The Olde English poem,
The Holy Rood,
Was mystical and new.
The courtiers liked what they heard,
The troubadours sang out their truth.
Then Beowulf gave it design;
A plot with characters,
Some nearing divine,
With beasts and bravery bounding;
A new literature was sounding.
Soon Canterbury clopped along,
Lyrical poetry became song,
And morphed into Paradise,
Lost and found in common meter,
With angelic imagery, good and evil,
Undone in metaphysics.
Round the Lakes the poets roamed,
Windermere, Grasmere, and Dorothy's home.
They walked in beauty, day and night,
Warned the world was too much with us,
That nature was our friend.
Gave intimations of our end,
We still need listen to.

"The act of molting or shedding an
                      outer cuticular layer."

I knew coming into blue,
recognized that
love colored my eyes too.
For days I was blind,
ached,
starved for loves sake--

Convinced that so
much was at stake!
I wrestled with desire
and hate,  
denied longing,
feared fate,
fought the need to mate,
then would compensate.

Irritable, I'd agitate.

I knew coming into blue
& embraced the devil too.
Writhed and wrestled
then shed you--
becoming something new.

By:  Evelyn Augusto

This espresso tastes like poison,
In spite of all I've added to cover the sweet bitterness

I want to release rather than increase
Release rather than increase

My mind is full, from my ears to my neck to my head,

A consistent pressure throbs
It robs me of peace
Of Mind

We all go through it
We are slaves
We are victims
Of long forgotten systems

We live to work, and work to live
Work to eat, and eat to work
An endless cycle of compromise

Open your eyes
Your senses
Smell the prosperity, the disparity
The paradox
Watch the rise of Pandora's Box

Feed, greed, need
I've planted the seeds of doubt
And watched them grow
Into luminous, prosperous trees

They are silhouettes against the sun
And against the backdrop of the moon

You live in a cocoon
Awaiting a metamorphosis that may or may never be
I live in a cocoon
Awaiting a metamorphosis that may
Or may never
Come

I never thought you'd drive a wedge
into my ribs
and touch the heart within

I never thought I'd lie awake
and
dream up something real

I never thought I'd keep away
from harm
for too long

I never thought I'd witness walls
fall apart and
crumble in my feet

I never thought I'd believe
in myself again
take up these fragile wings

I don't believe in an enemy
replacing something dear
so I stray away from every

smile that ends up near
to keep what's left of sanity
as thoughts weep silently

i dare you to tell me that you have never taken a hot shower
slowly growing colder as time goes on
when someone turns the kitchen tap on
the shower is not the same as it was not long ago

if you sit outside
long enough for a cloudy day
to become a raging thunderstorm
you will notice that you breathe a little bit harder
the air surrounding you has amended

i could list off millions of regular things
things that are so common they often go unnoticed
i could tell you to pay attention
to the suffocating amount of different alterations

or

you could merely accept the reality of change

everything changes

e v e r y t h i n g

It came very late at midnight,
Evolving like a parasite.
Twist and bend and inverse,
This mind gets too perverse.
My body craves fresh appetite.

I'd share the sky
with the clouds
but I had to grow my wings
but I had to lose my skin
I dared to reach
paradise
but my brothers took my skin
but my brothers used my skin

and I couldn't let them win
so I had to let this in
now it's tearing us within
and it's the fruit our sins
cause I had to grow my wings
but my brothers used my skin

I made them crawl
took my time nice and slow
feels so good to lose control
like a witness, watched them fall

now I'm free to flee this skin
but I will not shed this sin
and I cannot be complete