30 Poems in 30 Days

[TheRainMan]

12 (i think)-1

.....

 

[wildsweetone]

29



The Red Button

.......fell off Grandmother's lap and rolled
under the couch. We found it there
in the dust when we cleaned to sell.

It matched her favourite cardigan,
the one with curling cables
that she had knitted
in front of the winter fire.

I last saw that cardy folded
in a black plastic bag
when they cleared out her clothes
months after she passed on.

They said she wore it to go
and that it matched her lipstick.

But I only know how the thick cables wriggled
like live snakes as she knitted,
how it put pink pleasure on her face,
and how warm it felt
when she wrapped her arms
around me.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Dr.M. I-29 The Eye Infection

I-29

When the branch leaped up and hit me in the face
My eye stared stupid in the dark looking for the cat
It brought me some fungus, something strange from the world of trees
The world of pollen and six-legged bugs and wind-borne things
(The cat returned to the house, chagrined)
So that today I thought about leaves and the solitary life they lead
And the scythe of fall that mows them down and kills
How like people they fall, their meager stories untold
Unknown, unremarked, sexless and evanescent

It' only holding onto each other that makes us different
It's only our love that makes us known and remarked, sexed and here
That branch that hit me was almost prescient
It hit me out of jealousy and fear.

The doctor scraped the epithelium of my eye
Gently, as if just removing the image of infection
There is some danger in the dark when kingdoms collide
And loneliness meets its own reflection.

 

[AChild]

4-3

let go your spiders

anti-social, invisible
barrier architects in the
corners of your mind
the part you don't care to
explore

until circumstance forces
you to take all those
buggy kisses to the face

-------
Sing song sing swing
Everybody start to Sing

Spider lands on my nose
and leaves cob webs on my eye
blink,
gossamer chewed between the lashes
the world thru predator's silk
I A CAT with the cradled glasses

turn to sun and the thin lines prism cling
taste like acid spit, on-set
choking on colors
eyes drink a fly
Nightmare

 

[vampiredust]

19

Attempts

Tried to set myself alight
but the price of gas
had just increased and my
supplier turned off the tap.

Memories, meanwhile,
accumulated like spent wax
at the bottom of the human
candle I was building.

Imitating Daedalus proved
fruitless. Drowning was a none
starter. Overdosing never
worked. So I stood at the start

of the twenty-first century,
lit some matches and waited
for the crackling to start;
igniting the wooden bones
I was born with.

 

[TheRainMan]

12-2

.....

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Dr.M. I-30 Yom Kippur

I-30 Yom Kippur

I remember the hot dry heave of early fall light
The tight wool suit, sweating out adolescent sin
Of joy and glad blood, not yet having tasted suffering
And so knowing nothing of repentance or sorrow
Not understanding the bronze tears grown men cry
The useless pain that comes to uncles and fathers
Who sit alone in quiet rooms
On the still, breath-held day
Of Yom Kippur

 

[wildsweetone]

30

...

There is a brown toothed zip
in the sewing box.
It once brought together
the edges of a cardigan
grandfather wore
as he worked around cows
and paddocks
and milking sheds
that danced to his tune
in every dusk and dawn.

It is the last piece of him
left in the box of dark,
hidden away from sight
in the mistaken thought
that he might be forgotten,
that the history I watched form
in the sun-wrinkles of his face
through Springs and Autumns
would be lost.

Now it is out,
and with it recollections escape
to be enshrined in words
or drawings left to hang on walls
he never knew,
or published in books
he would never read,
by a writer he never loved.

 

[vampiredust]

20

Listening to Nevada rain

I am used to its static,
the constant noise, time
inching back in minute
increments. But my eyes
are yellowed, the skin
on my hands wrinkled,
and my bones edging
to the ground, eager
to catch up.

 

[TheRainMan]

12-3

.....

 

[vampiredust]

21

Pilot Light


The pilot light hasn't ridden
through the latest storm.
Reaching into its antechamber,
silence scrapes the back

of my hands. It is lost.
There is no soft click
when I fiddle with its altar,
trying to restart its soul.
The steady-burning flame

has been extinguished
and I hold my heart in my
palms, hoping my offering
will send it to purgatory,
or a place where it will shine.

