Daily Archives: January 15, 2016

3 posts

“Incidental Epiphany” by Drew Marshall

Someone or some entity
Bless me
I have not sinned
I bear the signs
Of a marked man

 

Pointed fingers
Accusations
Truths, taken as excuses

 

Because of tomorrow
All things being equal
I remain
Fighting in my sleep
Charming, but angry

 

A mainstream, outsider
Has missed his intended, destination
Time is a luxury of views
I cannot afford

 

Dusty rhythms arrive
At memories end
Under the guise, of cloudy dreams

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drew Marshall works as a Program Assistant in the mental health field. He has also worked as a Benefit Analyst and litigation paralegal. He enjoys practicing guitar and snorting vanilla scented candles.

“A Moment of Unconditional Love for Little Ones” by Cara Vitadamo

Love bleeds into my soul
Plastering itself to my heart.
I can’t breathe for fear of devastating loss.

 

Always present
Never relenting
Love does not rest
Bringing anxiety
To do its best.

 

Love adheres permanently
To the synapses and axons of my brain
With a glue so powerful
It cannot be pried away.

 

Love is here to stay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cara Vitadamo is a registered nurse that enjoys poetry. She has been published in Torrid Literature, All Things Girl, and Mused a Bella Online Literary Review Magazine.

“222 Homicides in Philadelphia” by Lee Erdo

alone,
on Philadelphia tarmac
lights illuminating recycled
wolf howl over the museum
can you feel them gnawing your skin?
seeping beneath your flesh
with a
blood threatening atmosphere
riding the expressway
with odd misshapen
hues

 

everywhere to nowhere
going postal
& born to be wild

 

Will Smith marches
for an
end to violence
mournful ears
read the words
of missing children
mocking birds play
raunchy bass heavy metals
pounding out a killer’s ransom

 

red eyes blazing anger
out of darkness
like fat slices
of stalking déjà vu

 

explosions stabbing mobs
of crime
sigh an upsurge
of inmates on death row

 

while the
signs on jails shout
“no vacancy”
grimacing screams
on playgrounds
bouncing off the streets

 

Reading Terminal curled up in fetal position
in the narrow alleys of poverty
secluded pathways of drug runners
kids owned by the hood
billowing mysteries of legal failures (mayor street?)

 

living in bell jars of beveled glass
apprehension edges on
the brink of everyday life
putting an end to confidence
growing skeletal remains

 

wearisome
living five floors below the surface
with dark-paneled pubs
pushers & pimps of a worldly hell

 

vomiting freshly spilled blood
a siren’s call in the distance
shifting eyes of some swinging door
monumentally erupting guns
then…
another…
fallen…
police officer
responding to the sum

 

pierced empty sidewalks
with sharp blades of sludge
hidden turnstiles of souls
where children go
at age four

 

and through the visor of mind
refuge screams in terror
“the kid’s zones…”
offered on Ogontz Ave
“stop-snitching” t-shirts
victimize their next targets

 

going against everything we know
while agony of surviving families… friends
have grave decisions to hold
the American Dream becomes
something that goes bump in the night

 

************************************

 

222 homicides in Philadelphia
as of Tuesday, July 25, 2006
sometimes it just gets to ya after a while

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lee Erdo is from north-east Pennsylvania.