30 Poems in 30 Days

[DeepAsleep]

8

Oh, Lady, you keep going home.
I wanna go, too.

arguably, age and children
are a bit of a barrier, but
when you've dated schizophrenics,
a little baby shit
is not frightening.

it's too early, for this,
too early for kissing, and too early
for the way your spine bends
towards me,
want want want, i know this song
like i know the dimples in your lips
and they're both singing me to sleep.

goodnight.

 

[DeepAsleep]

8.1 playing around with stuff

she speaks a concordance
of quiet bullets.
there are no straightjackets
in the crematorium.
when the wind blows,
find me home.

there are no straight jackets.
find me home.

find me home,
when the wind blows,
her tarot fingered heart
blows smoke from below.
i cannot manage dying,
in a place like this.

she speaks a concordance,
when the wind blows;
of quiet bullets
in the crematorium
when the wind blows,
blows smoke from below,
find me home.
i cannot manage dying,
in a place like this.
her tarot fingered heart
of quiet bullets,
when the wind blows,
she speaks a concordance.


(Dude, don't ask. I just wanted to try something out.)

 

[Liar]

6

The contents of my left pocket

Two coins, a paper clip,
a vendor box token I can not place,
a number on a post-it I dare not call,
and a shaking, clenched fist
I left down there years ago,
and forgot.

 

[DeepAsleep]

8.2

to say that time
is the same as distance,
would be a lie and the truth
all at once.

if we put tomorrow against
the space between us,
we end up with velocity,
though i wonder if we are ever
truly
allowed momentum.

at this distance, it doesn't matter.

here, listen to me for a minute:


Did you hear it?
the echoes are still riding doppler
waves, and I am reasonable
certain that you're not listening
to what happens in the spaces
between them.

 

[wildsweetone]

30


puddles level the ground
reflections walk on water

(work in progress, as are all the rest)

 

[Liar]

7

Measuring decades with a stopwatch

He tells us stories of wildfires that
never burned, phantom years in the navy
and adventures on distant shores
he only ever saw on tv. And how
the neighbor's dog, which doesn't
exist, keeps him up at night
with its barking, and how someone
steals his mail. Business spys, most
certainly coveting the clients
he never had.

And then,

We went there, you know. To Naples,
on our very first vacation after marrying,
back in '55.

I glance up and grandma, and she nods. Before

*click* - 12 seconds this time

it's gone. And the former boxer remembers
his archery career.

 

[DeepAsleep]

9, with edits, and adding 8.2 as a verse

why i infinitely mispronounce your name


1.
I mispronounce your name,
because I know where it comes from,
you Titan, you Mother.

2.
The year we met,
Cassini took a photo of the moon
that shares your name,
on my birthday.

I do not believe in omens,
but I respect probability.

3.
We are only embraced by God
at the molecular level;
she only dances with electrons.
Call it magnetism, call it Mother Love.

4.
I woke up this morning and could
possibly have been crowned
a man. I understand the fallibilities
inherant in the title.

5.
Science cannot prove anything.
To point out the flaw
in modern science, say:

Men cannot disprove enough theories
to show us how, or why atoms react.

We are infinitely collapsing
waves of probability.
Invent any law you like,
all things are possible.

6
To say that time
is the same as distance,
would be a lie and the truth
all at once.

If we put tomorrow against
the space between us,
we end up with velocity,
though i wonder if we are ever,
truly
allowed momentum.

7.
At the molecular level, we do not exist.
When our skins touch,
God waltzes,
turns a pirouette, and steps
lightly between us.

8.
God has more in common with statistics than religion;
Witness: the number zero,
Witness: binary
Witness: algorithmic progression
Testify, Geometry,
Hallelujah, Physics, Amen.
Pythagoras,
Newton, Einstein,
I hear your prayers.

9.
In a wave of infinite possibility,
I am singing,
always,
your name.


the photo in question

 

[Liar]

8

Yeah kiddo,
I could count the ways, but hey

that's not why you asked
and I know it.

I could point out the benign,
the politically correct, the Hallmark version
of the Letterman list
and be done with.

