30 Poems in 30 Days

[the Snood]

1 - 3

Antarctic June covers the water, ice and rock,
reaching a thousand miles and more everyway,
while green eyes smile in the light from the open
inspection port of a Preway heater.
In another world, moths would be drawn
toward the flames;
here only dust motes within and
snowflakes without wend their respective ways.
On the one raining-light-illumined window,
our steam makes delicate, ephemeral art.
The colours and sounds from without our hut
add little to the reds, golds and sounds within.
Against the far wall and ceiling,
shadows dance, separate and merge again -
intertwined arms and legs, intertwined fates.

 

[4degrees]

18-22

my visionary goddess
my affections opulent
a stream of arranged wordage
runs through whilst i
take it in, taking in your
eloquence
and when the time comes,
those proper adjectives are
not found--i'm lost
in those dark circles of soul
and sentenced to forever-dork,
thankful that some think
its charming.
you are my princess charming.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Summer 08 22

Petition for a photograph

Atalanta, frozen
in pose, I am
right behind you
and the apple I
throw to catch you
so that you slow
your sleeping stride and
fall back to meet me
is the apple of
your own beauty

I dare you
to see what I see
the deep globes of fruit and stars
the gleam of heat that charms
serpents in the belly
the magnets that draw
my mouth and hands
to the folds and valleys
where, parted, the light
blinds
blinds me
That warm and scarlet blossom crease
which parted
blinds me.

 

[normal jean]

3-5, late beca_se

....................

 

[4degrees]

18-23

a confession turns
secret to common knowledge
brings relief to one
weighed by its loud yolk
but now, the voice of
passion now spoken
leaves me flayed wide open
no salt is rubbed in
the wound, fingers sink
inside its warmth
enjoying the wet heat
of a beating heart.

 

[the Snood]

1 - 4 - kuvianartok

Sleeping beauty, precious soul;
body motionless, face of joyous tranquility.

A bird sings outside the tent and she stirs;
she shifts, almost wakes, drifts back into herself.

Her chest rises slowly, falls gently;
her eyelids flutter, then are still.

Her dreams are safe from the outside;
I stand ready to quell the world, to still any disturbance.

She is loveliness and perfection;
her roundness, her softness promise a warm tomorrow.

I memorize her every feature, her every move.

While "now" is only one moment in the vastness of time,
each moment matters.

In spirit we are one person:
I am a part of her, and she of me;
our hearts beat together,
and our souls walk arm in ethereal arm.

She is mine in whom to delight,
and is one of those few who dance at centre of my purpose.

All in a hush, I marvel at her resting form:
She is MY sleeping beauty;
She is my friend, my love, an avatar of the Mother.

And most importantly, she IS.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Summer 08 23

Notes on Card VI The Lovers

part 5

- will we meet soon? is it someone
I already know? -

You have met together
at moments, all your life. You remember
but you can make no sense of it.
It is the moment when you hear
but before you think, when it
makes sense underneath,
when it is right in the belly.

as it is when I say (hear, without listening)
Now you are the Black King
who is dressed in gold, and she is
the White Queen, holding
the silver sword. This is how it is.
The lance is there too, and the Grail
in procession, in mourning for the One
divided, the son from his father,
the mortal from the bright garden.
For a moment, notice it:
that bull in your belly
says yes
Yes.

Stop here.
Before you feel the sword of will
behead these bright dream figures
before you lose the Yes
Make one sword into two, yes and no
conjoined
and let the arch they form
be the bridal canopy
under which the bright chalice
is raised, wrapped and broken. Let the blade
have its twin, its equilibrium

and in that bower
for a moment
open your eyes
and catch a glimpse.

 

[the Snood]

1 - 5 - initiation

Higgledy Piggledy
Linda, my oldest friend,
ponders my form, then
invites me to bed.
Joyous discovery!
Physiologically,
[I'm|she's] optimised for [her|me],
"Thank you," we said.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Summer 08 24

Money's Worth

like the Contortionist
and the Bearded Lady
I will sell postcards of myself
and for an extra nickel
an autograph

My fondness for
boa constrictors, their willingness
to drape around my neck
qualifies me
to tell your fortune.

My language is primitive,
a series of hums and whistles,
fascinating enough
to watch, for a moment
before moving on.

 

[4degrees]

18-24

madness is a relative adjective
i replace letters, words with
numbers that cannot be decoded
there is no system
this make up is random
unless it is all subconcious
greater men than all of us
de sade
degas
vincent fucking price
like them we pay the price
to breathe this thick gray air
one more day
poison me with life
asphyxiate without crisis
and dying with a smile.

