30 Poems in 30 Days

[4degrees]

20-4

words of others rain
and ring in my brain
looking for the push
crushed with a rush of
passion


thrashing about in shallow
pools of sustinance
i will take every drop
it is refined life, peppered with vowels
the mind's eye reads between the lines
growing a poet, engaging a sick soul
to become more

than he was before

each string of words
every day, sprouts new greenery on
dried branches that numb a hand
poems like photosynthesis
a weed stretching for glints of sun
pushing up through a rocky crevace
sometimes, like a tomb.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

3-21Cloth

Because you asked I will tell you no
I don't love him. Someone else's name
is written on his shirt-labels. No
I don't trust him. And here is where all
men are the same in their not-you
ness which is this patch-cloth application
of themselves to me as duty sublimated
from self-serving. Christ yes
I know an abstraction when I see it;
I can't even grab hold
of a corner without
him furling up in layers.

I do not love him but you
oh whole cloth

 

[4degrees]

20-5

the nature of names
faces in front of my own
serve as mirrors of
perfects, defects and the
collective human soul

pluck names like leaves
like flower petals and
toss then into the west-wind
let the fragrant confetti
settle in your hair
and delight your senses
with their sweetness
your sweetness is my anti-venom
and your reflection is
a reminder to me
that i am beautiful, too.

 

[StepStransky]

2

On Snow Day, the Internet gets turned off.
We look up the frequency of local radio,
tune in for the first time in eighteen years,
attend to the list of schools shut, tut
at elderly listeners phoning to say a bit of snow
never stopped the world from turning in their time
(and your money was safe in banks back then, too).
We assess the road in thin light,
make our minds up, call in to work.
We await exclamations and hurried feet on the stairs.

Out in the street, the neighbours are talking, making out
like we actually know each other. “Did you hear
some guy drove into one of the holes they're digging in the road?”
We spread the word; we head on down, passed by a rescue truck.
At the yellow tape we spend time discussing it with
our fellow strangers. There are
those who talk about the lost art of braking; others assert
it was a hole just waiting to be filled with something, and maybe
they should have thought about the forecast before digging it.

The boy watches the crane at work.
Just the other day, I was driving him back
from gymnastics; some idiot on the radio started
talking about hoof prints he used to press
for his son at Christmas, in the soil, in the night.
Is it too much to ask for a little thought
of a Saturday afternoon? Do they just assume
no child in the land will be listening?
He's not the only man in the world who's noted
an extra use for the rim of a grande cappuccino mug.
Luckily, just then, a white van in the oncoming traffic
cut across me; I was able to cover up
the revelation with loud cursing,
tossed in a CD whilst I swore. Even so,
I got the distinct impression we both avoided
looking in each other's direction after that.
I got told last year it's time I stopped
trying to prolong magic now, accept
that nine year olds don't need to believe that
any more.

But today, on Snow Day, he declares
himself my personal plough,
instructs me to walk behind in the path he clears,
makes engine noises with his lips. Sings. We
roll a giant ball of snow together. He plays
until the light is nearly gone. We take
a night-time walk and look over fences,
complain about unused snow “going to waste”: there's
a snowman in our garden who could use
some of that. We chat.

Perhaps this is a final glimpse snatched of the little,
little boy. The Snow Day has blown open a closing
door, and I am grateful. Let me watch.
Let me look at him one more time like this,
as I always thought he would remain.

 

[Maria2394]

1-1

work poem #1


human nature (while stranded in high places)


That tepid, gentle mist
that dampens your face
as you stand, chatting
beneath the tower crane

is not rain.

 

[StepStransky]

3

I confess:
I have been reading up,
delving into out-of-sequence detail
I probably have no right to thumb through;
sitting in the attic, next to the lightbulb,
shining my torch across the boxes at the back
(well, not quite the back). Absorbing.
Still, it *is* here,
and it *was* pointed out to me. Sort of.
This enormous, yet glorious jigsaw;
I feel I am at least beyond the edges now. Perhaps.
No quantity of the boxes here can ever illuminate more
than a small section, I know. All the same
their discovery thrills me; their contents glow.
The further into the puzzle I get, the brighter
I just know it will be. This picture
is so alive.

 

[4degrees]

20-6

the shadow of my love
gray in all the right places,
and only she is dark
when light is present

pure extistential yin and yang,
swing together in a knot
tied with truth, this is proof
that evil needs good to thrive.

