http://slow.writerscafe.org/DannyLynne%20Etter The original writings of author DannyLynne Riley en-us Copyright 2026 WritersCafe.org 1776020145 WritersCafe.org RSS Generator 15 I fell hard into your lightand with all your might you Busted through walls where doorways no longer exist You held my hands above my head and just like you said we loved hard...shaken not stirredand without a single wordI let you in  I said where are the degree's of separation? for I can no l.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1306507/ should I refrain from slaying your heart? here upon my wistful bed where you lay me downnight after night I longed for sweet nothings but death was the thingyou whispered in my ear as I cradled the empty notion of youagainst my hopeful breast...and I begged for youas you spilled an empty seed into t.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1304634/ December was a desolate sky...a pale sky draped around an inconsolable sun ...a marker for the endless days when we would rise and struggle to move forward against the poor choices we had made. We spent our precious moments on folly as if we had an unlimited supply of them... as if it were.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1304229/ It is ink not blood that runs through my veins and a poets pen that obtains it a clever refrainon an endless white page holds my feeble attempt to contain it how do you write your entire heartusing only a ledger of symbols and marks that make up the words to a limited languagein a contemp.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1278706/ She wraps herself in threads of sadnessand everyone thinks they must free her of this madness...that somehow she is tangled withinthe heartbreak of a self made prisonFoolish oneswill bid for her lovebut what they cant seeis that she is exactly as she wants to bethose melancholy stringsare not the co.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1261354/ I saw your face today. You were standing there in the corner against my dream. Just like you always did. You looked the same...mostly....but for your eyesolder now and haunted. Haunted by a lifetime of experiences they never got to seeexcept here in the cradle of my dreams I lived this life for both.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1253593/ You fed me bitter berrieswinter berries from the moundthe last thing I remember before you kissed my swollen moutha pale sky and red stained lipsspinning all aroundas I grasped at grassy Lordsand searched for stable ground what is this curse you have pierced me with?the juice of bitter berrieso.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1250822/ There is one I long formorethan any other my sweet le bete my lover is a city exquisitely displayed dressed to the nineswithin her jeweled urban sprawlshe is the luv of my life and the fairest of them all as I gaze into the brilliance of her luminous lamps like pearls placed on delicate laces thr.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1250821/ There you go looking smug and all that like the Cheshire cat who got the canary very arrogant and scarey because life is complicated its a funny little thing and when I wasn’t on the other end of that string you found it didn’t mean as much this clever guise to keep me .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1245737/ I dreamed of you in the night Do you know that I long for you even when your not looking I can still see you stored deep inside my tinderbox heart my collected visions of youI've set apart you have haunted me for my whole life and perhaps a time or two before then and now here you are once again .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1238851/ So...you thoughtthatyou could steal me?spill me out then fill me?Burn me outTurn me outConsume methen Assume me? Fat chanceHot PantsI'm not your panhandlewith your Hooker Hoopsand half truthsyour the reigning excuseinvented like your scandalsbut you cant simply breathe me inwear me like a new s.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1234901/ This piece was written about a part of myself that I have always harbored a great deal of shame over much of those feelings stemming from my grade school years and the horrors I endured at the hands of .unknowingly perceptive children who could never name the thing about me that unsettled th.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1231990/ For as far back as I can remember I have been a dreamer. Not the kind of dreamer that one might speak of in a cliche, whose head is always in the clouds while spinning dreams of success and literary grandeur and I suppose I am that too, but here, I am speaking of the ability to dream insid.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1231988/ we all travel upon a trajectory.  marked by an invisible thread of circumstance binding us one to another we become entwined in the human experience...tethering us to life itself. And the courses we steer are ever changing by the smallest most insignificant things effecting us in th.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1227552/ Somebody Help me!...I seem to have lost my voice! I cant say for sure exactly when it went missing and I didn't even realize it was gone until I went to use it and just when I needed it I realized it wasn't there. I knew this to be true because only a person who has no voice would say that t.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1221483/ I still look for her everyday in her playful cyber rompsher evidence splayed upon my pagein digital forget-me-nots I long to tell her everythingand wear her word pearls on a stringbut the words don't seem to ever comeforever trapped upon my tongue for even in her pixelized essence I come u.