30 Poems in 30 Days

[PandoraGlitters]

3-11

Uncombed thread knots in a bulge,
disrupting the weft and weave
and what we have is not the pattern
we imagined but something else
that resonates from disruption:
a slapped guitar. A hum
clings to air

and we pause to see if it will resolve,
falling away to patient silence,
or if it will repeat
and become a pattern of its own.
We wait for someone to admit
their mistake, but no one
does. It is no longer at the edge
but the middle, as if in court
and around it fall the rest,
waiting, waiting. It is a pit
in my palm. I roll it between lines
and imagine the strange fruit that rises
against smoke.

 

[AChild]

21

This is an epic poem.

"Sometimes I feel like a motherless child."
----------------------
On the mont
no sermon, no demon
just a conveyor belt
sliding life

stacks of paper
coal illustrations
of people
most I don't know
the images are condemned
eyes, escape tales

the grandfathers clock
ticking hard,
the coco sings a twilight

ghost of old emotion too
get sent inferno expression
to the gods

into the liquid rock
my feet are cut from the walk
blood sizzles with each step
I don't curse
this is another temple

Rage is nowhere to be found
the elements roll in
fall hitting the black walls
this is more tragic than the fire
the blunt destruction

busting itself before the burn
when it touches the bottom
instead of sinking
the flame engulf and the object turns rocket
somewhere above it burns to the ash
covering the scene

 

[PandoraGlitters]

3-12

You call attention to your ghosts
when you stretch your arms and say
It's only me, as if anyone wouldn't notice
the filmy copies echoing behind,

discernable by the thin neck
swooped into shoulder, by the heavy brow,
by the bleeding hands dripping
on the rug which, thank God, is red
anyway. Your paler brothers bleed
chalk lines, dashed by their also
stretched arms, creating a passing zone.

I happily become traffic, leaving all of you
to harmonize something more believable.

 

[AChild]

22

this is an epic poem.

yawn. It's raining in Los Angeles today.
-----------
automated rage?
have to stop this
unproduction

kick off the gears of timing
the conveyor belt looses patient motion
all at once the world goes to the flame

overload
things come spitting out the furnance unburned
pieces of the mountain break into the chasm
smothering the fire

the ash stops falling
the clouds over head shrink and thin
through them I can see black feet

Rage steps down a stairway of smoke
glowing with the hunger of an unfed bear
one look at that wounded smile
my father though his temple is dead lives on
in my Rage

he makes for the lovers hair stitch
to loose his lips
the crystals in my heart chime
and send me running
for a forest

 

[PandoraGlitters]

3-13

The morning is contained
like a pillow in its case, round and quiet,
pressed against the face, softening
my movements in the corner
of the kitchen.
I peel the banana,
spoon the yogurt,
break the ice free from its cells,
and place each in its bath until
I have assembled all of the ingredients
in the blender. I flick the switch to high,
echoing with relief its screams. At last, I can
breathe.

 

[AChild]

23

This is an epic poem.

when I close my eyes its another world.
-----------

In the forest hidden among the leaves
I play Calvino's Baron
Rage is coming unraveling his mouth
leaving expired matches heads in his wake
he wears my father's face
the fear in my heart knows
to face him will destroy me
or worse I'll be consumed

The hesitant poetry
my confusion reaches beyond the paper
my temple trembles at my tears
not the rocks, not the foundation
it trembles by the rubber band made
from mother tree

it breaks, bouncing monoliths
bringing down every tree in the forest
except mine
Rage sees me clear and walks toward me slowly

the rubber from the mother
spills around the trunk
an elastic pool
reflecting

I don't see myself but who I am
all my forms
the tree is filled
birds of me
on every branch

Rage walks the edge
spiting hot tar
at the reflections
they die in blinks
clutching chests like Sergio Leone extras

My mind is running
have to figure out how to tame Rage
before he burns through the decoys

quieting my center
the decoys are me
I feel their deaths in my head
they are me of ages past

Where is me of the future
do I have a future?

