30 Poems in 30 Days

[Micahb2]

It's years later and the television has flatlined in the front room.
Rooms guided by closed doors reckon Mystery is enough.

The foyer is a chamber orchestra that's pulling the collar up
around your neck.
We live in a house whose stairwells are full of stacked playing cards.
The canary bounces.

Memory, the dog, is flat-footed on the table. Idolizing it's splayed feet.
Let's slip between the pebbled concrete and a sky that is always clear
no matter the cirrus or the cumulus.

Buttoning the last button, I step back.
You, the fine hairs of a peach, a goblet
I tip back.

 

[Micahb2]

Infinity Gauntlet

You had me at "Turing Machine."
Over the phone, I ply and ply.
What adds up are the thin wrists,
the sugar that you choke back.
I get that on Race Day you held off the
visiting pineapples, the rake's progress.
My heart is a butterfly knife that whirls at a
work-in-progress carving out of thin air
all the above.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Twenty Three

One person's safes are another person's pianos
you know, bankers whisper. Open
your palms if you are under just in case
the falling safe/piano is foam--a cartoon you
balance on your head.
Carmen Miranda would envy
our fine millenery as we samba
down Broadway sporting
Roadrunner's reprieve like baskets.
Bring a squeegee and climb aboard.
We're so tall cherry pickers are obsolete.

 

[Micahb2]

Nightstand

The hospital across the street is a sugarcube of light.
I lay in bed with the glass in all the windows out.
A siren blows down the street with the leaves.
Winter is coming again.

My head is not my own on this pillow.
One image trumps, a vision's girders collapse.
There is no turning away.

The hallway is full of periscopes.
I can hear them break the surfaces
behind the closed door.

I am not me on my own again.
Trunks, truncate, turnstile.
A station and a boarding.

The last thing I see before slipping off
are the fireworks over the lake.

 

[Micahb2]

Comma Bleed

The more I give in the less I collapse.
(Hah! Look! nothing up my sleeve)

Expect more exclamations.

"Wasn't that a put down?"
I am not sure as the bus curtails
and sweeps you away for the day.

While you are gone the buildings will
shift like chess pieces. The cats will terraplane.

One moment, please. Sentimentality wants to phone in.
Go ahead, caller.

Oh, Persistence, I see you have dragged your hem in the dirt.
That little grin is knowing and a silver needle in my heart.

Your voice, once boxed in the corner, leaps like leopard spots.

 

[butters]

think i've got my poems per day screwed but:

twelve


threadbare fred
exposed his heart
to her and said
here it beats
it beats for you
all i have to offer, true
then fred stared straight ahead
(thought it better than the ground)
till she touched his earnest cheek
till his chin her fingers found
and she stood upon tiptoe
and she whispered in his ear
there is not another heart
i could better wish to hear
with my cheek upon your chest
and your hand upon my hair
with a tremble on his lips
and a wetness in his eyes
threadbare fred embraced his love
shyly smiled his heart's surprise

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Twenty Four

I look to your moon gazing eyes
and your sleepy slit eyes
and your universe spinning eyes
and wrinkle against the sun eyes

hold still against your hyperactive
foot that bounces against the sheet
as our thoughts slide across slate
into midnight.

Descend Glass Mountain
on the back of the Sun
and hold on to it through
the night no matter
how it bucks.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Blue windows rectangle
the wind and the flag and the small
cries of traffic playing children
below where there is no ground
only floor. "Mines!"

cries the glee runner hand over
his head flying a bookbag
kite. Tailing pencils and lined
sheets fall to cement
behind. This is work's end
the kite proclaims. In solidarity
I wad up this poem and toss it,
slow arcing from the fifth floor.
Shout back, "Free!"

 

[Micahb2]

Your Strong Mind

The carnival came into town overnight
So, after a Good Day
I sidled over and strode the throughway.

The calliope player whisked over and whispered
"I got their two-headed cow. Want to see it?
There's no charge. You go free."
The pop of glass was in his voice.

Too much, too much.
No one should have to look.

The meth-mouth bore children away
peddling the ride a little too fast.
Legs were splayed out from every car.

I caught the bus, stole through Missouri.
The Amish were on board with all their bags.
You should have been there.

I refuse to decode this for any of you.
(twisting the ring on my finger)
The driver kept looking over his shoulder,
leaning forward.

We drove past a crash on the levee.
A fleet of wood overcoats were casting off.
A nail file in your tiny little purse, Honey.

You're going to have to find a new best friend now.

I'll find a way to place this call. Get through on the run.
Let some phone hum in my ear all the letters you love.

 

[Micahb2]

Travel Alone II

There is a bone I am taking from
All of you. It will go
Back with me to Lisbon.

Viewed from Cacilhas,
The Old Quarter will be seen
as the home of our Common Hour.
I won't allow any landings to disturb
the ivory-quiet towers, the loping avenues,
the balconies arranged per the Periodic table,
the goatherd in the alley.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

on the light table
I've arranged the photos
softball Sunday
daughter on your hip
the blue light special

now they are a tree aligned
by the vein of change
where I see the slow closing
off maybe an extra
layer of bark

to be expected I see it most
in the face once open song
now listening and waiting

the song comes still
but through your fingers
now

 

[Micahb2]

A line marches in the sand
All the way up to the adobe walls.

It demands that you
"Surrender, throw out your hands"
The Consigliori, applauds one
clap at a time.


The twittering hushes, a beak is under a wing.
Looking up an idea pops.

The Consigliori yells from the wall
"You will be dancing with the spiders very soon, Line"
Hats are pressed to chests.

