http://slow.writerscafe.org/marcicles The original writings of author M. Shepherd en-us Copyright 2026 WritersCafe.org 1776070890 WritersCafe.org RSS Generator 15 Tattered will and stubborn fury,a f**k you is wrapped upin a silently caustic I love you.Tight lips from behinda texted smiley face, benign,an actual f*****g accomplishment that smiley face so earnestI could kiss my bloodied-cuticle fingersfor committing to it, pressing send,hoping.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/2858855/ The landlord spilled the newslike it were coffee a little too hotfor her mouth and we were her cup.It widened our eyesto sandy expanses of blistering white desert our pupils round floating oases.The same thought snapped so forcefullyto both of our minds at once we might have gotten.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/2149669/ Hard to tell what ageI began to shrugout of the cocoonI plastered in place whenfeeling that insidious pressurefrom what I perceived,as a caterpillar,to be from above, as -ding the buns are done!I emerged still a droopy caterpillarcovered in afterbirthhaving learned nothing wi.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1974730/ If it starts snowing in here I'll know that 30 years ago someone left a window open during a snow storm and the snow flew in and burrowed itself in the corners of the ceiling. These snow nestlings will hatch into a world that will soon be devoid of snow.Imagine only water. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1938281/ I terrify byyou and those eyes you stole from the surface of the surf,an algal ceruleanchlorinated swamp forest ofpeat moss, ferns, nettle -I heed their call I fallinto your tear ducts, salty.If I could I'd peak through minefrom behinda cloak -where you can't see methere is l.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1919785/ Emmm - context on part II - I've been collecting signatures for a petition door to door. In Portland's signature downpours. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1852971/ The first night of the riotsa hooker gave me a safety clipand told me to be safe.I was not riotingbut knocking on doorsin her rundown neighborhood,collecting signatures for a petitionto declare monarch butterflies an endangered species.I'm not sure if she was actually a hooker .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1852091/ Exquisite here in earth scented rainlight our skin pale and steamed clean gazes careening into each other like a traffic accident.Your estrangement is entanglement in the quieting curls of your snarled brainworms .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1838010/ Now that I have lived(slightly longer)I feel I may be allowed to comment on life -because what had I to say thenof softball and homework and my thick waist that I hated.what had I to say aboutstumbly pimples and awkward bumbling wordsto boys but wellthe boys haven't changed muchb.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1820726/ Red ripe scar, not yet whitened:Your pallor is sanguine, you seal in angry, aging blood, dulling with the days as they amble onwith their gay howdy doody's,their own phlegmy hearts buried behind similar blights.Time's minions, days, slogging along,schlepping moments on calloused sh.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1811985/ Who showed up at the gay pride parade in Portland this year? None other than several members of the Westboro Baptist Church carrying signs saying "God Hates You" http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1791924/ Shedding thoughts of youlike clumps of hair from a cancer patient,my lips to pillow form a synapse in which my bitter words collapse.It occurs to merather vaguely, thateach month I rent a window with a cubbyhole attached. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1773936/ you picked at the scab of the wound Iwas planning to heal quietly, until it        bled              and              &.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1771151/ You whir on emptyif not on fumes or cheap slaughterfrom whatever neon windowstill staining the street after midnightwill slap a happily plastic packageinto your free hand(the one not in a handshake with death)for your dishwashing riches.Your clothes hang off of youas though you w.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1770972/ When all else is foreign and incomprehensible, your pages are clean secrets told only to my tired eyes as I return to my planet,one which today orbits a colder, more formidable sun.But on a lighter note, the comets that have befallen their planet have neatly soared past mine, I remain un.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1764834/ You've got amber about you those motley bristles, tawny, mouse, and rust coating your cheekbones,homing smoke like gaseous battery acid, acridas bacteria that snack on youand leave behind their saffron trash,that spread their noxious opinion to whatever will listen,teeth, to.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1754577/ Medusa boy bed-head-raggled stench of stale bread sweat camel red cigarettesacid festered death breath,is anyone loving you?how do you stumble throughthat crumbling underdirt room?through the debris and carnage of her heart's scattered garbage? you could survive for years on star.