I dive into the pool
expecting to bounce
instead I sink
and in reflection I find myself again
but this time myself in someone else
my match, like the one mother made me with
but unlike the flame of the creator
we won't burn each other out

we will match each other's flame
beneath the surface of refection
we dance and kiss and laugh and cry
helping each other
breaking the world around our unity

she tells me it's time to go
but before I leave she give me a lock of her hair

I emerge from reflection
Rage opens his mouth and covers me
tries for destruction or conversion
but his fire is only effect only a stunt
it won't go past my skin

I turn him around
kick out his knees and lock his mouth shut with
the future lovers hair
his body deflates, the meat of rage tamed
his skin a tool I can show and wear when the world needs my revenge

 

[PandoraGlitters]

3-14

I am keeping your thumbtacks in a jar. All
of the red and silver, the blue, the bright green
and yellow umbrellas have pinned
me to the wall as surely as
the notes you've left on my door.

I am collecting you thumbtack by thumbtack,
as if they were wild flowers. I put them in the jar
so I can see them, so that I can
keep my fingers from bleeding all over your love
notes and anything else you place
at my door. I collect

your words, too, and sweep them up
with a delicate broom. Then I open my mouth
and chew on them like clean leaves.
How they sweeten the tongue!

I am collecting you
in pockets and drawers, what you give
and what you leave.

 

[AChild]

24

This is an Epic poem.

Today it Hailed in Los Angeles.
------------
Fear in heart control
Hollow Rage at my command
at most it gets in my eyes
but I blink and it leaks out

put my temple back together
walking the way my feet want
because they want it I know this way is progression

Rage's mountain
in the distance
now blooming green

a darker forest creeps up around me
big trees tower and inspire sky scrapers
big enough to provide tunnels
certainly big enough for doors

trees close around me
a dead end
not dead because it is dead
a little death until I figure out
a way to make it live

tree big enough for doors
with a chunk of coal
from the mountain
I draw a door on the tree dead ahead

saying the magic word, "please"
nothing happens
I draw a door nob, it pops
and I pull

blasting light knocks out eyes
the world come back into focus
I'm at the sink again

 

[PandoraGlitters]

3-15

There is a purpose in this world for chutney
and if you want to be served that way
on every table, spooned out over dozens
of plates per night, that's your prerogative.
But don't pretend to be Almas. The crackers
aren't fooling anyone, even when you kneel

for communion. You are just a little chopped
mango. But fine over rice.

 

[AChild]

25

This is an epic poem.

Hey man you broke my record.
------------
back home
the physical reality
a school bathroom never felt so good
no wood around I knock on the sink

it makes a beep
that triggers the feeling
that I am forgetting something

I am ready to look in the mirror now

the glass is there but
no reflection just blackness
it flickers

the me in the mirror is grinning
to a drool
darkness
laughing
darkness
pointing at me and laughing
darkness

the tiles start popping off the floor
I put my hands on the mirror frame and push

all the walls come down
a hollywood facade
and my Fool is standing there
expecting a prize because he is so clever

I start at him and we begin a chase

 

[PandoraGlitters]

3-16

The air does not actually
catch fire, briefly but it does
shimmer dangerously. Afterward
all of the ashes turn to glitter.
You carry them on your cheek.

 

[AChild]

26

This is an epic poem.

Creation kills the ideal. Bringing things into reality kills the nature of the illusion.
-----------------
Fool'd

it takes a while before I realize
we are running
on the cheap cartoon track
the one that repeats the back round
a picture
looped
reel to real

I put my foot though the track
catapulting us both through
still life paintings

all the while the Fool is laughing
"it's not over till you catch me and
you aint never gon' catch me."

grounded on a dirt road
the quiet of night is being killed
by a carnival

the banner at the gate reads

"my body is a (temple) amusement park."
temple has been crossed out by finger nails
some are still stuck in the wood
at the crossed out word the wood is swelling
with blood and something else

inside the carnival is a gauntlet of hands
I can tell they are mine by the scares on the knuckles
they pinch and prod exploring every inch of my body
playing the skin organ till the sensations reel my eyes
into my head

it's is not a sin in itself
it's is a sin in context
distracting from my purpose

putting my foot down again
the hands cease bringing me to harvest

the second banner reads
"my mind is a (computer) video game"
computer has been crossed out by trivia
the useless things my mind knows and attracts
without out effort

inside this carnival are television screens
stacked in the shape of people they dance
whirling their ethereal blue light and white noise
in a way that screams the opposite of meditation
the search for entertainment eats a thousand clock

running away I kick over the plug
they all fall down
unwound because I can't give
no more attention power