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1221480/ I'm in love with the tin manI know it comes with such supprisefor everyone thought it was the scarecrowbut oh nothe Tin Man caught my eye his steel embraceI chasedthrough poppy fields and snowI thought he was the living endbut how was I to know? that beneath that armor so majesticwas but an empty sh.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1207465/ I woke up late this morning...AGAIN.  thirty minutes has me praying for a miracle that the time space continuum will be suspended and that the laws of physics will somehow cease to exist. None-the-less I emerge from my apartment, scanning the lot through dark and heavily made up eyes, .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1192352/ …..because one day you wake up and you begin to discard your death selfyou begin to give away those rotting pieces of yourself. You sell them for quarters to the homeless lady with the death cart. You sell them for just a small piece of hope and in the beginning you do not get as much.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1183766/ Something happened yesterday a moment that stole the breath from me and I felt the earth shift slightly upon its axis. A rumor that I have heard before suddenly became a bit more real as I gazed at the front page of my local newspaper and there in colored format lay the sketch of the citi.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1183753/ Its amazing how one can look back on something and mark the tell-tale signs that were there glistening  in the dust all along...it was so easy to overlook those darting eyes and greetings met with subtle coolness... and the way the entire room that was bustling with conversation only se.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1183745/ In moments of madnessshe would plead"if you cut me I might bleed"still he could tracewith fingertips placedagainst the grooveson her doubtful facewaking the monstersfrom under her bed the words declaredbut left unsaid"why must youfeedthe needto bleedfrom all those subliminal scars?"exposing the evi.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1157038/ I often seem to spill myself upon the world around me a dark stain upon the crisp white shirt of the human experience....I stumble through life and when it accidently looks good I pretend it was a dance...a skill that I spent hours practicing and working on but in reality the only thing I ma.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1157036/ "The only ones for me are the mad ones. the ones mad to live mad to talk mad to be saved desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a common place thing but burn burn burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars" -Jack Kerouac &nb.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1144629/ She gave her shattered heart to him in pieces, a single portion at a time. She never tried to hide her brokenness from him and he, in turn, never pretended that he could fix her. He never spun tales of conjured potions or prince charming promises to fuse her back together again, but.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1144626/ I do not know from where this broken thing within me reigns ...why I seem to find such intense beauty in sadness or why I am lulled by the subtle storms I sing. And I am always amazed when others do not get it...when they cannot see every complete and separate world inside a single tear .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1144623/ she speaks in languages that often need deciphering...it is endless and exhausting...she dosnt know why she does it...why she feels the need to make everyone work so hard trudging through her plots and meanderings...why she begs to be interpreted on difficult levels that are so unnecessary. .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1144621/ we are all just pieces of poemsCollections of sonnets, stories and songsengaged in a danceof destiny and chancewe drift on a sea of language and loreto wash upon a worded shore all the while longing to findthrough some generous miracle of rhythm or rhymethat somehow your story.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1144610/ Oh my luvcome Dazzle me with Autumn rubyand mahogony treesthen lay down my lonelyon a bed of gold leavesand cover me slowlywith echo's and plea'sthen paint me a sad heartin crimson and dawn seduce me with sorrowwith fever and songwith tempest and tenderand a hint of a goo.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1059424/ This piece is about an experience I had back in 1999. I was still struggling with a life in the throngs of addiction and perhaps one of the darkest shadows of my past are still enveloped in the walls of that small studio apartment in downtown Eugene at the edge of the butte where death.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1056407/ There is a sad girlshe haunts a dark bench and graces streetlampsstrung together like pearlsso cleverly placedalong the elegant neckof woodand pathwaysilluminating darkin a lighted parkthis is where the night seems to find herwrapped within  the delicate gossamervei.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1055902/ My Love, I would steal but a single kiss if I could only stop at one, though I fear not but grant me neither fault nor tarry...for could you blame me? The strongest pull of passions ache and urgent longing would consume me, my love, and I would be bound by a strength not my own to steal .