 

[Maria2394]

2

work poem #2


thinking about sex while grinding


Hard and cold, fleshless
barely malleable
schedule forty steel
lover, my lover never says
a word, but screams
at thirty-thousand revolutions
per minute. We leave
erections to iron-workers
and grind our afternoons
to carbon dust.




http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/ansi-steel-pipes-d_305.html

 

[PandoraGlitters]

4-1 Clean not Dirty

I will try this again and this time make sure I've posted before shutting the laptop lid.

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

The attic was cold, left half-empty
after all after all after all the lost
lures the false friends the fast
track the attention seeking
behavior.

How needy they said or thought if they
noticed. Certainly not everyone
noticed. But some did and some seemed
interested or compelled to be sort of
supportive even to cheer me on
and that

was the worst thing that happened because
then the wrong people noticed
and wrote. And wrote. They wrote
my nose into a vulture. They wrote
my soprano into a croak. They wrote
my life into car crash death, again and again
as if by writing it they were wishing it and as if
by wishing it they could will it, voodoo doll
style. One wrote to ask for a piece of hair.
One wrote how my liver should split
how my body should bend
how I should be locked under ground
under floor boards
under water
dead.

They wanted me dead.

All because of a little hello. All because
of a yeah you're not so bad, there. All
because of a you have a little talent
kiddo.

They wanted me dead and said
so again and again
whispered it in every bit of leading.
Cheered gleefully for more gruesome renderings
of my slaughter. Laughed heartily at more cruel renderings
of my character.

And I tried to die.
But it wasn't time.

 

[StepStransky]

4 - Butterfly

Your shadow formed across me and I tensed.
Your necklace hung before me in my gaze.
With each new month that's passed since have I sensed
the end upon my caterpillar haze.

Not once before a lover had I wept
or known the joy that naked, safely, brings.
Everything in safety you have kept,
my trust in you is air beneath new wings.

Reborn, the world is altered in my sight.
Now words become the breath I need to draw.
Scared, for I stand lonely in this light;
drawn to be inside your eyelids evermore.

Through words and letters I am woken.
Through thoughts and whispers be they spoken.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

4-2

Like all lovers, we began with masks;
our fingers slid over mirror and plastic
to where the breath came
out in whispers rising warmly up
floating kisses.

The first part to melt was around
our mouths, smiles seen. Wariness
melted with it and something was born:
a new you and a new me. We took one
another into our mouths and respoke
the other as a new invention.

Now we are wholly skin and spirit
emerging and drawn back
inside in identity dances where
seperateness has lost meaning.

 

[Maria2394]

3

work poem # 3

I'm not in the mood to write
my head's been pounding all night
but I can't get out of my mind
take outs and tangents
levels and plumb bobs
framing squares, bastard files
chipping hammer, sledge hammer
jack hammer, hammer drill, Hilti gun
Bam Bam Bam.

sometimes earplug
are just not enough.

 

[4degrees]

20-7

hearing that sweet voice
it rings in my ears, my eyes
look glassy with tears
-still they do not fall
but inside my heart breaks
my words over years-
hoping to instill the truth
in you, how amazing you are
-are just vacant symbols.
now my baby, is with baby
maybe that's part of her troubles
but i won't lose hope
of her coming round
wanting to be in my life,
again

 

[StepStransky]

5

Taking part
is sometimes
like skating
across very
thin
ice.
Which is one thing
if
you at least
know how
to
skate.

 

[4degrees]

20-8

what it was like,
what happened,
and what it is like now


the realities that have come to pass
were not even dreamt of,
in the past
never could i have imagined
life being so full, fullfilling
i fill my cup everyday
with the soul quenching
drink that is living
this life as much as possible
i fully participate
not spectate
still i wonder why
i was graced with the tools
fed the truth, and
loved without condition
long enough to overcome
the fear of being real.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

4-3

Please forgive me when I forget
that I never told you about the kid
spraying blue cologne or the dog
with his judgmental head tilt.
I forget to tell you these things
these small details of my life and love
because it feels I have told them to you
already when actually it was just
me talking again and me
answering in conversations to you
throughout the day. Your sueded
laughter rustles in my ear in answer
to little joys I have not yet shared.

 

[StepStransky]

6

He tells me:
"I expect you to help me."
I imagine him throwing the email, flinging it at me
across the office;
red skin at the edges, where his beard
is flecked white. Pointing. Wheezing.
Rasping. I imagine him at the top of
the stairs. Gasping.
Throwing papers down. Refusing help.
Demanding I assist him. I imagine him swilling
from his chocolate drink, laughing. He
stands behind, whilst I try to work.
He tells me his theories.

