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The amount of artistic talent here on dA has always amazed me, I feel like it should be a privilege to be able to feature such amazing pieces as these. Therefore, without further ado this Sunday's Specials
2013 AND A TIME MACHINE WINNERSPoetry 1st place 2nd place 3rd place
Ixchelthe new year riots in
on its horses,
all helmets and gunpowder,
reared on its haunches
like a conquistador army.
your invasion brings out the
Mayan in me,
the pre-Columbian refusal
to be subdued,
the impetus to reclaim my territory,
hissing like a serpent,
a jaguar.
my civilisation
is scattered like stars
in centres of sacrilege, sacrifice;
my heart an ancient ceremonial
stone, a step pyramid raised to the heavens
like a rocky intake of
breath.
I, hellcat, spitfire,
murderess, bloodspiller,
tongue like an obsidian flint:
I rage like a goddess.
you, soldier to my warrioress,
discipline to my fury,
hypocritical saint
to my unabashed lust fo
shipsand so
the wind blows gently
taking this soul from here to there
fifty-two weeks fly loose from my hair
i grant my fears
to the air
dear friends
those harbours from whom i drifted
may the waves sing songs to you
whichever grains your feet fall upon
may the skies above
stretch blue
i do not need those castles
made of clouds or built of sand
i shall mould a fortress
with the skills that i command
and should my efforts falter
it takes small faith to understand
that i will find your kindness
and your hand
to those whom i have met
you have my deepest thanks
you rocked me from my loneliness
kept my days from being blank
you
he stole all my thyme awayNEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS
1. new year, new you.
a. be unrecognisable. when if he passes you in the street, he shouldn't know who you are.
b. learn to recognize your new self in the mirror.
2. be optimistic.
a. he might join the army.
b. he might get cancer.
c. he might be hit by a tru
3. stop wishing bad things on good people.
4. start wishing good things on bad people.
a. maybe he'll get a promotion and move far away.
b. maybe he'll get married and move far away.
c. maybe he'll
4. stop saying he's a bad person.
5. be good to yourself.
a. there are better men. find them.
b. there are better
Prose 1st place 2nd place 3rd place
Lucky Number Which would she do? Eat more chocolates or buy a pack of cigarettes?
Only the New Year would tell. And the New Year spoke. She'd do both. She never was one to stint on much.
"Well, Jiminy, why don't you face reality?" she asked her loving husband. How loving was he?
"I'm not going to sit here and watch you put trash in your mouth," Jim said.
His voice was too calm. That meant he was angry.
"I can't help it," she said, trying for a victim pose.
"You can do anything you put your mind to, and you know it," he said.
"What do you mean?" Alice whined. "I'm getting fat ever since I stopped smoking."
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resolutethis year, my resolutions won't be stuffed into my bedside drawer. i'm not going to roll them up like a cigarette, small and deadly, and tuck them into my pocket. i won't let them rot there, and remember them only when they're small, pilly pieces on my favorite sweater when it comes out from the dryer, forgotten by the time i pull each piece off, letter by letter.
because i've never realized until now, but my resolutions are the outline for a book that's always misplaced or miswritten, so coffee stained and battered that by the time the winds of december come to turn its pages, there isn't a single word to touch. because, instead of my novel or a chapter, i write myself an anthology. i title it regrets and feed it to the fire, burn away the past year and my chance at every single thing i could have learned.
but this year, before i sliced open the spine and tore out each and every syllable, i stopped. i read.
and, for once, these aren't regrets, but things i know i need to change
LITERATUREPoetry
How do you wear your skin?I want to know;
do you change it every day,
like underwear or socks, or is it
like your favourite jumper, worn for
days and days until you realise
there's coffee on the sleeve and
old lovers in the pocket and you
really should get rid of that
lie you told your parents?
Or is it like my skin,
left hanging in the wardrobe
day by day because I can't get
out of bed and I can't step into
the person I am because I hate
myself so much it's like smiling
for photos with people you
hate and I'm so sick of my skin,
how do you like yours?
beast caught the latch, beauty struck the matchtime spent like a sunflower, head
full and heavier than the rest of
you, dipping down and dipping down
and furling into yourself sickly like
looking down
and realizing your foot has been
sliced open by some careless clever
rock and the shaking starts and
the animal stands up in you because
it knows better than to tether itself
to the delicate hoarfrosted sentiment
that help is on the way. it knows better
and it knows nothing (nothing is
remembering what it felt to be airborne
what it felt to be tipsy and guffawing
onto your shoulder's landing pad
what it felt to be a sleek beast electric)
because the animal waits for no one,
risks f
[ ][Happy]
is as fragile a thought as
[Chaos]
is my milk and blood, and nothing but a
[Word]
alone, no flesh or dance, falls through to a
[Void]
of senses and shifts, all I live is
[ ]
is the breath on which I am
[Happy]
never enticed me like
[Chaos]
is the beautiful start, the end to every
[Void]
is the silence that has no
[ ]
is so much more than a
[Word]
deep space.i imagine
that there are galaxies in the folds of his skin
that crinkle around his lips as he gives the crooked smile
and hides the words of celestial spaces within.
