30 Poems in 30 Days

[AChild]

?3-6

Half Cracked

The beetle with the broken shell
makes her way
toward the beauty college

why not the eye doctor
or the massage garage
can beauty repair something so broken

---------------
Ready to write and get paid
ready to sing my new song
the vipers not holding back
got the message all wrong
under mah shoe nothing to do
but let the venom fray
the concrete

 

[Anschul]

1-5

Ocean Drive

Flamingo clouds lighting the evening sky,
Play red across the water to the east.
Still time before the dark descends; we sigh
And breathe hibiscus-scented air. The feast
Of color gives us momentary pause,
The stillness of the painted sunset lasts
Not nearly long enough. A lone gull draws
Our attention upward; then shadows cast
By strolling couples bring us back to earth,
To appreciate this fine time of day
For few scant minutes more. This peace is worth
The price the coming darkness asks us pay.
The endless neon nights are for the crowds
Who jam the street, oblivious to clouds.

 

[Yoron]

----------------timesends-------------2332-

I died today

Life a wind born shadow from a cloud
passingly sweeping you into its embrace
assuring you that the world is yours to hold
as empty as the shadows shrouding your soul

I can't say that I've enjoyed the experience

There was times when I thought I did
with hindsight on my side I know better
I started this life with innocence and trust
Unconditional love as my birthright

Things more precious than life itself
Gone by life by fate by us

Without trust what use is honor

Inside is found that empty cavity
situated about where a heart should be
This forge have succeeded all to well
only steel can fill that cavity out

Naming it a cowards way shows little comprehension
To do it right craves nerve and bravery
To do it yourself takes courage

Standing there bewildered
seeing them without will to soar

Life an everlasting sadness
sharings of trust as gone as love
a haze soon dispersed in life's forge
compassion your mirage in the desert

Is that why we forget so fast
we don't want to remember at all
Todays truth tomorrows lie

So yes
it seemed I died today.

-

 

[PandoraGlitters]

2-30 Ritual

It has not burned enough for I can see
your bones, the swollen round of runner's knee.
We'll have to try again until it's ash.

Your tongue still turns the bee dance of my name
and maps the sketch I'd thought would seal my fame.
Another round of fuck will make it mash.

The sockets of my love, now robbed of eyes
are empty; still, the jawbone wags its lies.

 

[AChild]

Surface with the point to pull a sword

truth was
in the battle between
sun and cloud
the fabric of my holsters breathed
tighter on my pens

crash the light
bite, attempting teeth
to set a sword free
the ink comes only
had to spit these scribblings

holes in whole

where'd he go?
in puffs of smoke and pop rocks
that drop and explode
in the aftermath of the magic

blow on my fingers
watch the dirt and grease flow
the flavors of my flesh

lying on the air, filtering the light beams
with marks of the passing wind

splitting the goddess water
making ultraviolet bubbles that bend
into poison reptile greens

a blink if I could focus,
I'd let this body slump empty
while I play with you
in the fiction of our minds

 

[Anschul]

1-6

Two Sisters

Two small life-changing people make my days
More meaningful than ever. These two girls
Affect me in so many subtle ways.
I can't begin to describe how these pearls,
These precious gems of human nature prove
There is a God. And when I see them smile
At me with pure unconditional love,
They make the worst of times all seem worthwhile.
When out-of-control emotions take hold,
These miracles make can shine their magic light
Where darkness lives, illuminating old
Worn-down feelings and make them all seem trite.
Two gentle people can my spirits lift;
Their sweet existence is the greatest gift.

 

[AChild]

?3-7

black out
the lights flicker and the
whole block is dead

people eating in get candles
I laugh from the lounge
but they can't see me
they're too bury calculating tips

I hope my pizza is in a gas oven

outside the sky is alive
with a single focus
we sing about the midnight special

the cooks scare each other with pig masks

 

[Anschul]

1-7

A Mayday Celebration


They danced. Virginia Reel, I heard it said.
White girls in pink pinafores, Mayday ball.
Back and forth, round and round, the dancers played
A game of remember when. They recall
A different time, when "proper" was the word
That defined society, a coward's thought.
But "proper" wasn't what some others heard.
It meant "Them, not us." As they justly sought
To live on level playing fields, they met
Resistance at every turn. "You can't drink
Water here; you can't ride this bus; take your set
Somewhere else. Don't tell me what you think!"

They danced Virginia Reels to honor, what?
Don't let MY young participate in that.

