Duane Vorhees writes

Francis Drake

My hands are caked and yours are so fine,
but somehow they fit
trim together like ships of the line.
Marry me, oh carry me, sign your name mine:
I'll be Francis Drake and you'll be my Golden Hind.
I'll fill up your hold with all of the gold
that I can find, all of the gold that I can find.
We'll dance naked, if you're so inclined --
just billow our charms,
wrap our sheets round  yardarms entwined.

I'll ride you oh I'll guide you, make your name shine.
I'll be Francis Drake and you'll be my Golden Hind.
I'll fill up your hold with all of the gold that I can find,
I'll fill up your hold with all of the gold,
with all of the gold,
with all of the gold
that I can find.
I'll be Francis Drake and you'll be my Golden Hind.

Mandalay shoots

Jake Cosmos Aller writes

Suburban Laundromat

 – thanks to Don Teeter for the inspiration from a FB posting

Suburban Laundromat Scenes

Suburban laundromat

Anywhere USA

I often go to a suburban laundromat

Near my suburban apartment

I can sit in my car

Listen to jazz, classical or blues

On my car’s radio

And watch my machine

Doing its suburban laundry duty

Just spinning and spinning and cleaning

Doing its thing its laundry thing

The neighborhood is anywhere USA

Strip malls, apartment houses, townhouses

A fire station, a police station

Banks, cell phone shops

Restaurants from around the world

At the parking lot’s edge

As I approach I notice

Gentlemen of the off-grid class

Sitting among their Hogs

Stoned off the semi legal weed

Smiling at me

With an I don’t give a fuck attitude

That is somewhat contagious

They tell stories

Paranoid ramblings

Containing a kernel of truth

As they watch their clothes

Like a hawk

The clothes spin and spin and spin

As the laundry machine does its laundry thing

The machines don’t care about what we humans think

They just do their duty as the man says

Across the old run down boulevard

The light rail line uses a right of way

That dates to the mid 1850’s

An old Indian game trail perhaps

That the white man turned into the first road

In these parts

People come and go

Some in cars

Some on foot

People from all over the world

Speaking languages from everywhere

But all understand English to some extent

And many understand Spanish to some extent

I feel everyone is united

Chiefly by their transience

And think back on old Latin saying

Sic transit Gloria mundi

And wonder if these are the end days

And ask the laundry machine

What does it think

The laundry machine pauses

Seems to think

And looks at me

Almost saying

WTF do you think

A laundry machine knows?

And so, I gather my items

Nod to the regulars

Who interrupt their endless paranoid arguments

Acknowledging my existence

And I stumble back

To my suburban apartment

Truly paradise on earth

 Brainwashed

Daipayan Nair writes

Interesting Tyranny

When life-porn starts calling

Its emotions, throat 

The one presence

In this 'ever shifting' present, 'belly'

A tree in the lawn steps forward 

Woman learns about 

Her role in autumn 

Roots dig to fetch what nails can't

Nail peels its generations from above 

Fruit, never a 'commoner' 

Pedestal on an erection 

Larger fruits; demands of topless

Public teeth bites an unsliced tit

Belly, the gallery from which 

Throats enjoyed being scratched

Human elongations nailed

Social digestion, 'self mastered' evolution 

Pressured through 

Dark intestines; never stop

Wind though free, is free to flow

Through 'nothing' 

Throats, abstract and concrete 

Turn half-bachelors; absolute penises 

Undressing morbid love, 

Its post-mortem

Man's finger learning the many ways 

To break inside a woman

Woman knows the hard path back 

To her 'lost thumb' of childhood

Neck kiss, statue bliss, 

Stroking of erect tombs

Where bullets miss, suck and kiss

Man's modern day equalising of blowjobs 

Sex and non-sex motions

Geo-emojis, state, household emotions,

Man creating feminists, 

His 'feminine' still loving fists

Dual patriotism of a war sub-marine

His sobbing is his tyranny

His orgasm, his child's.

2 Lovers Fondling -- D.Jaron

Jack Scott writes

The Cry of Clams 

He who hears the cry 
of clams within the mud 
hears too well. 

He who hears the cry 
of buried clams in pain  
must cry alone 
and know he cries alone. 

He who hears the cry 
of lonely, drowning things  
must fear 
and drown in fear alone. 

He who hears the cry 
of things buried in agony 
hears hell; 
thank god he hears alone.

Clam Beach at Orick --  Gretchen Hancock