with tangles and messy hair that is
composed
of threads of time cut short and paradoxes
of emeraldblue nebulas in place of eyes.
infinity
is too short of a word
to explain what we are in eight letters that strewn
together
have no real meaning but of the void
and of the void above
i imagine a place
where people do not judge on
two pale eyes, dirty hair, or a face
but on the curves of wrists that make up
a person.
a place with rocket ship people
with intercosmi
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featherweightwhen she was young, she decided she wanted to be a bird.
the skin felt so heavy on her avian bones, she feared she might
cave in. it was then decided that if she was to ever fly, she'd
have to hollow herself out. and so she did.
I'll never tell you -- you already know.I remember in the beginning
there was just you and me
and heartbeats--
small intervals where the air would leap from my chest,
saying you leave me breathless will always be an understatement.
I wanted to kiss you before
I even knew you or knew the real you
but your untied purple chucks
had me even before your hello--
months later I realized that meant to be's aren't always
as silly as they used to be.
I've fallen in love with how
the palms of our hands match
the planes of our souls and
every time I loop my fingers
between yours we fall deeper--
If there was ever a time I should explain myself,
it's be right now, but I thin
Dry BonesSometimes I replenish my whiskey bottles with water
And swirl it around. I drink up
To make sure I didn’t miss a single drop of that alcohol.
Diluted or not, I ache for it.
Grief.
But not as much as I ache for you.
I would rinse you out and sip all of your insides.
Then I would drag your skeleton out of your skin.
Help me. Worm your way free.
Grief,
My love.
I would jumble our bones together. Mix us up.
Not so we would be two with replaced bones.
No, I want us to have four arms, four legs. I want,
I want us to have two heads and a long twisted spine
Of vertebrate upon vertebrate.
I want us to clank out hollow sounds
When we come r
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Secrets of the DjinnLo the winds howl "Never you roam the mist"
Wander you far across lands, forest & desert sea
Or dream you deep in a cloudless sky ...
Yet a presence looms & beckons, spirits unseen
For they are the Djinn, silent and ever watching,
embalmed into seasons of mortal blood-flow
And beware, for I shalt not speak of this again,
lest darkness unto thy flesh they quest and sow
Eons adrift in smokeless fire did they slumber...
Befallen to Earth's domain, they undressed fate
The Djinn, ancient dwellers humans would fear
Betwixt worlds they linger, shimmering in fire
Thru parallel dimensions they reach, seducing
dreams and reality, life...
i could be nothingsome days you look at me as if i am
worth remembering,
glances studying my face like a road map.
but mostly, i find your eyes stuck in the static
of the pavement, or lost
in the clouds
gathering before lightning.
and we never promise anything, just share the air like strangers
when we don't know what to say.
(it always ends with a silence more desolate
than broken trust.)
you said this is the calm before the storm
but what if
it never slows down
enough for me to notice
that there are days when we can exist
without doubting every second. you have a tendency to whisper
too quietly, leaving room for me to imagi
Kill the GodsForgotten gods cluster together like constellations of post-mortem scars forming,
crystallised ocean remnants,
salt pressed and tattooed on the skin of human history
composing salt crystals and fingerprints and decomposing like dying cells and skeleton leaves.
The tides of us, washed and blurred at the edges,
smoothed like fossilised wood and glass pebbles littering waves of resurrections
reborn and torn asunder
the thunder of their hearts silenced as they
sleep (if gods sleep at all)
in infinity with the fishes on the ocean bed
(the quiet ocean death) of humanity’s collective
consciousness.
I wonder where the ghosts of gods go
where
On being a haterDear Mr. and/or Mrs. Hated On,
I am writing this to apologize for my less than cordial remarks in regard to your artistic merit. I mistook your art as subjective; I believed that all people may have a wide range of aesthetics based on instrumentation or the assertions that come out of your mouth. It is my fault for assuming the nature of our ambitions is susceptible to improvement or that the messages you perpetuate are somewhat debatable.
Love,
Hater
Dear Mr. and/or Mrs. Hated On,
I would also like to apologize for giving what I deemed an honest assessment of your behavior. You are absolutely right when you say that it is none of my bu
soul meets bodyyou'll see
the sea in
your eyes the
day you are
born - crush
flowers in
your mother's
books & rest
in the cor
ners of
empty rooms right
where the light from
the blinds shines
through
i'm overlapping my
history with heart-shaped
sighs & candle lights
you're so beautiful on
the inside
when i first
started hiding
verses & poems inside
journals when i was little
i did it for no one at all -
i am not so different, i
fall into place with every
sentiment
you're poetry hiding
in my fingertips
tracing my spine like
i'm read like a book
you wrapped around me
& i shook
Quake the EarthYou were
drinking
from the rust-rim
galaxy
in quick sips and swallowed stars,
like those remembered
at the bottom of the glass.
