Tattered King on a Brick Road, a poem by Adam Common, poet

Well worn, the bricks aren't solid colour,
Their standard terracotta insides show,
Hinting at many dark, obsessive hours
Spent painting yellow the miles long road.

Who laid out your chaotic cobblestones,
Your impossible looking layout,
Bending thoughts away from a need to rest,
Casting the surrounding beauty in doubt.

After all, there is nothing but this road,
This winding way through hills and growling woods,
Whose path must not be left; Can not be left,
'Til an end that must be reached for ill or good.

In the distance, I see the tower
And all that lies between us on the way.
I see the man; the tattered, bandaged man,
With his paper crown and skin stained grey.

I see the puddles of rusty rain,
Set to stain these worn white shoes ruby red.
I see him crouched, brush in hand, stroking the bricks
'Til he would deem every yellowed stone repaired.

1. Wilder Kids & 2. Quieter Kids, a poem by Adam Common, poet

1. You’d lift your skirt to your knees

To make the climbing easier.

Your hands were rough,

And your face all smudged up;

Grass in your stupid hair,

And in my stupid hair.

We were wilder kids, dumb ‘n dopey,

Smarter than the smart, because

Just because. And we could run,

And fight, fly, and fail, and fall.

And man, didn’t you show me

How to fall the hardest.

***

2. The crash and wallop turned ache,

The longer kind of unhappy days.

Your skin was cool

And your face all washed out.

Tired, you slept days away,

I waited days away

And we were quieter kids, sad and sorry,

Drifting ignorant, because

Just because. What did we know?

What hope could hope provide?

And man didn’t you show me

How hopeless I could be?

Bit Bleak, a poem by Adam White

I fear
And the fear is an endless thing
Spelled out with the first letters from all the lovely names
Twisting uncomfortably back into memory
With a pointed, corkscrew tip
And so ruined
Ruinous?
Ruined.
That I don’t know if any of its smeared curves
Are forged of the real or the false
So rapt
Ensnared by the wonder of it
I carve and scratch a listless evening away on paper
Twisting uncomfortably back into memory
With a pointed, corkscrew tip