Top Ten mesmerizing features

Ten - the way you grip a pen, as if it is
a gouache brush and you're afraid to stab
the canvas

Nine - a smile that wants to follow the words,
kiss each and every one on their fluttering flight
from your tongue to my ear

Eight -

But let's face it,
fast forward to the top...

It's your complete and utter lack
of disrespect for anything, a gaping,
bleeding hole in your chest where fear
should stare out by now, your blatant
disregard of cynic axioms.

I mimic the motions, monkey sees
monkey does so that maybe one day,
monkey feels, I too can cut out
this cancer.

Is that
a good enough answer?

 

[DeepAsleep]

10.

warm October night,
the die for, wait all year for,
hope for, cusp night, it's not fall
not summer, not a weeknight,
it's perfectly cool-breeze.

the interstate is only an excuse
for wind in my face at one am.
I've seen this road ridden crazy.
At fifteen, I lost a 'find-that-car'
driving game
and rode naked 100 blocks
with a carful of girls,
seventeen, I pounded beers with dead-heads,
swore i'd never go home.

19 saw me race the lanes
as much as other drivers,
collecting as many white lines
as I could get my tires on.

in between all those thens and now,
there has always been night-driving
playing the wind piano out the window
with the stereo off,
minor-chording the way home.
I can chart this town by smell.

Downtown is riversewerbrick
South O smells like catfood
at two am.
Midtown carried leftover commerce
and out west, it's whatever
passes for pure among the affluent.

It all hits the cracks in my windows
on a warm night like this,
telling me that the streets might not like me
but the highway's still my home.

The wind is burnt rubber, heavy exhaust.
the bridge bends east 100 feet from where i've stopped.
Fire licks over the top of paused caurs
and you can hear the sirens, but the cooking smell -
it's true. people burning is an almost sweet smell.

Drunks are lining up behind me,
fighting out their windows until
the coroner rolls by
behind the firetruck and they all see
a flash of themselves
in the flaming hulk crumpled
beer-can against the wall and the smell
oil and gas and muscles and hair and tires
fingers glued to steering wheels and upholstery and
i don't wanna drive,
anymore.

 

[DeepAsleep]

10.2

the deal. she says:

I'll stay until you get sick
of me not putting out,
and tell me
to go.

this, while wrapped certain
in my arms. three AM beds know more
about unclothed promises
than these fully dressed deals.
I kissed her for the
three minutes allotted until
the alarm clock went off
and ruined all the dreaming.

On some level, this all works.

I said:
If.

Woman, you've left
only the smell of you.

 

[Liar]

9

even swine
can do with pearls
sometimes

step down and maybe just maybe
enjoy the ride

who knows?

and with a little lipstick on this pig

I'll do my best to shine

 

[DeepAsleep]

11 (a proper revisitation of an earlier theme)

A father's advice:

If you are anything like me,
avoid blow,
and also drinking around people
whom you do not intend to be honest with.

Each one like she is the only one.
At all times.

It's easier if you don't expect

too much. You're too much,
and I love you, but stop
fucking around so much.

-this is how you cut wood:
-this is how you pick locks:
-this is how you ignore pain:
-this is how you fall apart:

laugh at yourself.
spin the world wonderful,
with your hands in your pockets;
smile. shake your head.
walk home.

 

[Liar]

10

In June the walking bridge
across the asphalt chasm
between the elm trees and the
railway nexus was full of sunglasses
and skin, whispered words
and skateboards, summer touched
elbows and hands digging for change
for a half assed saxophone
doing it's best.

And part from the rare gull passing by
like a white spot of illogic snow up high
between the lake and the sea,
no birds.

Today slush grey coats merge
with wet pavement, whitening knuckles
and strained bavks brace against
a northern rage in pursiut of
every body warm exhale.

And the magpies mobs rustling
from vantage point to vantage point
are those of us who got tugged
by autumn one time too many,
lost their gaze over the rail
and ignored that they couldn't
fly.

November claims her own,
we flee into feathered constraints,
dream we are black spots
up there instead of
down here.