The Line kicks at the sand, squints,
cops some distance.
waves off the signs,
throws.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Twenty Seven

thighs cut the last
fabric of sleep from its spool

Morning broke into the room already
but stole nothing

just smoked a cigarette in the corner
voyeur to our waking

opening and closing the
lovers' scissors

 

[butters]

so many lovely things to read in this thread

and i know i've dropped the ball but is it ok if i carry on adding anyway?


thirteen


when nothing springs to mind
let's con the air to cede its diaphanous secrets
let's weave the wand that catches hold the threads
about ourselves until we've something pink and
maybe fluffy
warm and sweet and
insubstantial since it melts upon the tasting
leaving nothing much behind
except the stick

 

[butters]

fourteen


when you're stuck in a box
six sides all clamped about you fast
the mind's a wonderful place to go
a tropical paradise or a glacial field
a surf-fringed beach all golden heat and glistening bodies
or the grass-rippled steppes
the undersea caves
the magical tour de force of imagination's flood-plain

time skips past
wings away on a blood-orange sunset
and when you finally open your eyes
adjust your vision
it surprises you
to find the cardboard crumbled away
and a real breeze ruffles your hair

 

[butters]

fifteen


found
tense moments
in 140 characters or less
it's all about the company
twerpy twirpy cheap cheep
i#chirps
oops
tweets
small thoughts couched in smaller nests
back from the brink
a fair isle juggles americana
winging it

 

[butters]

sixteen


uncharted territory
not exactly unexplored
he just never bothered
making a map
remembering the way
sailed right on to the edge
and over
forgetting the need for sails and
rounded horizons

 

[butters]

seventeen


he pointed to the impossible erection
said "it's gonna be like climbing cheese"
now i like cheese
but i never planned on strapping on climbing boots
to reach my summit

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Twenty Eight

Whip around around with your foot
one second before mine and your hand
right here in that hollow of the a
preceding the sigh

slide trombone saunters in shadow
across the screen its fine light
in the periphery satin and skin
nylon and lush upholstery

pick up speed as we burn
through the room through
the lace and satin through the black
ties and bow ties I don't

need to tie you with anything
that thick just this little ribbon
of the kite in which we both
puff until we lift right off

the floor dance toes dangling
above the tea cakes above
the white tables and sprung wood
and softly glowing beetles

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Twenty Nine

early is the best time
to run at the first flinch
at the first
night terror the first
wrong number or call
back

because you can always see how
it turned out over your shoulder
once you have reached the corner

see I am an expert
at running
my heart can last
the length of Manhattan
even longer running to
rather than from

difference is this
time I flinch and feet don't lift

you soothe whisper
honeysuckle light
heavy enough to hold

slippers to steps
at least one

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Thirty

the law of mathematical analysis
of utterances and thereby the definition
of what makes sound language
is named for Zipf but arguably
attributable to Estoup

the word the occurs 7%
of the time with of coming in second
at 3.5 and so forth making a line
we can plot predictably over
all languages spoken

by people on this planet and even
dolphins yes dolphins too
with their smiles perhaps Simon Armitage
knows something we have yet to discover
because smart isn't always better but I
bet that most dolphins are poets

which may be why I turn to this
predictable tool to shape
something bigger than me or even
Us or state/gender/marital affiliation
believing that what we share
defines hope transcends circumstance

each tongue says the each finger
writes of and each time we connect
we add and again and again and
each word building a rope ladder
connecting we/those who ask and we/those
who answer

II

count the lines
the shadows and hatches
of expression on sidewalks
charcoal shard etched
muslin or paint
sprayed on walls count
everything and not just
the obvious alphabet
count the soft sigh
the slow crossed leg the too
quick slip into sleep for this
also is language

graph the language
of Us of the lantern in the mine
whisper over hobo fire
find in that stew
proof that we are not aliens
after all merely statistical
anomolies because even
aliens say the and of and and
more often than yes

 

[Micahb2]

32

Ponte de la Piavola

Thus far, my formal stance has been
I saw you walking over the Ponte Tron
first.

We've argued this over
the calamity of the hoarse
sea shells at lunch

You counter with a deft tumble of locks.

The happy genius of our household
is in the next room where the
Hummingbirds click. Where quinoa salad,
the bowl of kiwi has been
arranged. Where ducks bind.

It is such a pleasure to lay here, this afternoon
and listen to the machine take our messages.

 

[Black13]

Ladies And Gentlemen, Poemme #1

23:59
dim, red light
bright green afterimage
Green arrow: left
black vision tunnel
white lane stripes
beige leather interior
left arrow: Yellow
polished finish, silver
left Red arrow
bright green afterimage
blue dodge ram
tutu, pink -- pirouette
grey utility pole
rainbow cars passing
red blood leather
car passing rainbows
white halogen lamps
rainbow cars passing


00:00

 

[champagne1982]

End of 2012 Attempt - Day 1

Closer

It's been years that I've known
about where my heart calls home.
There's a place outside the physical
closer to my soul

You rest your light beside my thoughts,
where your spirit brings me song,
and when you flare with passion
I feel that you've always belonged
closer to my soul.

So stay inside my love.
Don't wander far or stray
outside this great emotion, stay
closer to my soul

 

[davefxflhd]

Cold by davefx

When I'm dead and buried in the ground
My thoughts will be stilled, peace of mind I'll have found

And when you come to stand over me
With your display of false sorrow
I will no longer miss you
on that day or any to follow

I feel it will be in the month of November, please don't ask me how
Just know that I lay there even more cold hearted
then you are standing there now