 

[4degrees]

18-25

picked clean by
the well spoken buzzard,
my poet is a drying
wordless carcass
attracting flies
and hosting squishy
white larvae
the last few letters left
decompose and give off
a sickning sweet stench
that attract the ones
like me.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Summer 08 25

.



Lines from a Pillow Book

The dragon is entangled in the snare
The heartbeat of your body on my tongue
And what is raised becomes the perfect prayer

As sky and earth are balanced in the air
And vibrate with the motion of a song
The dragon is enchanted in the snare

The braid of mouth and music hovers there
where twining serpents keep the lovers young
And what is raised transforms the perfect prayer

All desperate fingers tangled in the hair
The tongue that leads, the cock that comes along,
The dragon is engorging in the snare

This trade of angels turns a solar flare
A sweet flag raised and round the temple hung,
And what then flies transcends the perfect prayer

For life we drink as much as we can bear
and stoke the inner fire so it burns long,
The dragon is enlivened in the snare
and what's exchanged becomes the perfect prayer.



.

 

[the Snood]

1 - 6 - Seventeenth September, 1979

As an un-assignment,
I aligned myself
to her manufactured authenticity,
her untrammeled theatre.

Assaulted by her music,
I did a spit-take and grinned
at her hedonistic intrigue.

After fixing a sink,
deliberately broken for the thirtieth time,
I reached for her,
believing only her position separated us.

'Course, on this or any day,
anything conscious would have served as well.

For whatever reason,
my eyes or my hesitant nonchalance,
she granted me my moment of fame on her carpet.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

A well worn, ersatz kiss,
my thoughts stilled and
that was the day that was.

Seventeen years of growing and learning,
sixty-four hundred thirty-five formative days,
contained in a confused, extracurricular moment.

I suspect that I heard an Angelic chorus,
and that she heard traffic.

I saw a bright, manufactured future,
while she saw a farm animal.

Still, her lips seemed contented with their lot.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Summer 08 26

.



Thank You For This Thick Live Thing

After the ladder
of miles, after the angels
carry these
coded messages,
after the circus of days
there is that simple
precious flesh
with one need
one heart and
a single mouth.



.

 

[4degrees]

8-26

the sight of you
today
turned my guts all wavy
i can feel the heat
in my face as i try
to not be google-eyed
like two fists clenched,
my belly's fingers lace
and tickle like irratic moths
and yeah, anytime,
you can totally bring your dog.

 

[the Snood]

1 - 7 - Eros as émigré

Today Eros prowls the Paseo,
wearing the usual offal-encrusted toga
and sandals made from the skins of the unwary.
He seeks the ingredients for local arrows,
tuned to the structure of we who dwell in the Fly-over,
trudging through alleys
and seedy dives, scenting
strained flesh and listening
for desperate, guilty whispers
and failing zippers.

He snarfs up a condom,
left at the roadside last night,
tosses it in his pouch,
moves on.
He goes through a dumpster
and takes cues from
Kennedy-era skin mags.

He finds a cake decoration,
runs grubby nubbies over panties,
toys with dead batteries.
Maybe he'll grab some candy
or a wilted bouquet
should he twinge sentimental.

He snaps a garter and elicits
the reveille of love. Videos
rented at 78th and Prospect inform
his next moves. Notes are scribbled furtively.

He blends lovingly collected
semen (spat, not swallowed) and
centrifuged so as to be 97% jerkjuice-free.
virgins' blood, strands of passion-pulled hair,
essential oils, vixen vapours,
confectioners' sugar,
lubricant and a little saliva
in a mason beaker.

After a year and a day simmering
(over body heat plus summer fever)
the poison is ready for arrowheads.
He fills a fishnet quiver
with sympathetic magic
and the weaponry of lust,
and tells us "This is love."

And we, transfixed by his good intentions,
thank him.

 

[the Snood]

1 - 8 - fair trade

I'm visiting the Riverside Sally
to fix the lights in the mission,
my bi-monthly sojourn
into the land of redemption.

Among the faithful with their
tambourines, reeds and horns,
one glances now and again
toward the man on the ladder.

Once our eyes meet and
a Klein lineman's plier receives
a free-form stripping groove,
announced by a shower of sparks.

I look at my feet while the rector
or whatever looks on disapprovingly,
but as they need lights there are
no overt recriminations.

I hum Moussorgsky's Night on a bare mountain
as they bring in their sheaves;
Their last electrician was full o' faith,
but apprenticed under Dickens and Finster.