 

[AChild]

?3-8

loose and two shots down
feeling leaky I put a clown
nose on my water maker
which hearts for
pudgy widows

can a lady eat a heart? (she damn sure can't french kiss)
a whole one of one so young
does she have time to fill
doubt
check her lips stick, put the strands in place

she doesn't she realize
I'm trying to make her look jilted
empty the condoms in her pocket
she brags about my heart
pictures on her phone for proof

 

[Anschul]

1-8

Kansas

Amber waves of grain, fertile land gives back
The sustenance the rest take for granted.
America's heartland, Kansas keeps track
Of values lost in places where slanted
Minds obfuscate reality, for their
Own agenda. Out there where daily bread
Is at once a way of life and a prayer,
A hardscrabble existence isn't dread,
But rather the way things are, ought to be.
They work the land, they consume what they make,
And never want for everything they see;
They share with others, rather give than take.
No hurry there, no good to move too fast,
Hardworking folk, a culture built to last.

 

[Anschul]

1-9

Hummingbirds

Two inches flitting by, a needle beak
Plunges into scarlet petals, thirsty
From a thousand-mile journey. Mustn't speak
Too loud now, been waiting since last Thursday,
When first I heard the hummingbirds were back.
The skittish little ruby-throats appear
When winter's chill gives way. We leave a sack
Of dryer lint for their nests. They wear
What's left of winter plumage 'till the sun
Beats warm on the flowers that my garden
Gives up to them. They drink and then they run,
Fickle, to some other chintzy bargain
Feeder in a neighbor's yard. But each year
They come back to us, knowing food is here.

 

[AChild]

?3-9

center round the fire
make my life by were the
waterfalls

trying to grasp
my animal mother
chew on dirt
suck a stone
howl at the people fucking
like satellites

make the shadows
chase a rabbit
cook, eat, catch

its broken
my connection
don't know how to be

eating am, on the subject
the super market
scares me with its bright lights
and plastic

make my home
where the fire starts
the click of gas is a call to order

put your culture in a pot
stir to tell your story going back
when fire meant something

 

[AChild]

?3-10

Did the world get smaller

in the room with no applause
the dream is not quite faded
light is casting different shadow people
Anschul is a difficult thing to scream
while clutching for my night light.

---------------------------

 

[Yoron]

----------intimewethrust-----------------

To a girl I never know
hidden in memories of hurt
I wish i had been there
but I didn't know

Life can be that way
callous and unforgiving
leaving us as empty shells
If I had known

Is that the lesson of today
to be there even when not knowing

I would dearly have had it otherwise
I hope you fare well
I hope we all do


---------------timeless-1527----


It's said that our universe is null
in the end there are nothing
As much are gone as given

Is it the same with emotions
for every happy there is a sad
does it all evens out into a void
does that leave compassion

sometimes I wonder what is love
is it just a overflow of that imbalance
and that person next to you crying
The redeemer of heavens loss

Life is a mystery

-

 

[Anschul]

1-10

Bluesman

Sing me blues, my gentle music man.
Play me heartache, heal the painful soul,
The hurting heart with your sweet empathy.
The music cries loss, sadness, takes a toll
On the musician. He feels acutely
Raw with the deep emotion of the song
He plays. A mournful rhythm, minor key,
Evoking distant memories. A long
Slow riff, slide guitar, sad refrain, he sings
Tragedy, wasted time, relationships
That, going nowhere, pull at his heartstrings,
Make him weep. Something deep within him rips
Music out to the surface. Hear his voice,
Transformative. We listeners rejoice.

 

[AChild]

?3-11

throat cut

the pain is not as bad
as the blood in my belly

the feeling the the birds
are turning away when
i try to practice their song
and instead
i spit crimson

 

[Yoron]

--overttime------------------

Poetry is that it
a silent laughter at the dark
enshrined in memorys of tears
a reminder of our dreams
redemption asked for

So many unneeded
so many forgotten
friends and foes

and those still here
holding dreams close to their chest
guardians of memory's that once was
silent humbly bent as if in sorrow
rightful owners of this earth
not knowing their worth
salt of the earth

friendship is much needed everywhere
There is always place for one more

-

 

[Anschul]

1-11

This is one of my safety poems, written for the day when real work was just so overwhelming that I couldn't spend the time crafting a sonnet. You wonderful writers out there will appreciate that I don't just summon these things up in twenty minutes. So I wrote a couple of safety things, so that I wouldn't break the calendar. Does this break the spirit of the thread?

I cannot think of anything to say
Today. And so I write this little verse
To keep my thread alive. I will not pay
The price of starting over, and no terse,
Or cute rhymes will cheapen this strange attempt
To produce sonnets every single day.
By writing this, I risk poets' contempt
At my feeble, uninspired words. Oy vey,
I've managed to write fourteen lines that rhyme
A-B A-B C-D C-D E-F
E-F G-G. Embarrassed now that I'm
Wasting my readers' time. So I'll go chef
The lunch at Bijou's place, where I'm no clod
With pots and pans, but rather, I'm a God.