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1739917/ Here's maybe what you wouldn't expect in this notebook the one you gave me for us to share,already your endearing scribbles and doodles on the first few pages,my first entry:Napalm. It's likethe documentation of that first mosquito bite, the second,watching the blood drain throughthose feathery.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1731983/ Tent neighborhoodsaren't steel and woodbut babe we ain't homelesscuz home is where the heart isso let's hope the pan pulls something heartycuz we've got these tiny gaunt mouths to feed and there's only so manywhoppers with cheese you can buy with penniesDad writes "why lie? I'm goi.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1730182/ To my valentine - I wrote you a lust poem about death. Aren't I just the sweetest? :P http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1725291/ My dean moriarty, my manic mountain manMy briny bungee jump, my rabid thunder clapmy messy trove of cocaine bonesMy capsule of light, my vitamin of vitality.Since always I've kept a picture of the idea of you in my mind's pocket, I've taken it to the table of my consciousness every.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1724235/ You're a stimulant, you are, youthrow a monkey wrench into my incessant rest and rouse me from numbness.I've lain rutted in rain gutters under a thick membrane of clutterwhere my voice slips into the mucus of those slimy walls I'm filled with,and my words flirt with themselves, coquett.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1721700/ Downtown I put on my heart helmet.Where Dublin's heroin loungesin alcoves and side streets, just out of reach,Portland's meth stares fixedly at you from your shoes, bellows wildly at you as you sidestep past on the busy asphalt."STOP ABSORBING ME" perhaps, or some such other puzz.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1719201/ ascent to maniaIt is entirely all over everywherenot at all nowhere anywherea paradox is a truth.The fat melts off the bone in the heat of the spittoo fast and scorching to drip into dying mouthsAs there is no net to catch a butterfly moving so fastBut it is unbearable to.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1718423/ Fickle as leavesMy curiosity takes a hiatusto rove rivers that speak no english.I blind staring at whiteI treat with greenWhere the sun peers through but cannot detect me http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1711024/ She defers so demureAs he peers into herlike a raven alighting on a clotheslineLight impinging on corneasDark infringing on dayHer soul is crustedwith the armor of her insecurity, sitting under her skin like fat. He sees through it as though it were the glossy waters of an.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1711023/ You have me high in mountains of delirium Teetering on some well-worn cliffly precarium Where I ponder the inevitabilityof descent to the valley of reality.You're the responsible, thoughtful one hereLet's not forget the time you cling wrappedmy chapstick when the cap fell in the trash, you.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1706421/ Those vines couldn't have crept more subtly into these ventricles.Subtle as a secretsubtle as snipped wingtips and weak drinks.Their spider weight didn't trip the alarms, I had no chance to wield the weed whacker before they'd breached the reaches of my branching veins.You sneaky he.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1698728/ I am diminished and diminutive I belong with the unassuming.I recall a plane where waterwas a dollar and a quarterand the attendant cocked her glossy headwhen I asked for tap. this plane is tiny and everyone here is rich.sometimes they put pets in crates where the luggage refrige.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1697309/ She is already speaking to me in past tenseas if I wouldn't notice that today is today and not yesterday.You were refreshing, she says, a refreshing dip into cool water from hot sun.Jacob, she continues, was a toothache to start and a painful extraction at the end.I am embittersweeten.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1697046/ His record is unclean, he married one and so did she.Attention span that of a spanieleach what would be fleeting glanceis a probing gaze,he doesn't just look, he razesthe fields of faces, grazing on each one despite that collar on his fingerthat says he has a homethat someone has.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1692922/ Is your father downstairs playing music?"I don't know, maybe."I don't particularly look up. Whatever she's about to say, by the simple fact of it concerning my father, will make her look bad. And I generally try to like my mother, no matter how hard she often tries to be unlikable. He's p.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1691539/ An induced reticence.I, stiff to your touch,feel nothing and feel like nothing.You, probing and finding no life,roll back and accept, resigned.I don't splay myself before you.I think of that later.Instead I lay as a rag doll after it's been hurtled to the wall.I wait for you.