The last banner reads
"My spirt is a (doorway) coffin."
doorway is crossed out by a lack of faith and too much pride
beneath the banner
there are two doors
Know God and
No God

I walk through Know God
it opens on desert of cracked earth

 

[PandoraGlitters]

3-17 Sharp! (Survivor 1)

Sunset bleeds down the neck of the knife.
Its sharp ridge calls us forth like a siren
to mount the highway north and speed

up the side. We divide our speed
by angle, by economy, by wit or knife.
Sharp! The glass vibrates with siren.

Roll down the window, mute the siren--
the first dance of authority is one-speed.
We wonder if he's seen the knife.

Knife booted, siren speeds away.


(Tritina, Key Words #4)

 

[StepStransky]

Clever

 

[AChild]

27

This is an epic poem.

My brain is trying to kill me opening up my skull like and evil egg yolk. mY nightly prayer don't scramble.
------------------
desert of the cracked earth
Fool's carnival behind me
the door I came through vanished in the closing

walking pads,
dry winds cut out elephant feet
searching for that part of me
responsible for histerical laughter
the dancer, the wild imaginer
the one who will take a chance
to feel the highs and lows
all the time whooping and raising his hands
the roller coaster junkie

with out it I will never find the lover
that helped me bind my rage

the landscape is empty
streaching out until the fingers of heat
bend the horizon
I pass many a mirage
they call out like late night commercials

not food or water but
testimonials to my long journey
trying to convince me I could stay
in a paradise of simple plastic tools
for just 19.95
or that the companionship I'm
missing is on the other side of a telephone

I come to a sign post
it reads 'the genie
will be with you shortly'
pointimg to a hole in the ground.

as I read the sign Fool
comes spinning out of the hole
wearing a Cary Grant grey suit

his forehead is bleeding
from where he stapled on
the dead rabbit ears

the cigar in his hand is
orange with green ash
every time he takes a puff
it crunches like he's chewing glass
of course he says "what's up doc?"

my voice box hollowed
like the cracked earth
I can only moan a dog whisper

he says "Well that is a compelling argument
but you see I am different than the others
I am not driven by emotion. I exist because
I want to. You laugh therefore I am."

my eyes plead out of my head
Fool catches them and slips them back
into my sockets

"Well I can see your in no condition to talk.
wait here."

he retreats into his hole
and comes back with a clear glass and
offers it to me

I take as sip and choke
its Everclear
the choke sends some down my wind pipe
eyes water, nose pumps mucus
Fool is laughing
rolling in the dirt tugging on his rabbit ears

Inside me rage
pulls a trigger
my hand holds a gun
the earth is eager to sip on Fools blood

I cradle his head
crying but don't notice
as he winks at the camera

 

[PandoraGlitters]

3-18 Dreaming the River (Survivor #2)

Dreaming the river and slow sift,
I warm, waking: a faceted mountain
blooded by minerals' kissed gift.
Dreaming the river and slow sift
I carry slumbering babes, lift
their feet on seventy stacks of crimson.
Dreaming the river and slow sift,
I warm, waking: a faceted mountain.

(Triolet on Red Clay Brick (Point-of-View #6))

 

[4degrees]

20-1

with an itchy ego
and stirred up passion
almost recalling a poet in me
words flash and burn
aerosol cans and
defective fire retardents
turns goodness into
a charred hole
a charred soul
within, there is a beat
drum-like it thuds
wanting for the words
my fists clench empty air
grabbing for my flavor
missing like a blind man
swinging his stick at
a piñata that's done been busted
past skillz are rusted
let me lay my misguidings
upon ya, imagine
smooth undulations
rolling like low thunder
in the corner of this dark place.

 

[AChild]

28

This is an epic poem.