 

[AChild]

?3-12

chicago to LA
or sandberg

Trend setter for the world,
Star Maker, Eater of Dream
Player with Sun Beams and the Nation's Bread Basket;
Smoggy, thinny, gesticulating
City of the REEL Stars:

They tell me you are Wicked and I believe them, I
have seen your painted women under Sunset lights
luring men away from marriages with thick weeping
fingers under skirts.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the police kill and go free to
kill again, growing fat as they save half the city.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children who have lost fathers
bleeding in the street on hold for 911.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
spit at this my city, and I simply turn my face so the
sludge falls in their food and I say to them:
Come and show me another city with stars on its streets
in its hair, so proud to be old magic and new blood and talented.
Magnetic drawing young cursed with dreams amid the toil of having a job
instead of a carer, here is a mean machine set churning against the
slow motion of two-bit towns;

Fierce as the realization of reality against a dream, eager
as a humming bird who doesn't know that the sun is not a flower,
Second Generation native Sons and Daughters,
Buying,
Selling,
Plotting,
Birthing, Dying, Rebirthing
Adjacent to the smog, traffic all over her feet, laughing at the hill with
brown skin,
Adjacent to the horror show burden of being a light in lights laughing as
a chorus of quincinetas
Laughing even as the too cool for school shades break the nose
out come a thousand doctors card ready to paper cut it back into place
Bragging and laughing that under her face is the beauty
and under her skin is the lust of the people
Laughing!
Laughing the smoggy, thinny, gesticulating laughter of
Youth, Naked caped with sweet sweat and silver screens,
proud to be a trend, Star Made, Eater of Dream, Player with Sun Beams and the
Nations Bread Basket.

 

[Anschul]

1-12

Desire

Of all the wondrous things we daily find
In travels through our lives, the eyes behold
A miracle of beautiful design,
The shape, the human form of woman. Told
In liturgy that God created this,
The mind reels at the possibility
That nature set forward that tender kiss
Could boil the blood of men. What vision be
More titillating than the beauty of
The female shape unto the eye of man?
And more often confusing lust with love,
He lies, or lays, or fondles when he can,
Unmindful of his object's true desire.
His mission concerns only his own fire.

 

[AChild]

?3-13

women in the street see me
and don't know what a whisper is
I whistle at short skirts and long legs
I raise my eye brows and wink
and no one can recognize
that I am flirting with them

introduction treats me to turned up lips
laughing like the villain
adjust my socks and know that the
world as it is, is not my world

my top hat is baking in the back
window of my car
I wear my tap shoes in moonlight alleyways
the cats come out to watch me dance
they are always so romantic

 

[Yoron]

----------sand-----------------------------------------


Life is some friends and a shared laughter
It can also be shared sorrows
There is no end to life
It rests in you
as you in it

Life is standing on the beach holding you
memories flowing between our fingers
every grain so precious and defined
each of them free and crystalline
yet bound together inside us

The beach is always there
So are you

-------------------

To Karen
Lia & Ivar
Joel & Lisa
and you

Take care..

 

[Anschul]

1-13

Spoils of War

The soldier boys go blindly off to fight
A battle not of their choosing. The war
Of today's fashion is a show of might
By coward suits with agendas set for
Their own ego or enrichment. They know
They cannot bleed, they cannot die. They send
Another's precious young to maintain the flow
Of dollars to their deep pockets. The end
Of innocence for a nation comes when
The people understand their young must die
So power's fortunes won't. It is, again,
The tragedy of history. And why
We keep repeating this sickness, I can't
Say, but my experience fuels this rant.

 

[AChild]

?3-14

Fast Day 1

crown the babe
an ocean of the universal cosmetic
what beauty is?
why do we have to say it?
define it

little girls would you rather be
beautiful or quality?

Only beautiful I know is in
a sex act
the metaphor
something is in another
something is another
beauty transfers so easy

I can admit a man is beauty because
I can see his mother and all the care
she took in making sure he could stand
--------------
Baby with a crown of mother
life in the eye rolling red
why do you cry?
do you know the bible already
are you begging to be blessed?
---------------
A moment in my gut
foul sea in the cracks of doom
there lies a steak from now ashed joint

I'm liquid cause what my energy is
on the mountain smelling of onion
my eyes burn and I can see
I can see

the curve of the world
the strength of it
an acid high
colors deepen

as I let shit go
WHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEE

 

[Anschul]

1-14

The Dance

We dance in the night, you in scarlet sheath,
Bodies swaying, so close I feel your heart
Beat fast and faster, your sweet, fragrant breath
Lingers warm and inviting. Then we start
A slow, passionate rhythm, to the beat
Of distant music drifting on the strand,
There for other lovers. In the fierce heat
Of a tropical night, you press your hand
Into mine, come to me insistent, we're
Face to face, hips to hips, lips gently touch,
Whisper words that only hearts can hear.
The message clear, the urgency too much
To ignore, we fall together and give
In to the primal need for which we live.