 

[Liar]

11

Grandiloquence

I wrote a poem about love.

It read itself and sneered,
yanked the pencil out of my
hand, flipped the eraser tip
into suicide grip and rubbed
its own limbs into obscurity.

Then stabbed the tip into a
part of my brain I'd tried to
forget, grabbed a writhing
bundle of words and fused
the longest ones it found
to the stumps that was left.

The poem is taller now, its
stilt legs a strange construct
of precious metal rods, rare
wood, cogwheels and springs,
its arms draped in silk, beads
and hidden knives. But it can't
stand without staggering
and it can't embrace an idea.

And I don't know what it's
about. But it's not love.

 

[Liar]

12

sorry, you didn't expect
a sugar rush,
did you?

you're an aspartame treat,
sweet on the tongue,
smooth to the touch,
all the right
signs and sensations

but no boost to the blood,
nothing to burn, nothing
that will cling to the heart,
slow it down

yes, you're wrapped
in glitter, and it will rustle
just like it should when parted,
reveal a caramel drop with every
promise of savoury delight
worn like jewlery

but you're aspartame
and you know it, every
eruption on the tongue will
carry a faint shade of acid,
brushing the edge of
consciousness

saying, with one breath,

this isn't real, a fraud,
a beautiful make-believe

and

it's better this way
no price to pay, no pain

the worth of this resides
in whoever's palm you lay,
whoever brings you
to their lips today

taste so almost right
pass so quickly by

 

[Liar]

13

hitting refresh on an email inbox
praying for something something
stuck
in a traffic jam, a herd of camels not meant to squeeze
through the needle's eye
something shoved in front of the clutches of time
tomorrowtomorrowipromisetomorrow
or just mocking silence
random spam and hellos from friends scroll by
to the sound of
nothing nothing
while everything
stops
frozen solid in gnawing wait for that
fucking something something

 

[Liar]

14

you're the wind screen I can't see
before the first fly hits
a persona presented
by the shape of your clothes
presence by absence of air
phantom limbs under a coat
you're the wind screen I can't see
a glass pane defined by rain

 

[Liar]

15

monotheism, et al

you're free to your faiths,

he said

but you can't argue
with reason

 

[TheRainMan]

13-1

what am i doing on the 30/30 thread? it's December, for Chrissakes. am i going to write a poem on Christmas Eve? no. Christmas? of course not. New Year's Eve. no fucking way.

moved to the 5/5 thread, where my eyes are the same size as my stomach.

 

[4degrees]

15-1

there is only temportary
separation, only
imagined isolation
this twin of mine now
reunited and home
soon conjoined
a winter biting at anything
exposed
skin or affection
let me now
into the fire
and remind me of passion
let me hear you again
both of us sigh
at this sameness, this perfect
caramel-covered apple sized heart.

 

[TheRainMan]

13-2

came to my senses . . .

 

[4degrees]

15-2

unexpected acceleration
up along a northbound 2 lane
watching life wizz by
in a blur of color, watching
the past fade and reform
into anther
imagined proverbial garden of eden
again i had forgotten
to wear my seatbelt

 

[4degrees]

15-3

the calloused tip
outlining affection on
this skin, a canvas of flesh
my invisible paint
drawing from the inside
not unlike my ink
my hand will travel
every micro mile
of you, until the sign
is evident and all
can plainly see
that you belong to me

 

[4degrees]

15-4

i set my heart into the
outstretched hands of hope
hoping no fingers sprout talons
and curl up and over
piercing sensativity with the
sharp tips that love
sometimes has
this heart is like paper
and tears so easily when
rain falls
my words may lack the
depth of some, but
the feeling behind them
is larger than life
i've turned a corner in
this life, and watch as
yesterday's mirage fades
like dust, while the dream of
today lays like a live wire
across my lap
carefully, gently moving
to avoid that exposed end.

 

[4degrees]

15-5

winter begins
coming into a season again
life changes like
butterflies cracking away
from their shells
mixing with snow, everything
fluttering around my head
making the cold
warmer than is natural.