anne mcmillen
annie mcmillen (aka annie m) is 22 years old, calls herself
a manic depressive, lives on the charity of her brother's couch.
after dropping out of college to pursue a writing career, she
is feverishly preparing for her takeover of both the spoken word
circuit and cleveland poetry scene from a garage in elyria. she
is currently working on 2 chapbooks, one for sick puppy press
out of atlanta and the other for cait collins of the-hold, as
well as an autobiographical prose book called postcards from
disgraceland. annie's poems can be seen at the online magazines:
unlikely stories, the-hold.com, and another place she will not
bother to mention given that she was banished after a bad break
up with the editor. She loves to receive email and can be reached
at RonJandAnnieM@aol.com.
window watching
color has gone from the land
where the ardent screams of the suffering
form a hymn from shades of grey, in preparation,
for the final fulguration.
cosmogony keeps them looking back ward.
confusion makes their eyes roll-
over rolodex memories for a glimpse
of what eternity
promises yet to give.
- cities of discordant
collectives hide in the shadows
where high-rises meet
the pavement
-
- which flows like glass
with the lost, wondering, floundering free-
weights,
whose identity is molded over by rain soaked newspapers.
-
- even country boys save up for the merry-go-round, rtc, or
bus ride.
- stalking nightmares in order to
- chance
catching
some depravity on a soiled side street
where they can write their names with a stick in the
wet cement of their future burial ground.
maybe i really am nuts
you can't discern who it is that mercilessly maneuvers the
harrow
as if your body
were the land to be conquered.
- you do know the them, they, whoever
loves it best when
they have to hack
- away at the remaining parts of your
dignity. you look in the mirror suspiciously...
- was it really always you? the them is you? they
- have been trying
so hard to convince you of this
lately.
-
- subconsciously
- you hear the person inside yourself
whom you consider yourself to be
saying
(the harpies
perch on the top of my skull cap
and peck chip chip chip away at my brain.
they have come home to roost. i am now
housing the parasite of memory. their pay off is hearing my
skeleton's fingertips rattling out the morse code of regret
against the cage of my life. while they mock me and shrill laughter
from all angles and hemispheres clamors around inside my head.
their
seething tongues slur
you've done it to yourself).
-
- you are sure you are losing although you are unaware of what
game it is you are playing. you do not know who the enemies are,
but you know
they are coming
that they want to turn you against yourself.
- ...there is no way to explain it to anyone without being
accused of over generalized paranoia.
this feeling
- certainty
- you know something
for the first time
someone is searching out the source of your suffering
- to stifle and deny
their own.
a one and a two
a one
a phone's ringing
alerts once again that
privacy
no longer exists.
those that strike at
hearts through electrical lines
have got to get
one last word in.
- slack jawbones crave
a tasting for
an eternally lasting-stinging
day dream, fresh from
the cracker jack-
box blow up doll.
and the road curved up a hill waning...
- disappointment turned out to be a fashion show
designed in the image of guilt. leaving me
drawn between arrival and departure.
a two
dignity laughs. staring down
its own face
besides itself.
- the only direction left in this,
is a
head first
into a
law of gravity deifying spectacle. much more
interesting than a pulsating sack
whose babbling cannot be understood as communication.
more on him
i have relics of a past
to one day
eradicate.
although even new feelings,
remind of those times
spent in a murky addiction
labeled help.
- out in the no-zone
there are places,
persons who know
how over rated things are.
- community was never something
he had the mentality
to appreciate.
- my hours
spent staring
into a spot
where once laid a woman
who he never
got to know
- until her blood turned venom.
- to think
there is still
a whole life-time
left to regret.
stress
get to work for the finished
product.
anxiety backs off
as this variety of distress keeps
me
from any fatal mistakes.
headache anvils whose
aftershocks chase
away another way
to fill the ashtray
gaps.
what i say in silence
this flows passive
between pores, and frictionless
without shape.
pressing on and forcing open
our eyes
to stare blankly
into the fathom of the other.
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