30 Poems in 30 Days

[wildsweetone]

3

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The Passionate Ballerina

She draped herself over green.
Through the canopy folds she opened
her petals, precious petals, burning
brilliant rainbow marbles of colour

into the trees as if the stars
of all ages had dropped
from last night's sky, tumbled
to sprawl across the bush. Now,

the passion fruit flower is splayed
to receive the blessing
of the sun.

 

[vampiredust]

27

Lone Star Writes A Love Letter

Perhaps if I’d pinned a shuriken
to my chest, slept with a girl
who had a white horse tattooed
on her back, tumbled out of Texas,
plugged myself into that old
Western with the girl on the railway
track, I might have deserved
the nickname Cowboy ; instead
of putting a thumb and a forefinger
into a pocket, cocking an imaginary
revolver and feeling its blast later
when I slept, thinking only of you.

 

[TheRainMan]

12-10

.....

 

[wildsweetone]

4

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Iron Sand Prints

Sunshine curls into the corners
of their footsteps, dissolves
shadows until the sand glitters -
a million salted stars in one print.

Mountains and valleys
create a second history,
drowning as the sea claws back
memories.

 

[vampiredust]

28

View

Beyond the window of my computer
screen, a movie is being filmed.
It is in a bay filled with yachts. Hot.
The sea glistens like solder. Cameras
focus on an approaching motorboat.
A disembodied voice yells action!
A clapperboard clanks. I glance
at my bedroom windows. It is raining.
The loud roar of chasing powerboats
echoes in my ears. I will dream
of my lines in my sleep. Take us there,
my legs will mutter, twisting to form
a compass needle.

 

[wildsweetone]

5

edit

...

There is a photo of her on the sideboard
dressed for best, framed
with cardboard covered in brown age spots.
She was always old, weathered,

carrying the look of a farmer's wife
She has no foretelling on her face
of the potent mix of her mind,
no future hint of the mud-flung madness

that came before the white jacket
and the echoy corridors of Kingseat, the keys
that locked her away, the drugs
that stole the spark from her eyes

and limped her hand so it could not swipe
at some imagined wrongdoing.
She was a matriarch, a powerful woman

who years after the death of her love,
after the cracking of her mind,
passed away in a ward with a small bed
and a bedside table that held her glasses.

 

[vampiredust]

29

Bent

No one had swept away
the snow from her doorway.
Locked inside, she watched
her clay hands melt in front
of the fire. All that was left
when they found her later
was her spine, a bent stalk
pointing towards the keyhole,
reaching for the several
litres of sunlight pouring through;
as if that might uncover
her secrets, things she wanted
to be found.

 

[wildsweetone]

6

edit

...

The coffee is still hot and that is odd,
considering the weight of rain
in the sky and the pink welts on my arm
that I pinched to change tack
before being dressed in grey. That shade
of gloom never sat right on my shoulders.

Were I a dog I would bark it away, shake
as if I had been standing in the rain,
shake so that the droplets threatening
to seep into my skin would fly, would scatter
off into the air, landing with a plop
onto already wet ground that I can kick away.

 

[vampiredust]

30

Song

The curiosity of a child
new to the world is musical.
Notes are composed
with images from a world
we keep in our back pockets:

shadows on a suburban
lamppost, clouds casting off
their uniforms over shorn
fields. These are tossed
like unwanted polaroids,
ready for the daily sacrifice

of dust and dark. To prepare
ourselves for becoming human
we must unlock each song,
connect it to our cities of flesh
and bone. And be still, be still.

 

[wildsweetone]

sorry i bumped off there - wasn't well. just fiddling around now posting direct into the box. probably should be in the writing live, but no matter.


1


October now,
brings mist stealing in with dawn
another daybreak, another downpour
to seep with yesterday's
into the creek, behind the school
beyond the village to the sea.
I watch it
between the cherry petals,
weeping pink
tears on a green ground. Pooling,
soaking into the soil, draining away
to mingle with the mist of the morning.
October seeps away to the sea.

 

[wildsweetone]

2

The morepork calls after dusk
sets the day. Night trails open
for snails to make their way, silver threads
their map, outlines
their journey from lawn
to moon-glazed window.
Beyond the wind
where lack of sleep twists
the sheet of night, binds
us beneath the roots of day, beyond
the spider webs cast across black trees,
beyond the crush of waves
that turns rock to sand,
the morepork gives life
to the coffin edges of night.

 

[wildsweetone]

3

Storm clouds brewed
on the edge of the day.
A funeral procession
of some twenty cars
drove at speed
with full lights on, racing
along the highway
as if the dead were eager
to finish before a second flood
caught them.

 

[wildsweetone]

4

it is not that i often sit here
by the window, staring out into the sun
watching finches munch happily
on weed-burst seeds,
i don't get time to notice
how the skinks bathe in the gap
between fence-pale shadows,
or to cringe when the neighbour's cat
comes visiting in the mornings.
it's more that i see these things
in the white rivers that run
through the words on my screen,
that i feel them under the reflected glory
that glows from my weeping cherry blossoms,
that i know them as well as i understand
the change of seasons that marches past
my window.