The lights come on just as
dusk makes them truly necessary.
The cool white fluorescents do nothing
to enhance the scene, yet she's radiant.

As I pack out my tools and matériel,
the group is still belting out the staid old tunes.
Leaving, I smile knowing that soon she and I
will knock a grander, older tune out of one another.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Summer 08 27

Control

I flicker my tongue over the burning tip
of the little key
drawing perfect circles.

Her body
goes peaceful
like a drawn bowstring

and with
one name, one sudden
idea, the movement
of tongue and sound,

One mouth sails upward
like a gull, into a bright cry
She pours over the edge
a slow waterfall

and I ride
the wave of her spine
on this
boat of heaven,
her Will
at my Word.

 

[4degrees]

18-27

twenty seven ways to
a poem of musts and
have-nots
forget me not
my sweet, as i infiltrate
your chamber with
lusty searing heat
lost is not all, each
time i forget to fall
i do remember to
take a stand, my stance
is that of a great
commandier,
make no mistake
my dear, for inside
these billows of brain
and the thick fleshed
cabinetry of man
is the one man
who can set you free again.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Summer 08 28

.



Isosceles

he had, in all fairness, loved her first,
though she is nothing to be exchanged,
whether or not they recognized the thirst
for a while, he had, in all fairness.

I tell him, win her with my blessing;
my most piercing joy is aimed the same
and flesh I love is my own flesh, pressing
in from here. I tell him, win her.

Here I have no flesh in any case
but love is love, and it is spherical,
A point, a line, a plane becomes a place
in midair. Here I have no flesh

But in the body of a dream, a shade,
all things are possible, the face and eye
made real through points of light, a color grade
of pixels in the body of a dream.

No matter what, it is already mine
and tangible, though these electric hearts
are strung on text and printed in a line,
i love it, no matter what it is.


.

 

[4degrees]

18-28

the object of my d-tach
pays a visit
everyone pays a price
over time, mine
was lower than some's
again i open the door
to re learn lessons
my masochistic self
can't get enough
i know
there will be new
slashes on my soul
just pretend i'm part
of the zombie apocalypse
now, and i'll pretend
i don't care anymore.

 

[the Snood]

1 - 9 - 24x7x52

People say 24x7x365, but that makes
one year 2555 days long. Stupid people.

I remember every moment we've shared
over the past 2555 or so days.

Lying on a bed with you
for at least the hundredth time,
my mind drifts to a stylized memory
of the first day of the week we first kissed.

You and I and the man
you married
are in the parts store
trying to make the
"professional parts people"
understand the difference between
dexter and sinister thread.

He follows an absurd line of
argument which leaves the poor sods
more confused than ever,
and eventually the manager grants us
direct access to the Dorman cabinets
to sink or swim as we will.

He comments that you might've chosen
an automobile with fewer oddities,
and I hold my tongue, don't mention that
you bought it on his recommendation.
In any event it looks good, and is
sound and practical. It suits you.

I do not speak to you
or dramatize in any way.
I am there as your friend,
being reasonable and attempting to
spare you the pitfalls of botched DIY.

However, there is a noticeable
tension in me, as if our times together
are taking form and I am about to reach out
and raise you above all else.

an amphora
in which water turns to wine.

 

[the Snood]

1 - 10 - after hours

I fell in love
through a necklace.

She brought it to me,
and asked that I repair the clasp.

It was seven strand wire,
strung with jade with a small

silk medicine bag filled with
tiny crystals as a pendant.

Her voice was silk as well,
backed by steel: fine, strong

and smooth enough to command my attention -
but that was not what ensnared me.

It was the taste
of her bosom

when I smelled the pendant,
then touched it with my tongue,

as I held it to my face
like a young rose.

 

[4degrees]

18-29

my passion generator
needs a refuelling
running on fumes, a poem
sputters out and groans
as it rolls to the side
of literate highway 4

its some kind of
high octane boost tonight
even if all i do is look.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Summer 08 29

.


Notes on Card VIII, Strength
(Crowley Thoth XI, Lust)


it is not bravery
that brings me to open
your jaws this way
but to hear you
say your own name.

So take it up in your hand
and hold
still
curve your palm round
and stay
at the tip of the gate
open the mouth, the red drop
the lotus peak.

In the form of a dove
and a shower of gold
batter me down

tear the curtain
that hides the temple
and stay
still
tip to tip, dark sweet cock
in hand
like a standing stone.
Let me hear
you roar, your lion's
voice, your own
name.



.