a glutton, she’s no kitten; she can stuff her face for Britain
See her sitting in her Citroen, you can spot her from afar.
She is buxom, she is brazen, see her bottom, it’s amazing,
She is straining at the straplets of her cantilevered bra.
She’s an airship, she’s a trawler, still I worship and adore her
She’s a randy landslide riding in her flash French car.
As a goddess, she’s the oddest, and she’s vulgar and immodest
She’s the empress of breast, she is my sweet Dagmar.
She’s no figment, she’s no fragment, she’s a fat fridge magnet
and she’s sticking like a limpet to that big white door.
You can like it, you can lump it, she’s a slattern, she’s a strumpet
You can fill her to the limit - she’ll come begging you for more.
I am smitten, sycophantic; in her panties she’s gigantic
As I’m straddled, panting, frantic on the pinewood pantry floor.
See her glorious posterior, imperious, superior - The VetI’m the dog who aspired to become something other
- the mysterious madness of love to discover,
but I made my mistake taking you for a lover.
If I’d known what you were, I’d have chosen another.
That day had begun as my sweetest one yet -
You called me your darling, your precious, your pet,
and I licked both your cheeks ’til your face was quite wet
’cause to me you’re the world’s most exquisite vet.
You fed me such treats, oh my joy unabated!
(From your hand something sweet left me gently sedated).
So I curled on my bed, strangely tired, but elated
and I woke the next day, feeling sore
and castrated…

spoems
The Pale Likeness of a Colour                                             The Pale Likeness of a Colour, Spoken
the rampant eddies
have torn from the corners
of long horizons
some ancient colour:
a scarlet furrow
that air divulged, raving
in an afterlife
i'll never reach. Blackbird Pupilsdon’t look at me
with those eyes
sunlightburn
speckled brown
bluebird green and hazel-ache
mine, already hollowed out
tapetum breached
and daily leak-
ing
i cannot bear your
knowing glance
)/ocular-saw)(/intelligence(
you’d see all those wax demonshades
you’d know the clockworks run
on
pain-delay
today,
i read some other poet,
his words were blackice bludgeoners, soundless suturing socket spikes,  hammergods, each one,
the last cicada to flee the moult.
but he hasn’t the orbs to ruin me.
almost no one has
|them|. souls high kites with holessouls are high kites with holes, the sky is like a crystal ball
Blue sky harrow:
How lost for adjectives
Are we
To break our fast up there
Sugar, tea, and birdsong?
Of course, kites, souls
Curiosities, wind being free
While we, ground strung Gullivers
Flat beneath the
Colossal eye
We're watchers
Of the wolcen burnspot
Pupil paling
West, always
What do I call myself?
My sex deliquesced
An epicene, I'm a lover of honey bees
And toadstools
With plume
For tongue,
Duck-green;
A curling fern:
We slip around like
Chartreuse chimera
In Lilliput ponds.
We dive in as
The tadpoles stop
Tail-motor
To blend
Eyeless
At the empty
Arms
Of an underwater statue-
Arms like levers:
Blackening the coats
And peeling back
Crystal tortoise-shells;
Stripping time of
Itself –
We see the sky
Where it is skyless;
It remains an opal;
Patternless and
Dug-out:
A sunken
Treasure
In the bowl
Of your
Soul.

venturus
:thumb156139839: Night boatI'm late for the theatre. Luca guiding us
down still lanes, I recline, dip a hand;
cool, sunless flow. Bleached palaces
pass, lovely homes of merchant sires.
In a damp brume, the night is falling.
My departure was recorded by spies,
Luca says, off to alert their masters
the lord-in-exile has left his quarters.
Lanterns lit, we are crossing the city.
There's a monotony to these streets
I don't dislike, and it keeps off tourists.
I shall probably stay the winter over,
though the local giovani are not
to my taste. But from what future
have I tumbled? My modern heart
backwater-bound. Drinks aboard.
Tonight, a single cup of wine. I have
given up meat, and English company,
both hazards to health. Serenissima,
beguiler, you've drowned the moon.:thumb138518196:

vital-organs
Strangers on a TrainI got on this train at half past two without telling a soul.  My family never could have let me go if they had known.  But this was something I had to do; I really had no choice.
The people gazed politely out the tinted windows, or on the floor, or at their own pale hands folded neatly in their laps.  But never at me or anyone else.  The car I was in was dimly lit, small, cold, with orange plastic seats lined up on either side of the center aisle.  I stood in the middle, one arm hooked around the metal pole near the door for balance and the other buried deep in my pocket.  There was no luggage at the feet of the other passengers, nor was there a man to check tickets.
I sighed, letting out a plume of chilled air, and gripped the pole more tightly as the train ground to a halt at the next station, a dark mausoleum, where a passenger waited.  He glanced down at the worn leather suitcase in his hand then back Imaginary"My imaginary father beat me again." Charlie my six year old son complained as he stared up at me from the doorway into his darkened room.  He stepped in and carefully closed the door without turning on the light.  The evening's setting sun sifted through the closed blinds, but anything brighter than that hurt Charlie's eyes.
"Then stop imagining.  I can't stand to see the bruises."  I answered.  "Plus they'll hurt if I hug you."
The little boy nodded and screwed his eyes tightly shut as he strained himself to un-imagine the damage.  The blue-black-grey-purple paste of bruises mottling his arms and legs slowly faded.   "There, daddy.  All better."  He sniffled and smiled at me.
I stretched out my arms and allowed him to nestle up against my chest where I could hold him in safety.  And I held him for the next twenty minutes while he sobbed his heart out.  It wrenched at my

