Author: A. Long

Soul Search

Posted on by A. Long

why do you let them?

come and leave?

like them and

love you, too?

what is the reason

behind settling for

sticks and stones?

for dimming your glow?

how come half their heart

is good enough for all or

your soul?

you bend back and break

bones for themin your home–

and yet they are allowed to stay

and make a mess of you.

why do you let them?

by Alex Elle

To August

Posted on by A. Long

Tumbling down

a leaf as i leave you

with smokey memories and warm nights

I guess the Fall came fast enough

but there were days that stagnated

i needed

Reading the signs of change

like clasped hands cluctching knuckle skin

so long summer

catching weedles in the weeds 

stinging needles from fat rains

immaturities

brown eyed honesty

i guess we both knew the end would 

come for us

always,

always and never.

 

Conversations

Posted on by A. Long

It was one of those mornings. You know the kind, where you wake still tired because you were crying and the cat tried to suffocate you in the night

your shirt ripped

tripped over your shoes

your knees sing the blues running for the bus

forgot to eat breakfast

so far nothing can go right, kind of mornings

I’m on my daily commute…upset, marveling at the homeless war vet stretched across four seats when this guy floats next to me. Feeling nothing but energy, I peer left and right, wondering what’s calling me out of the morning funk. It whispers a small command to smile

which I ignore.

Then my shoulder feels a gaze that’s uncharacteristically heavy. There he is scrounged in the corner, waiting for me to break the levy.

‘Hi’ spills out awkwardly to which he replied with a giant grin, eyes lighting up like Christmas

‘I was sending out the vibes, praying you weren’t hiding today’

as the thought of stalker creeps around the back of my brain, he had a   sip my my herbal tea in a dashiki when no one’s looking ambiance

hopscotch back to the gurgling in my stomach

he flips his dreads every couple of minutes so they cascade away from his face

In haste, he says ‘I’m getting off soon’.

I’m not.

He’ll be on in the afternoon.

I wont.

‘What do you do?’

I work on a corporate plantation. He laughed, heartily, enjoying the satire

saying that’s why he’s a kindergarten teacher

diving head first into political views and inside jokes like we were best friends and I had known him for years

He missed three whole stops that day just for a conversation…

 

 

 

Districts Of Immersion

Posted on by A. Long

 

Long after the mothers uncross

their arms and the children who huddle

and wrap their shoulders in towels

stop shivering, when atop the tower the lifeguard collapses his red umbrella,

the beach is shorn of leisure and the colossal night is a call to worship for the anchorite

who heaves churns and roars against the planet’s decree as it prays,

and leaning in me you ask what could a sea this terrible and perfect possibly ever pray for:

waves smack in the jetty again and again and again as if asking for one thing.

We draw our blankets tight.

More and more we think we hear it.

by John Ebersole

To Tin Men

Posted on by A. Long

To the man who made

the tin men with no hearts

you tinkerer

no love of your own

so you built them to entertain you with pretty lies

and oily smiles

but the glassy wax on his eyes

gives away the show

what if one had went rogue and ripped out Dorothy’s

while she was still breathing

so desperate from his manufactured affection

like food he swallows

or the words he mechanically bellows

all hollow

To the builder bent over

precariously at his bench making metal men in

his own image

to pry open the ribs of others

and take love wherever given

how dare you force life on

this dead scrap of bolts

then bid him sing and dance