My skin is insecure but kiss the page I shed bad snake habits.
------------
Full Moon rising
the sun takes color
and now we live in monotone

Fool's blood adapts
to movie syrup feel
it dries and cracks on my hands

the milky rays shine
a bubble of a moment
posing the question of an earlier age

How will I escape now?
"You can use my rabbit whole."
I stand up and back away from the body

it's twitching, unbreaking
sucking up the blood given
to the earth taking with it
any pieces of rock, grass or bug
that got caught in the flow

"those are tools for later,
did you really think you could kill me?
I am eternal like the moon."

he hawks a luggie and
spits it at the sky maiden
it breaks into a smile

"see not dead just changed.
you could change too give up the boring world
and stay here with me. we could be twins."

the sun raises pumping the world
with rich hues seen by the yellow light
the moon mouth faded by the shine

Fool puts his thumb in his mouth
blows, the glove hand bubbles into balloons
holding them by a string he begins to float away

"think about my offer
no more school, work, responsiblity
we could play all day."

floating higher he waves with
his free hand, and for a moment
he is every childhood dream

A child is a beautiful thing
but only part
of the who that I am
and not the whole of me

As the wind blows the fool
away it also blows the cracked blood
off my hands, up into my face
bits of blood into my eyes and mouth

heated by the sun it melts
the blood works into me
and the desert changes

the cracks in the the earth fill in
a river springs from the rabbit hole
blades of grass cover every inch
a bed in the sign of life

I find my voice, "Wait, we can't stay here.
This is just a mirror as the other world.
They reflect each other but cannot live alone."

Fool floats on not hearing
still waving, his smile grows bigger
his eye brows raise

his blood finds my brain
and suddenly the real words come

"My body is a temple AND a play ground."
balloons pop
"My mind is a computer AND a video game."
more balloons pop
"My soul is -------"
only one balloon left
"Wait" Fool says "we can work this out.
I don't want to be a part of you."
"My soul is a doorway AND a coffin. I am a Fool when given the opportunity and that is nothing to be ashamed of."

at my last words Fool is pulled into me
merging to the marrow
when I practice folly it's right down to the bone

 

[4degrees]

20-2

five minutes maybe four
to perform
stay true to form,
ressurect a poet from
a wordless tomb
hollow vacant crypt
where no sound passes through
but the dead remember when
and more, then

and the real poem begins

many hours later but
still before 12 am


reason whips in the wind
nothing more than thin
leafless branches
succumbing, accepting their
lack of will and power

years it was unbeknownst
to me that the the claim to gay
was admission to afraid

the soft curvature
of her silky whiteness
the place my face nestels
her warmth like a flesh nest
admiration, appreciation
and deep fondness never felt
before her-
it is so clear,
there is nothing to fear

a man or a woman can
rip my heart to shreds
equally, and
they have
but this will not stop me,
i'm going for it all, again.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

3-19 Adult Toy Limerick (Survivor 3)

When considering what sort of toy
would be good for a girl or a boy
remember us plugs,
of the sex toys, the pugs--
short and ugly but fun to employ.

 

[AChild]

29

This is an epic poem.

Get the fireworks and the fire ready.
-------------
The end is near
I can feel it
on the whistle of the wind

my world is now green
after the ice of Fear
the coal and ash of Rage
the desert of a Fool

no one wants the end
because that is the darkness of goodbye
but in this case the end
is just another world

I walk toward where
the sun is coming from
on the horizon
there are clouds fat with rain
they move in spirals
but never come any closer

In the distance there
is someone walking toward me
as we get closer to each other
I can see that it is me

a sheet of glass divides us
like a mirror
but the image that sits beneath
the grey clouds is not my refection

it says, "this is as far as you go"
I say, "No. I'm going home."

