2013 Challenge: One Poem a Week

[bogusagain]

week 4

siruv rusiv isvur

the morning paper is dyslexic
a confusion of symbols
a filigree of hapless lines
a broadsheet of Bridget Riley compositions
optic puzzles that play on the retina

I fill in the morning crossword without the aid of clues
my neat handwriting scrawls hieroglyphics I cannot fathom
a dislocation has occurred
my hand refusing to obey
becoming a wilful joker when I hold a pen

the computer screen blinks interference
cuneiform stacking up like tetris
falls like snow in an electronic paperweight
refusing to respond to the instructions of my keyboard
which simply plays a merry tune when tapped

the television greets me with a pretty face
an asinine voice pronouncing in unctuous tones
language has caught a virus and has been quarantined
I yell my frustration but in yelling…….silence
my tongue simply flops about my mouth
like a useless member

 

[HarryHill]

.....

 

[oggbashan]

(week 4) Red

Red spines on read books
Dorothy L Sayers' crime
Not treasured for the looks
But to read - they're mine.

Red boxes from my youth
Hornby clockwork trains
I love them, that's the truth
Running them when it rains.

Red shirts on a football team
But which one do I support?
Red may not be my dream
Gunners' red is my thought.

 

[Desejo]

4: Out of the City

The thing, he said
that surprised me --
the thing that sticks in my head
is this:

I visited a friend’s village
There was only one bed--
patched mosquito net sagging above
foam mattress sagging below

He fell asleep immediately.
I closed my eyes, awkwardly
listened to him breathe, evenly
the sound lulling me
and
I realized this:

I had not slept
in a bed, platonically
with anyone
since my cousin, in childhood.

There was something decent,
something nice
about it.

 

[Tzara]

4

I could now use

a little sand,
to scatter over your footprints,
your imagined footprints

tracked toward my bedroom.
Some dust over dust,
to soak up

that small, small bit of sweat
you might have left
on the linoleum

when you may have maybe come
to me, when I needed you,
feet still wet from your bath.

 

[Remec]

Week 4

The urge to cry
is not strong enough
to override the
malaise and ennui that
have crept into
my limbs and fill my
head with the
sensation of nothing
but apathy and
dread.

 

[bogusagain]

week 5

career move

god had abandoned her
if he knew she was there at all
too many icons littering her room
too much belief misplaced
those bestowed with earthly wealth
don’t need the vagaries of faith
their god is of more solid stuff

we are all prostitutes now
selling our assets to the highest bidder
justifying it as good business
a profitable deal, a job well done
as we scramble up the heap
foot in face, hand gripping ankle
we eye the impossible summit

so we add meaning to our lot
as we gouge and backstab to the top
count our worth with what we grab
screw the fool who’ll pay in cash
trust is for the losing class
god turns his back on those who fail
condemns then to financial ruin

 

[champagne1982]

Week 4 Better Late than Never

Hopeless Reward

Thoughts spilled into a permanent
vessel exist only to torment
those whose dreams never ferment
into a drink that silences the
relentless tick, tick, tick.

It is a trick to assuage the ambitious
into belief that this climb
and scramble is correct.

A human's worth measured only
by how many thoughts have filled
the empty spaces instead of by those
that overflow and reward
the hopeless with inspiration.

Oh if mine would finally bubble over
and change the course of realized dreams
into the way of remnants not yet thought.​

 

[champagne1982]

Week 5

On the Veldt

I want to write
something erotic
that makes it impossible
to mingle with polite
company

Traced touches of fingers
lightly tease down
on that trimmed arrow
pointing to your sex

And it throbs as your zipper
dampens with bullish musth
and your scent disturbs
more than my nose

Every office boy waiting
at the cooler quivers
in agitation that maybe
there is more beyond
his recent experience

Every clerk squirms
on ergonomically correct
chairs and crosses
and recrosses anxious legs
within her cubicle

And once the willing
tormentor stands ready
to receive your glorious
attention the herd moves
on to quieter spaces.​

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

5 - Salvation

Un-crated onto softness
for the first time, they are tentative,
fearful of this alien world.

Silently observing, heads cocked
this way, that way nervously,
unbelieving of what their senses tell.

Sad ambassadors of a past
spent in wire cells too small to turn in,
once rosy combs droop forlornly,
pallid beaks and eyes dulled by drudgery,
evidence of abuse.

A life of confinement hasn’t stopped them
from tearing out breast feathers in frustration
revealing pink skin. We step away, watch them
huddle as their courage grows and small,
nervous steps let them realise the truth,
no more cage.

Now, when we collect the plentiful eggs
bright eyes watch from under high red combs
and the pimpled pink flesh is disappearing
under new downy feathers.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Week 5

The Trogloraptors

After Manhattan showed no interest,
a scholar from San Francisco came,
dissected one of our samples,
noting it had eight menacing feet,
and designated what he found as
Trogloraptor Juvenilia
inasmuch as it needed
a lot more growth and development.

Ours were alike but different from
Gradungulidae, sounding like
"Grand Dung Diddly Dada," we chortled;
don't worry San Francisco said,
they're native to Australia
and will probably stay there.