wh0rem0ans
WinterIn the dark night
of Winter,
Look up.
There are stars. II collect herbs on the Hansel and Gretel path to make a potion to drink and find the Baba Yaga within.
I jeep a million miles a week to celebrate one secret from one child that hints at the power they carry blithely.
I paint abstract road signs with the three colors plus dawn and twilight to find the night spot to dance the kundalini cha-cha.
I sit on a throne of thorns and watch through the dispelling inner fog as my body torques into imitations of a rose blooming.
I pour a river of skin into the ocean of his morning and feel the tsunami swell through a worldwide heartbeat.
I suck the colors and light and darkness from my inner psychedelic mirror out through the lens of the seeing camera.
I listen from somewhere beyond pulses to the purring and screeching that spills from your full heart to my cavernous soul. life partnerTo be my own life partner.
What would that mean?
Perhaps I would give myself
The luxury of enough sleep.
“There now, you have worked
So hard.  Take the rest you need.”
That sounds like a Life Mother.
Perhaps I would deny myself
The abuse of harsh words.
“Noone should talk to My Self
Like that!  Speak kindly, self!”
That sounds like a Life Father.
Perhaps I would take my Self
To the bookstore every week.
“You know you love books!
Let’s just browse for a while.”
That sounds like a Life Friend.
Perhaps I would draw a bath
And massage My self’s feet.
“Just lie back and relax.
You know you love this!”
That sounds like a Life Sister.
Perhaps I would rent a kayak
And paddle My Self on the Lake.
“Feel the wind on your face
And the water flow by gently.”
That sounds like a Life Brother.
Perhaps I will listen to the Still
Small voice within for hours.
“You are very wise and I want
To hear every word you say.

xork
Abal: Before the Sun       i. Island
Morning here is a brightly lit kitchen
where a redheaded woman
drinks black coffee and smokes by the window,
half asleep but eyes open
for the mail boat and for the sun.
Her lips taste like salt.
Things are less real out here;
the walls move with the wind
and light shoots out from the window —
to the mainland, where men live, and farther:
to where the sea is distant and the memory of her
is worth no less than everything.
       ii. Mainland
Men drown here
at night.
They wake up hours later in soaked sheets,
their lungs still raw with salt.
She knows they're out there,
waiting for that one mistake
                — a misspoken word,
                a movement too much or too soon In the Year of Our Lord 1921Aug. 2
Two weeks out.
This far north
the sun barely touches the horizon
before it rises again.
No wind now for three days.
We have not seen the skipper since friday night,
but we can hear him screaming from his cabin:
"The sea has many gods!"
The sea is oddly calm;
his voice carries for miles.

Aug. 13
No fish.
This morning we dragged up
the bloated corpse of a sea lion.
The first mate stared long at its body
before he decided that it was not a mermaid
and we threw it back overboard.

Aug. 23
The holds are empty still;
our nets drag useless behind us.
Cook says he hears bells in the distance.
He has been drunk for days.
The galley smells like stale bread and trench-death.
The skipper has gone silent now;
there is only waves against the keel,
kelson creaking,
and the first mate leaning on the wheel.
He mumbles foreign names
and stomps his heavy boots on the deck
to keep us awake.
We have not slept for weeks.
The wind is

Mature Content

This Article Series Is Inspired By…

An undiscovered gem I found while browsing DeviantART. I took intrigued notice of MonsterBrand’s 25 Deviants You Should Know and thought that would be a brilliant chance to spotlight writers I adore in proper fashion. Of course, I had difficulties keeping the feature limited to only twenty-five writers. I realize there are still a great many deviants who are not on this list, but it is far from complete! I do urge you to take a look and get to know some of these writers listed – as they help to make DeviantART the wonderful literary community that it is – but your journey is far from over.

Yours,
LadyLincoln

Comments46

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spoems

Jan 1, 2012

I've always enjoyed this series, so it came as a shock when I found myself among the featured. Thanks so much. I look forward, as always, to checking out the other artists. The things you do around here are appreciated.

30 Writers You Should Discover: Volume VI

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What's This?

Let’s Meet A Few More of Them:

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This Article Series Is Inspired By…

April: Future in Delightful Bloom

March: Heart, Soul and Hope

Tragic Tears Laced in Grief

February: Faith and Light