Wednesday, he threw policy in her face,
timing his moment to public perfection. An entire
evening's research, he said. Oh John.
You cycle at the edges.

 

[4degrees]

20-9

radiation glows red
surrounding a heart, the heat
going up 4 more degrees
every thirteen seconds, enough
to cook your hand straight though
upon the slightest contact
i read

:haikus are easy
but sometimes they make no sense
refridgerator:​

my poems are like that,
to everyone but myself
this cryptic symbosis tells tales
of half-lit dreams, the scope of
a scapegoat
the overuse or complete lack
of punctuation
and never is form present
my poems are just presents
to myself.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

4-4

Quotation #1
Write a poem that includes the phrase "perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved".

Only when you are not watching, you suspect
her of moving, sleekly ninja, but it is not
nighttime castle walls. It is afternoon
and this is just a livingroom. She appears
not to notice. When you look directly
at her, she is perfectly motionless,
perfectly behaved. But blink and in that flicked
second she has moved closer. She becomes
inevitable. You calculate collision.

 

[StepStransky]

1-7

My eyes sting. In my
left, I twitch today. My
face is numb. My
head is thick. My
stomach growls, because who
can eat at times like this?
My muscles ache, because exercise
is all I have right now.

Perhaps I should be giving
myself a good talking
to. Resolve
to safeguard a specific number (eight
they say is good, but I would settle
for six). Perhaps
I should listen to my
body's communication. It
wants an end
to punishment.

But, somehow,
feeling like this
makes you closer.

 

[4degrees]

20-10

ink lines below the skin
map out the past and
scar the surface
scar the future maybe
passion was blasphemous
when i learned to walk again
now pin feathers sprout
from the devil's shoulders
this anomaly is actually
more common than
you think.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

4-5

I want to start with probabilities. If
there were a one in ten thousand chance
that we would ever touch with real
skin cells raising and scuffing the other's
skin cells, I would be optimistic. I would
bake a cake with a capital C and repeat
every day well into my eighties, still confident
that the day would come where these hands
press palm to palm. We stand, trees
bent forward but toward each other,
not the sun or the tide or the earth. Our
lives are parallel roads.

 

[4degrees]

20-11

poets through the years
change their names,
but their words are the same

i knew a poet who
called himself callsign carrotz
that boy had a beat
that beat me into the ground
i worked with him,
the few times were products of
poetic anger-management-failure-genius
that's when bloc party was recommended
and the juicebox made his poems pump out
like a deep slice across
a carotid
he bled his words
and i sucked them up

i knew one called trip, also ~k,
they were one in te same, and
still i am hypnotised by
symbiotic ten or twelve
sentences
that sentenced me to
falling short forever

and there were others
some long-lasting, that made
this knave pump out poems
of redundant psychopathy
for years running
somehow time has allowed
me to let it fade
into the orange glow of
the west

 

[StepStransky]

1-8

Goddamn that phone, how it
looked at me from that spot
on the table, like a gun
all lined up for some shooting, grinning
its cigar smile of 12 perfect teeth,
telling me how
I lacked the balls to pull the trigger.
I picked that bastard up and punched
in my combination (hoping it hurt). But
the doubts attacked, with my finger still tickling
the green. It was like an extra
voice from the corner of
the room: "Put the gun down, son." I
tossed it on the desk and raised
arms, helplessly. I drank coffee in a
different room.

Then, when it was least
expecting it, I pounced. I
held it in my hands, tight; gave
myself a count of five, but
went on three.

"Hello?"

 

[PandoraGlitters]

4-6 Not so Loud

Pantoum and Quotation # 2

What pleasure to wake up within your voice
As if it were a room I'd slept inside.
Within your treble oscillates the choice
that mine's the ear on which your lips reside.

As if it were a room I'd slept inside,
your mouth warms me awake and breathes me bright
that mine's the ear on which your lips reside,
much luckier than one who'd not requite.

Your mouth warms me awake and breathes me bright
against the blue of another's whispered name.
Luckier I than Mary who'd not requite
your licks of love that eat me up in flames.

Against the blue of another's whispered name,
a woman's name that lives though she is dead,
your licks of love now eat me up in flames.
'"Sh! not so loud: he’ll hear you," Mary said.