I slept
drunk
from the orogeny
of your subduction,
dreaming
of your skin sliding to a fit
against mine
and the tremors we could make.
i ammissing the days when
you used to read my
poetry
and wondering,
shaking in my boots, if
you'd ever figure it out -
how everything i wrote
was consistently about you,
your name scribbled
in on the back
like a photograph
and hints to your secret
identity hidden in the
folds of the pages
how everything was true,
every last word that i
claimed was fiction
the gruesome lines
on which you commented,
worried,
is everything
okay?
i mean, this stuff
is
kind of depressing,
you know?
i am just
missing your
cold hands
and i don't
care how much
i have to burn
to get them back
Prose
promisethey're unspoken promises: need he exhales into my lungs and want that was woven into the tapestry of my psyche before i could speak—rumors of stability when his hands brush through my hair, when his calluses catch on skin softer than he says he's known. that's his favorite thing to say to me; you're soft, and he means i'm ethereal. i am not the warmth beside him in bed so much as the dreams he still has. when he whispers my name in slumber, he clasps around nothing, and that is how he knows me: an unspoken promise.
Whale Songs of the PacificListen, the girls swallowed by whales are the ones that grow up lucky.
Listen, no one will warn you about the little boys with the magpie eyes and the fists swinging splinters of glass. No one will warn you that their smiles are sweeter than their words are sweeter than their souls are sweeter than their intentions. No one will warn you of the sheer weight of the world.
Listen, sometimes girls are fragile. Sometimes girls are frothy. Sometimes girls let boys nuzzle "I love you"s into their necks and sometimes girls drink the wine of believing them.
Listen, sometimes the boys really are sweet, and little girls' tart puckered mouths can't ta
an open letter to a boy i once lovedit's been a while since we've told each other the truth, hey?
the longer we spend apart, the more i realise how much i've been lied to. i suppose there's a part of me that's angry, but a much larger part realises that you don't care if i'm angry or not. a while back, i believed you. god, james, i believed every little thing you said. i hung off your words like a child. more than that though, i believed in you. i believed with every last part of my soul that you were better than the things you did, that you were stronger than your weakest moments, and i believed that you loved me.
i know now though, that you are not better than the things yo
TributeGail was born on the first of August 1942, the elder of two. She grew up in New York City, marrying by age 22 and producing three children of her own.
She'd tried her first cigarette when she was eleven. That shouldn't surprise you; in those days there wasn't a Surgeon General's warning — or for that matter, any other public service messages.
While she enjoyed motherhood well enough, Gail also had a restless spirit; she was happiest when she was working, helping others, or driving her car. Accordingly, just before her 53rd birthday (and with her children grown and flown) she lost forty pounds and fulfilled a lifelong dream: qualifying
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She Bites Bullets Her teeth are chipped and broken. She wears lipstick in a shade called "Pow!" a bright red to make up for her smile. In her mind, it works because no one ever asks questions. Between her jealous, button down guard dog and her own reputation the world tends to keep its distance.
An untouchable beauty with dark hair and wild eyes, she moves like a dancer and a jungle cat and is a casing for a spirit darkened by secrets, sometimes bright and energetic and randomly explosive.
She was not made for capture or confinement.
He lives with her in a claus
The Song of the CrowPrelude - The Forgetting
Out here, far away from our origins, where the stars beat their drums of light across the clear blackness, here in the outer regions of things, where the world pushes into new found spaces, leaving behind unexplained traces of wonder, out here matter vibrates and thickens. Here, the taught web of magic stretches and the miracle of Being becomes thin, so thin it’s almost invisible to us. Almost.
Out here, we forget ourselves.
Inside the noise of the world, we forget that we stood together in different forms at the endless beginning. We lose track of the tiny changes that eons and ages have brought, the minute a
The Three SongsThe First Song
The first song is easy; it is the song of magic and love. It is a song for the world and, therefore, it is the sort of thing you hear murmuring through the streets late at night or in the hum of young people dancing. I first heard it long ago; I was travelling deep into the recesses of my mind, and I discovered the image of myself. It was like a mirror, but one that was thousands of years old. Rather than bother him, the image that is, I decided to just watch. And to just see where he might be going.
The image of myself was walking
`anmari has been spreading her infectious positivity throughout our community for over 6 years. Throughout this time Ana has been at the core of all things devious, passionately developing an eclectic gallery, helping organise devmeets, participating in chat events and also recently completed dedicating her time as a Community Volunteer. We are absolutely delighted to bestow the Deviousness Award for May 2013 to `anmari, congratulations! Read More
Sta.sh
There are a lot of very talented writers here on dA who (rightfully so) are often featured in journals and news articles. However, the idea behind this article is to promote the many lesser-known writers who have shown they have the potential to reach that same level, and therefor might benefit from the support and encouragement this generous community has to offer.
with the subject "Demonstrably Deviant".
ing this News Article.
For all of the featured artists: If you receive a DD for one
Delighted 
It's all because of everybody's crazy beautiful amount of talent.
I love you!