do you think of me
walking past that ferris wheel
in the desert dark
long after the meadowlark
has left for songs yonder rue
do you think of me
standing on that worn jetty
a faraway face
framed within lost time & space
on abstracted rueful sands
do you think of me
hearing the song of the sea
near that ferris wheel
in a desert shell to heal
from rue the day we parted
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024
we are born
empty phials for memories
accumulated & preserved
for all time
drop by drop
warm & cold, sweet & bitter
laughter in sorrow & love
fumblers of rhyme
leaving’s never easy
but look, there, the stars
hopeful like our dreams
shade by shade
a unicorn’s funerary wreath
a pallbearer’s rainbow raiment
all is sublime
& then we die
caulked in eternity boxes
blest in rot for posterity
our burial heim
leaving’s never easy
but look, there, the stars
hopeful like our dreams
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025
your voice echoes back from yesteryear
as i perch on the edge of hope & fear
once more there’s this pang of you not here
the sun leers through cloud’s shame above
upon grounded white crow & black dove
whose answer for the wrong question needs love
tar soap scent atween the birches
your shadow no longer afore me
just othering eyes from briar to fens
your hand reaches through the fullness of time
untold happenstance of future clime
dusts sensate shoulder with earthly rhyme
it signals to turn that withered page
to uncloy myself from ferocity’s cage
release sweet sadness & fathomless rage
tar soap scent atween the birches
your shadow no longer afore me
just othering eyes from briar to fens
now & again when i turn to look back
i still see you not here & your hand’s slack
still you’re part of me on this doomen track
in these memories of you i abide
what remains of you the urn at my side
with no hope of turning time’s avian tide
tar soap scent atween the birches
your shadow no longer afore me
just othering eyes from briar to fens
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024
Gone! and they return no more,
But they leave a light in the heart;
The murmur of waves that kiss a shore
Will never, I know, depart.
Gone! yet with us still they stay,
And their memories throb through life;
The music that hushes or stirs to-day,
Is toned by their calm or strife.
Gone! and yet they never go!
We kneel at the shrine of time:
‘Tis a mystery no man may know,
Nor tell in a poet’s rhyme.
by ABRAM JOSEPH RYAN (1839-1886)
Public Domain Poetry
i feel most like myself with my lipstick smudged
headphones on
wind in my hair like a prayer half said
the sky’s bleeding peaches and cigarette smoke
and i swear
god has been ghosting me again
i light one up with trembling hands
flick the ash like it means something
like im someone
the musics soft
but it drowns out the memory of her laugh
almost
theres no one watching
but i still pose
like the world is a movie
and im the girl who never makes it out of the last scene
smoke drips from my lips like secrets
i will never say out loud
i dont know who im supposed to be
but at golden hour
i almost remember
and i keep dancing with ghosts in the glow of the streetlights
kissing memories i shouldve let go
i wear heartbreak like a starlet
but no one ever shows to the show
sunsets the only thing that stays
so i let it paint me red and gold
by LESBIHONEST
© All rights reserved 2025
unbolt me 