 

[wildsweetone]

5

she always skittered across
to the other side of the road
when blue badged jackets walked her way,
even in the city
when metal laden skin scuffed past,
she would find the nearest
pedestrian crossing
and use it.
i watched her lift her chin
the other day, grip her handbag
tight against her body,
avert her eyes to the opposite side
as if suddenly enthralled
by a fashion sale
as a big friendly Maori boy nodded,
smiled, and walked on by.
i wonder if she knows
how much she misses,
if she notices that empty corner
in her heart that dangles
from her now cold soul.
and i wonder how i can help
her warm it up.

 

[wildsweetone]

6

in Summer they wait for clouds,
Winter, they wait for the tell tale signs
of leaf burst, those fattened buds
that split open to reveal
well nourished veins, healthy green
membranes that toughen
to hold the first Spring rains,
the first beams of the full moon,
the shadows that shield
our pinked thoughts
from other hard facades.

 

[wildsweetone]

7

sometimes it is the little things,
like baby spew on somebody else's shoulder,
or black rings around their eyes,
or even those big shoulder bags
that we know hold half the household
inventory, sometimes it is those things
that swing time back
as send us shuddering briefly
as we remember our parenting days
and nights that snuffed out stars
from our universe. sometimes
we can nod with empathy
as we listen to the all-encompassing
journey of early parenthood, those
do or die moments where we swear
our offspring needs urgent medical attention
or even the cutesy things, the first smile,
first tooth, first step.
some parents prefer to forget.

 

[wildsweetone]

8

...

they cover their bodies
as if it is a shame to show
the stretched marks left
behind by unaware babies.
they hide from the blessings
of the sun. underneath
those cloaks of blue or black,
unhidden their skin
would blemish with bruising,
unbidden, their chaff would be skinned
with stone. they worship
sacrifice. i wonder if
half as many hours were love given
forward, if their grace would be more
successful.

 

[wildsweetone]

9

faith

i look for you
in the wind, watch you pass
with the cherry petals,
rest in the cradle of them
when your day is done.
i taste you in the nectar
borne of grains given,
hear you as you fall
through a rainbow,
you are the scent
of fresh-washed land.
i feel you in a heart
that has learned to love again
the tangible mass
that is you.

 

[wildsweetone]

10

sometimes i cheated
so they could win,
gave in
so they could go,
growled to let them know
i loved them. sometimes
i lied to save them.
sometimes i loved
too much. i forgot
to believe, forgot
to trust, forgot
to smile.
for a while.

 

[wildsweetone]

11

it is there in the weight of unshed tears,
the understanding of parting,
the knowledge of permanent separation
that is a piece of growth. it
is there in a smile,
in the holding of hands,
in clumsy, squeezy hugs.
it is there in special memories,
flash reminders of good times
and challenges.
it is there, in the weight of yesterday.

 

[wildsweetone]

12

there is something odd that happens
when handles fly one day
and the next they are busy
keeping bristles firmly grounded.
it is the same with fire pokers,
you poke the guts out
of a dying fire (why?)
make it spark and roar
only to sit back and watch
it's hastened demise.
you wish a day away,
a season,
a year
and pretty soon
you chalk up change
as being on the wrong side,
as belonging
to a bi-polar existence,
as causing the arrival
of the reaper.

 

[wildsweetone]

13

edit

...

i watch it fall, the rain
watch it fall and splash
in puddles, filling
land dents as if we need
one more ocean
of watered down tears,
one more reason to wade
through grey days,
one more mitred
and levelled out illusion
to mark the edge
of our day. i watch the rain
fall and i watch the earth cradle it.

 

[wildsweetone]

14

i gave up writing you letters,
licking the stamps to envelopes
that i'd decorated with my lips
Sealed With A Loving Kiss
and scented with citrus.
i stopped writing of the blossoms
that now look to the sun for warmth,
stopped writing of rainbows
and white-topped mountains
and dreams of you and i walking
hand in hand
on black sand beaches.
i knew you would not reply,
would no longer give freely
the love you so often said you felt.
i wonder if you simply stopped loving,
if you woke one day
and there was nothing there
inside you, nothing
left to share.
i want to write to ask you
what switch i need to flick
to turn off my own heart.

 

[wildsweetone]

15

in a frame leaning lopsided
against a paint peeled wall
is a hole where an image once resided.
flattened, a one dimensional photo, an oil,
a landscape, a silhouette, a silent moment
captured and kept on show
on a hall wall, above
a fireplace, a bed. we all have them,
photos, paintings, sketches
single moment memories
stashed in shoe boxes
burnt in honour of a passing,
creased at the edge from wringing,
circled from coffee mug spillage.
memories enough to fill
every empty frame.

 

[wildsweetone]

16



aggressive shopping mall assistants

living rivers run through the land
gators slide down the banks
swimming towards moving prey
jaws opening and clamping closed
the crunch of bones heard
beyond the noise of the jungle
beyond the scream of the lost.