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1054947/ This poem was made as a follow up to "The Purging Stone" piece and to truly appreciate the meaning one should visit "The Purging Stone" first http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1017286/ Calliope or Kalliope was one of the greek muses she was the muse of the epics also known as the muse of epic poetry and also the Goddess of eloquence http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/1005499/ "I am a thick girl." I can say it now but there was a time when I couldnt even think it. I have always been at shameful odds with this body that I am tethered to and Ive spent a life-time trying to find ways to hide from it...to deny the odd laws of nature that exist within my physical frame-wo.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/888433/ Oh how you taunt me to cleverly unlock me and into the dream I fall. I am in the big house again. The one with many rooms. The one where the stairway swirls the one leading up to the roomto the secret room.. To the place I no longer visiteven disguised in dreams.&n.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/852916/ Im in love with the GeishaThe one from the bath houseWho pours the water bowl upon her headand sends her hairSpilling in dark rivers along the contours of her backpooling thereagainst the small of itin the dimpled spaceI long to kiss...~DannyLynne~ http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/847391/ She was always seperate...set apart from the rest by her timeless eyes and the breath of mystery she housed within her soul. They could never put a name to her or brand the  thing about her that frightened them the most. Her thoughts were beyond anything they could follow and even her language .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/845771/ At one time, in the height of the golden age, the Oregon economy boomed with the cultivation and management of timber. The families came, lulled by the suburban communities and job security. Proud Fathers worked hard and made good money and contented mothers stayed home and baked cookies while the C.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/843714/ I waited for him. Through nightmares and chaos...I waited for him. I was 17 the first time I heard him. Calling for me in the music. Sometimes in a word but mostly in a sound. Somewhere out there he was looking for me. Maybe he felt the urgency. Perhaps he sensed his "forever girl" being hurt somewh.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/831968/ She is lost within herself, sitting on a bench facing the river. Her eyes glazed over with that far away look. She is a girl with longing in her eyes. She is a girl with purpose in her quest who longs for a city she has never been to and yet she is betrothed with deliberateness to this fleet.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/814647/  And so it begins...another day I wake and put into motion my passion for this dance of life...cresting in the raw...To master every graceful motion and don without dignity the masks of serious dedication and borderline obsessions.. to live, eat and breathe the quest... to stalk it unti.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/814646/ What Love...What Love...Is this?That could neverBe expressedIn a single wordOr all the starsIn a Universe...UnboundAnd yet to be deliveredSo precisely in a soundIn the music of the moorIn the sweet haunting whineOf a Soul entwined...In yours~DannyLynne~ http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/786738/ Would it be too hard... too much for you to taste...?The Diamond droplets on her tear-stained faceCould you handle the truth of her Fire-Opal heartAnd face the fact that you played a huge partIn the cracks you used to scale Alabaster wallsWhile you courted her secrets in those grand Emerald hallsCas.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/778822/ ...And The Gates of August have closed rather loudWith the peel of a bellIn a heart-shaped shellRinging on the roundAnd the roaring silent soundOf vast empty spacesStreaming whispered conversationsThat echo from distant days unboundBefore The Gates of August came crashing to the ground.... ~Dan.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/761284/ She drew deep from the wells of solitude a strongelixir to secede the exclusive pain of the unexclusive.  She drank it down to drown out her insatiableneed to belong. A shield to protect the tender glass heart barely beatingwithin her breast.  She was known tohaunt empty houses o.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/721656/ I dressed myself in kingdomsAnd braided religion through my hairTasted thebittersweetOf logic and reason And sang the proofs ofMathematical equationsBut I found no solace in numbersAnd in religion… only shameSo I cast off my heavy cloaksOf cultures and ki.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/714125/ Beneath the surface there are cracks and resentments that go so far back that I don’t know where I would even begin.  I don’t know if I am up to the task of revisiting those dark days again. But I know that it is necessary  for  I left pieces of myself…large .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/711331/ She is left alone with her madness…sewn into moments that wage war against all her reality’s…she plucks them one by one and they give way with ease…like petals on a dying flower…they become lost in the mix…this colorful mess of moments… she attem.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/705518/ In a listless world that has lost it's divine beat and pulsates erratically with hate, envy, jealousy, greed, and every type of crime, we listen for the comforting words you uttered to a little girl when you took her by the hand and said "Telitha Koum" -little girl rise     .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/DannyLynne-Etter/701587/