"Untitled" by Laura DeVoto

Laura DeVoto was one of ten readers who stepped up to the •chance operations• open-mic at the April 4 reading at Duff's.

The next reading will be Monday, May 23, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, in the Central West End.

Featured readers will be Eileen G'Sell, Susan SpitFire Lively, and Robert Nazarene.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is $3.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Untitled

Here I stand waiting so patiently.

Tell me what you want from me.

I gave you may soul and my heart yet nothing
was enough, it never was from the start.

I ask the lady for a ticket out of town but
instead I hesitate and look around.

All I wanted was for you to miss me, I
craved your energy, your spirituality, and your
mysteries. With my sympathy I took care of
your misery.

Yet, like a seashell on a sandy beach, I
was washed away.

I tried peeling your onion layers but you
built a wall and grew more.

Soon that wall became impregnable and you
slowly faded away like a silhouette in
the distance.

The path we carved was not written in stone
and its unfulfillment has left me cold.

The things we take for granted are only what
we imagine but in reality the facts overwhelm
the imagined.

The flair of your persona has left me
intrigued, this painful agony has pushed
my pride to its knees.

The sun has set and my departure is soon
to go its way, but I slowly turn my
tear-stained face and ask why...

The sun rises,yet to what degree.

Who does the blind lead, if everything is made
in China and we Chinese?

Corporate monopolies leading everybody into
poverty, world leaders taking advantage of
their sovereignty.

Technologies turning the planet into zombies.
Air quality so foul it's a struggle just to
breathe, depression and anger leading everyone
to self-destruction.

Gotta find the truth and believe, pick our-
selves up and reconstruct our democracy.

Endangered species and we're running out of
trees, crime rates so high it's a struggle
just to leave.

Why is living life such a fight to finish,
survival of the fittest when every hour is
a minute and every second is infinite.

-- Laura DeVoto