 

[TheRainMan]

12-4

.....

 

[vampiredust]

22

Waiting for Winter

The desire for winter
fills us with an ache
during the autumn.
Muscles whimper
under their vellum
of skin. Bones sing
madrigals. We watch
clouds dance in stiff
quadrilles, making
eyes droop. Lightbulbs
inside our chests
flicker like waves
on an ECG, waiting
to pop.

 

[TheRainMan]

12-5

.....

 

[vampiredust]

23

Folktale

The editor told his story
in the spine of the magazine,
not wanting to waste
valuable pages on how
he walked from London
to the Great Wall of China
via Ebay, methadone,
and a parrot that mimicked
Fats Domino. The only clue
to the reader that such
a story might have happened
was a green feather
planted in random copies,
along with a rusted compass
needle and grains of mud
scraped from his boots,
chirping like a geiger counter
when placed in the palm,
as if they had found home.

 

[VagicalGirl]

Moments

A stolen kiss,it's you I miss.Your hand in mine,To fast is the time.A face that smiles,across the miles.When thinking of you,Hoping you are too.Fallen hard for this man,I can't deny I am.Constantly on my heart,The moments when we're apart.Soon you will see,Together we could be.Happy at last,forgetting our pasts.Missing you like mad,wanting you so bad.Wishing you were here,to take away my fears.One day will come,and all will be done.Happy at last,forgetting our pasts.

 

[TheRainMan]

12-6

sent elsewhere.

 

[vampiredust]

24

Undressed

The undressing city
dares us to reveal our secrets
in the early light. Rain,
being the weakest of its visitors,
splits open transparent dresses
to expose its anemic backbone
of acidic atoms. Windows
flirt with each naked drop
as they cower down drains.
Cars sigh, loosening surplus
fumes. They growl in traffic
with roughly shaped vowels,
a dialect of pollution. Trains
shed their graffitti pollen,
revealing layers of evolution
on their doors. We are somewhere
at the bottom, eager
to grasp a foothold and move
beyond this zoo of steel
and concrete.

 

[TheRainMan]

12-7

sent elsewhere.

 

[wildsweetone]

edit

The Button Box

The red button fell
off Grandmother's lap and rolled
under the couch. We found it there
in the dust when we cleaned to sell.

It matched her favourite cardigan,
the one with curling cables
that she had knitted
in front of the fire.

They said she wore the cardy to go
that it matched her lipstick,
and as it was her favourite
she should wear it
when she left the house.

But I only know how the cables wriggled
like live snakes as she knitted,
how it put pink pleasure on her face,
and how warm it felt
when she wrapped her arms
around me.

 

[vampiredust]

25

Observations of Rain

Rain enjambs over pavements
and roofs pointed upwards
like trilby hats. It ducks
and dives under a patchwork
of slate and glass,

bombing commuters wearing
newspaper armour and briefcase
caps. Train carriages buckle
like rocking tea cups
whenever it gets angry;

lovers' learn to listen
to its call when they first make
love, knowing that
when it starts is the point
where mistakes can be forgotten;
lost in next year's snow and ice.

 

[TheRainMan]

12-8

.....

 

[wildsweetone]

2

edit

A season of change

The trees are calm now
as if the storm yesterday
wore them out -

................they had spread
their bone-limbs wide,
cast dissent to the wind
to cross the land
they suckled.

Today, the birds are happy
flitting from one sun-soaked branch
to another, chattering
as will the oak leafs next month.

The world is golden,
viewed through pine pollen rain.

 

[vampiredust]

26

Seeking Faith

Faith is often found in the ordinary:
a row of vacant maples, waiting
for warm autumn air to bring it our
sins, ready to absolved in its roots;
a wasp's nest, dry as churches,
the slow thrum of its congregation
gathering in paper pews. Both
are eager for tomorrow's moisture
to clear, so that everything can
remain how it is: entirely visible.

 

[TheRainMan]

12-9

.....