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1691060/ Caught in your orbitby the same source we are litSometimesI hide where your shadow fallsAnd together we are an eclipse http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1690317/ Handle this handfulA most distressful damselAm I Making my way by carbunkle on the abandoned bridge between your right and left brain.The song you wroteReminds me of a memoryOf the smell of yogurtAnd I lay in bed hungry listening to it. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1690312/ My blood is glue,it willows with water.But in blood, velocity over viscosity.The wires of my limbs carry and I marvel at how deftlythey exceedmy abilityto impart with speech.My skin bruises peachlymy heart far from reach, hewants it his but I can't seem to work the can op.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1689145/ I think I stole the laser beam idea from somewhere but I'm not sure where. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1689132/ There is little more a trite experiencethan to have been a teenage girlin the throes of her Selfas that Self falls under the selfish psychosis of infatuation.Yet note the timeless lovelinessof her burgeoning blush,blood blooming in rosewater -amidst averted eyes, manic criesof lo.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1688174/ I sent it from Bostonandit wasn't enough postage to make itto your house.And it wasn't enough postage to be sent to my house in California.Soit's in Boston. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1688168/ She had a tattoo of a clockset to the time of the momentshe looked at the clock and knewhe had killed himself. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1688166/ Fearful of my diffidenceThe chance of an insipidnessI end all banter with a kissSmoothly guaranteeing blissFor both lusting participantsHe'll know not of my deficiencyWhen all that he will have of meIs of my lips and underneathThe cotton resting sensuallyUpon my hedonist physique.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1687818/ You found me rocky with bones.  A graveyard roaming the roads.   A topographic messOf eroded fleshEdges sharp as icelight as white on rice.You found me sweating warshipsTremors stealing through my foundationmy bones would shatter the pieces would scatter&.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1687817/ He writes of them, (writes!)casually speaks (and writes.) of their beauty.Eloquent, no embellishment. Where my love liesbehind half cracked eyesI do not mind.Where I liea breeding seething scuttling kindof firy plague of flies, breathes, feeds on me and calls itself mine.When.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1687807/ The trees have claimed this place,they litter themselves on the pavement.In Los Angeles they're caged,the pavement contains them.But you can see where they scoff and erupt from the sidewalksBrushing aside the cement and imperialist intentThey're chewing through their leashes Ripping up.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1687782/ Aboriginal apparitions withan inch or two of midriffIn the shallows of winterBefore everything drowns in it.One car per hour out hereDistant city light spilling upAnd pillowing over starsin a salacious suffocation.Look at this damned moon.Cobweb caught, or perhapsbeached and .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1687776/ My faces are many tonight as though seenthrough the barking noseof your dog.I register as a thousand people,as every person who sat in that bus seat before meI appear as the thousand headedcreature that I am. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1687772/ He is french pressed folgers and scally caps on cowlicks Crows feet from when the welders mask was lifted to light smoke after smokeHe is daily whiskey snifters in dank darkBack to Pabst when the cash creek runs dry Find yourself a scrappy girl, scrappy boyFind yourself a free spirit to.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1687767/ It was the equinox, night no longer stealing away the covers from a shivering day. I did not wake from the time the light slipped away to the time it slunk back in, a professional.When I closed them my eyes were shot liver spots, when reopened, rinsed eggsMy body wakes me when empty .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1687759/ Eroded smooth by liquor like groovesin salted granite, centuries used.Skin slicks liquified Slip slide saponifiedAnd IOil you cleansed with myNectar and swallowed swill,Will you spin with me and kiss my wrists?Disarm me of pen and rewrite me of listlessness?I cripple by rippling .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1687751/ Derelict cliffs house only haunts. The fog hints at it, clues raccoon-strewn about, detritus ripped from a bin.These cliff faces bare their chalky teeth.The empty bay reminds us of our hollow hearts, newly caved out and ready for mining.Debris and unidentifiable filth pepper the clarity of t.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/marcicles/1687748/