Manhattan would fall in line,
careers would blossom over it,
and inevitably there would be
fellowships and assistantships for
mastering the fine art of
Post Neo-Formal Trogloraptor.

 

[HarryHill]

.....

 

[Tzara]

5

.....grass, bent
by the damp weight of dew—
..............fox washes his coat

 

[Desejo]

5: Because I cannot hibernate

The thought of you
wraps me
like a towel out of the dryer, hot and fluffed

The thought of you
heats me
like roasted chestnuts in a paper cone, held in bare hands

One touch
intoxicates in decadence
butter on hot rum, whipped cream on Irish coffee

One kiss
simmers gurgling
a stream in a desert flowing to places intangible

Called joy, being, adoration.

because of you
cold and isolation
are bearable

Only because of you.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Week 6

We Work and Play. We Come and Go with Dick & Jane.


See Dick run for corporate power before the sun up becomes the rush hour.

The white picket fence and garden look dour with dog pies from Spot

tied up by the hour.


See Dick run when business is done to give it a whirl with Pop the Fly Girl.

A little Dick fun never hurt anyone.


Jane's having fun, funny funny Jane. See Jane having her fourth whiskey sour.



See Dick scrub the red on his collar. See Jane come undone with a gun.

Do run run, Dick, do run run.

 

[bronzeage]

I awoke to la vie en rose
through an open door.
The pillow is damp with her perfumed sweat
and I hear le vie en rose and a splash
as she raises one foot above the water,
and French slips between the English
smoother than the cloth across her breasts.
Quand il me prend dans ses bras.
When he holds me in his arms?
The faucet interrupts to refresh and reheat my songbird
and she sinks to her chin,
careful not to dip the happy towel
who holds her hair off her freckle peppered white shoulders.
Il me dit des mots d’amour.
Words of love?
My song drowns in another splash
as she stands and all the pink in her
rushes to her skin,
my la vie en rose.

 

[bronzeage]

I awoke to la vie en rose
through an open door.
The pillow is damp with her perfumed sweat
and I hear le vie en rose and a splash
as she raises one foot above the water,
and French slips between the English
smoother than the cloth across her breasts.
Quand il me prend dans ses bras.
When he holds me in his arms?
The faucet interrupts to refresh and reheat my songbird
and she sinks to her chin,
careful not to dip the happy towel
who holds her hair off her freckle peppered white shoulders.
Il me dit des mots d’amour.
Words of love?
My song drowns in another splash
as she stands and all the pink in her
rushes to her skin,
my la vie en rose.

 

[Tzara]

6

Art expires, in the way
that milk or cheese
are pulled

from shelves.
We want no one killed
off-handedly

like they were made a poster of Lenin.
Pasted, wrinkled,
red for sure.

 

[HarryHill]

.....

 

[butters]

4 - late. oops

if you're going to go out burning...

fan the flames
burn white-hot till
nothing's left but ash

far sadder the blackened damage
the melted twist and warp
the half-death

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

6 - flamenco

Here are shady plane trees,
harlequin bark,
tables with those frosty jugs
of sangria, good company
as the achingly blue sky darkens
to night, the stars and guitars come out.

Unseen, raucous night hawks call in the dark
above the dusty leaves
then the first chords silence us all.

Expectation ripples the air,
an electric breeze
and suddenly she is here.
Poised, graceful castanet-hands above her mantilla
before her head toss and staccato stamp.

Her body seems liquid,
flowing in passionate shapes
created by the strings
and we are captivated
by her sinuous movement
and the desire in the erotic measure.

 

[oggbashan]

The deceased King Richard the Third,
Portrayed as evil and wholly dark
Lost his feet to a pile of turd.
Why cover him with a car park?

Shakespeare had him call for a horse
His bones show he died on his feet,
Fighting to the end - a desperate course.
His body abused, buried in grave unmeet.

Now, recovered, identified, named
To be entombed in Cathedral's nave
Will his supporters be unashamed
Once a King, laid in ceremonial grave?

 

[greenmountaineer]

Week 7

Billy

knew how to make her moan
all the way down to his groin

during that last thanks given night
in panhandle Amarillo

when stars, he said, resembled Orion,
to her Cupid, Draw back your bow,

a year and a half ago since Iraq
condolences Billy's parents were sent,

now this rented San Fernando
Valley girl walled-in swimming pool,

jizz on her belly when it oozes
an illusion of Coppertone goo,

and Brad Blowfist who tells her he's hung
out with the best at Muscle Beach.

"Cut. It's a wrap. Take ten, people"
Gaeton says. The gaffer is Chad.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

7 - Letters from the lost.

From Jewish parents in Sudetenland
fleeing to Prague, then on to Holland hoping
the children will know, from learned professors
and kind doctors in a crumbling Cambodia
struggling to survive. They flutter in the
mind’s eye, unread, and undead.
From the private in the trenches
of a dozen wars, the sailor on a thousand
vessels destined to die. Last thoughts,
last loves, last words some notorious,
some unaccredited, some desperate.
From prison cells, a final home, from hospices
and empty rooms, sealed and stamped,
they pile up behind the doors of
our imagination.​

 

[butters]

5

midnight

is blue
warm and close-clipped

endless pockets of possibility
within reach