"Home is not for you. You may
have the elements that brought you here
but your still empty in a way.
Here you will stay until the end of time."

as I move he moves
copying me but the inflection is off
he is a moment later than the truth
his body lacks purpose and passion

I put my hands upon the glass
fingers spread, he matches me
and I stare deep into colorless eyes
it's icy I can feel the rain in the clouds

the clouds spit up a blue finger
crooked but true to its path
it hits him but he doesn't move
the electricity conducts to me
taking out my knees

I feel the ones inside me push and pull
tearing to escape
when I am weak

 

[4degrees]

20-3

i wouldn't know an epic
poem if it spit in my face...


my cigarette's delicious noose
slides into these nostrils
i flair them when excited-
like some angry lizard
market rates of lust are razed
as more give their fuck
freely, as it should be
while yesterday's affection
turns sour, lumps of it
making it hard to swallow
more vapid meals to follow
self-serve satisfaction
is only enough to
get me through
until she takes me away
her hunger breeds the
longer she feeds, and i welcome
this insistance
for in this instance
the working metonymy
for my life is happy

one more to go, AChild...

 

[AChild]

30

This is an epic poem.

I'd like to thank everyone who believed in me. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
and no lol never cuts the mustard.

------------
take my hands away
from the shadow mirror
the dark me beneath the clouds
smiles

writing brings it out
the cold blood, the realization
with out this form I would know
no inner world

and just like that
"I know your name but I wont say it."
as I speak the mirror moves back
hair line cracks swell with every word
"You were with me all along.
in the darkness telling me to expect death
you are part of me like the others.
But unlike the others I don't need you.
You need me. Even at their worst
my elements move on a reaction to
a reality in the world.
You move on nothing creating your own darkness
before you see anything.
If you were to catch me
after the temples of my makers
you might have had a chance
to bind me.

but I have traveled too long.
I am too strong for the likes of you."

the darkness falls to one knee
sky fire threatens to destroy his world
the plead in his eyes
can't touch my heart

I move to put my fingers on the glass again
before I can it breaks
the whole horizon shatters
they fall over the edge

shards of doubt contain
falling screams, "I will be back."
I answer, "Only so I can defeat you again."

This is were my world ends
on a cliff over looking the sky and clouds
every time I expand my knowledge
or venture into words
or stretch out my heart
it grows just a little more

waiting on the edge of creation is doubt
feeling out with its shadow cloud shards
hoping to cut me in my goal

I take a seat on the edge
exhale and the let the elements out

Rage among the trees
Fear back far away from the edge
and a Fool spelunking into the unmade mist
by a silver cord that ties all three to me

I blink and see the real world
the sink at school with the water running
I turn it off and head back to class

Sitting down among the teacher's drone
my pen calls out to me
when I pick it up I'm back
in that inner reality
ready
to further the landscape of my mind

 

[PandoraGlitters]

3-20 On Hope and Amphibian Tails

Finally our foreheads touch. You lean
in to me, giving me the at-last and
why-didn't-we-do-this-sooner sigh,
once I have pried the secret from you.
It is okay I whisper and of course and
never leave me until you believe
in me, in these words, in this connection
between us frail as egg white strung
between the shard edge of a shell
and the black surety of sizzle below.
There are fourteen discrete processes
that must occur before we can even say
Hello, but somehow my dear one, even
across oceans, I still reach for your hand.
I should have said, One day this worry
will fall off, vestigal as a tail on a froglet.
I should have held your hand to the warm pool
where hope swims for us.

 

[StepStransky]

1

Ok... I am going to give this 30 poems thing a try...

- - - -

Off the beach, at Bossiney Haven,
it is an easy thing to do to let
the currents move you gently.
You feel the connection still to
the broken shore before you,
where land is firm and rock is
solid, where water showers
you at the tip
of the triangle slice.
It is an easy thing to look upon
that golden secret you discovered,
and shut your eyes,
and imagine it there before you, always,
and float,
and dream.

And open,
see the shore pulled suddenly distant,
feel cold waters tugging at your shoulders.
It is an easy thing to panic, to fight
for breath, to thrash, to be
gripped with the sudden fear,
that this distant look could be the last you have
and all else left to view will be flat, featureless
sea until finally
you are swallowed by it.
It is a tale with a single, inevitable ending;

but sometimes, just sometimes,
the angel is watching, and dives. Warm hands
pull you from your panic, deliver
you to the shore, sit
beside you, gently. And you realise
that you have just been saved. And further
that nearly drowning has an upside:
it can make you
a better swimmer.