Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

He said he didn’t hear the dogs barking. He has on now all that he’ll probably need. The late winter sky was darkening. The train was here. Was he embarking? She squeezed onto the narrow place with a leg over the edge. He said he didn’t hear the dogs barking. The wheels once again were turning. That...

It is said Chairman
Mao knew a great many
songs about heartbreak.

Clutching this blackness
like a pillow to my chest
while I toss and turn.

In my experience
with love, the bigger they are,
the harder they fall.

The days of their life together Compressed into a form denser, harder, More beautiful than the chalky lightness of their youth, A map that shows which mound covers the old site, He saw these things on his wife’s face. The frustration at taking this trip alone, There are only so many trips—they are n...

Joel. This is a nice piece, but I am not keen on it ending with a contraction. I think the near-rhyme you would get from "we are" would cover your scheme and read better. Obviously your call.

My mind wanders easily to you. You flirt subtlely, teasingly with my muses and my fears. I hear you laughing, a soft breeze on my cheek as if I were being caressed. I think of things that please you: long mornings lounging like lizards in the sun, evenings together in the shadows. While I pet your b...

“I’m coming,” woke me
from deep sleep. She had dreamed her
mother was calling.

Rabbit-- I am very fond of this piece. I agree with Saw -- the following stanza is as good as it gets: like the poet coming down from a lost poem one that took lifetimes to find the right words like some threads of some latent memory all wrapped around a few lines of immortality I offer the followin...

Good villanelle, Joel. "Doggèd" and "hound" in the same line is a nice touch.

I like this well.

The closing of "with guilty notes" in a letter to innocence is very good.

Oops! Wrong angle to the dangle.

Ain’t nobody knows my trouble with God. Ain’t nobody knows my trouble with God. If He loves men of peace, then why all this blood? Ain’t nobody knows my trouble with God. Yesterday, God took away my feet. Yesterday, God took away my feet. Now I can’t even walk down the street. Yesterday God took awa...

Down By The River

--

A river of souls
courses around us each day,
tugging and tugging.

dadio -- Another fine effort. Think about the line "without you knowing it." I don't think it fits with chimes that frighten the fuck out of you. Obviously your call.