30 Poems in 30 Days

[champagne1982]

3-1-6

Wooden Crosses

Beside the little steepled church
stand markers of another time,
wooden in this day of marble
floors and granite countertops.

Homogenized and white,
the bread and milk of progress
reaching here to touch
the churchyard on the corner.

Stoic in the snow and neglect,
people not remembered,
stripped inside the sandstone
walls of residential schools.

Where does the cross fit here?
Nameless and crucified their nails
of drugs, bingo and booze
hang you on its shape, impaled

on a Christian stake of tithe
and damnation, while Sister Moon
and Brother Sky laugh in honour
of your heritage. They mourn you.

I cannot find your name,
it's been painted away.
So, here lies a native
soul, let the wind remember.

 

[tungtied2u]

1-25

she shook me up
popped my cork
took a long, deep drink

I had no time to think
consider the effect
my years might have on her

plucked at perfection
rittled and twisted
sediment drained

she tilted my neck
drained the last drop
she only stopped

after she'd consumed
all I had to give
it was my purpose

 

[AChild]

7-27

her love
a splinter to my skull

a moment is not enough
to breath a different note
than the spell written in
her color ring

I wanna fill her void with
crescent teeth
just not mine

 

[annaswirls]

7-15

"Baby it has been so long,
what do you want to talk about?"
You blurt, Spaghetti Sauce.
skitter out the door sideways
knuckles down.

At first I laugh but I see now,
you want me to tell you about
everything. How I still sometimes wait
until morning to clean up after,
noodles dried into hard orange sticks
pasted onto the vinyl table cloth,
wine evaporated into red circles
at the bottom of the glass.

You want me to tell you how the children have grown,
how they haven't. How they will not let me wet the napkin
on my tongue, wipe their mouth. You want to hear the sound
of dishes clinking under water.

Do you remember the night
the baby woke up
crying for his lost balloon,
how no other balloon would do?
In your silence then, I could feel it,
tears wanting to spill over onto me
to carry you up to bed, soak in your aches.

He has forgotten about the balloon.
It is our memory now, one
that will not rinse easily.
I still watch for you sometimes
up, up out of my sunroof
your ribbon cut too short.

 

[champagne1982]

3-1-7

Floor Hand

from five to nine you commute
to the wilderness and push
muck that freezes to your shovel
faster than your breath
to your bellaclava and yes
your fingers will freeze off
but for the promise of hot
potatoes and steaks thicker
than the slab of concrete
you stand on all day
and Oh God that sweet
girl's pussy all hot and wet
and ready to make you forget
how fucking cold it is.

 

[annaswirls]

7-16 Unlike the Blessing

Today the wind is in my face
and the sun on my back
but it feels like the right way
to be as gusts force waves
over the dam in rippled sheets.

Minnows facing upstream
wiggle their tails just enough
to keep their place in the shallows.

I wait for you to find me here.
Have you ever been to Texas?
There are Black Eyed Susans blooming here
in November of all times, but their eyes
are not black but yellow.
and surely, their name is not Susan.



Note for ending: something about swaying in the wind like the trees, to bring it back to the idea of minnows wiggling their tails just enough to keep their place .......

 

[tungtied2u]

1-26

intimacy has become anathema
to me, a risk too big to take
better to hide behind
an electronic facade, untouchable
where reality comes and goes
at the touch of a button

eye to eye
flesh to flesh
leaves images of anxiety
peeking from cortex crevices
hemorhaging into whle bodt
bruises, unable to heal
tender to the touch
subconsciuosly obvious
to all I meet

I will save my feelings
for my flesh and blood
those time tested
who hold my dreams
in their hearts, my hope
in their futures

 

[AChild]

7-28

curving down my hill
the sky wash in
colours of mourning

don't tell it to the birds
crows with their cold black
finger paint
for lack of real floating
searching for something worth
a beak scrape

the sun is MIA

a humming birds hell
is to be reborn a fly
and have its metallic rainbow
wasted on shit

 

[champagne1982]

3-1-8

Tool Push

It's like babysittin' a bunch
of ADD kids somedays
when they're still runnin'
around, packin' and you've
waited for over twenty
long minutes that you coulda
spent in your own bed, warm
and twisted up with her.

You're outta town for forty days
and nights. Christ has nothing
on you, baby, you do it all
the time and God knows, the devil
tempts you the whole time
you're out in the wilderness.

If that cook and the housekeeper
don't show again, the next
camp help you hire'll be makin'
more than the drillers.
That won't do, no, not at all.
No point in dwellin' on it.
Round 'em up and drive 'em
out, the 21st century's
version of a trail boss.

 

[flyguy69]

9::11::12.... ah fuck it. This one's called "Toolbox"

::::::::

 

[annaswirls]

7-17 Rain Skull

I keep thinking of Jerry Garcia's box of rain
on the end of a skeleton's neck hanging
on Jen and Amy's dorm room
next to a rose with glycerine raindrops
almost ready to fall
we take turns calling to Mr. Bong Water
hello? hello? stuck down in a well
like Mike wonder if he ever got out.

Mike. The one who taught us about how ass fucking
is not for from behind only how he liked to stretch his legs out
up over shoulders like in the movies, like his ass was
pussy and then he laid out neatly folded towels
under the cans, holes punctured in the dented center
sucking it all down. Rain rolling from our skulls
breathless hysteria.

 

[tungtied2u]

1-27

I want to die
while my work is a joy
before it degenerates
into dailly drudgery, pulling
myself from bed, applying
a false smile to face
the rat race one more time

while my daughters still delight
in the hope of true romance
love to dance, laugh all night
feel compassion in their hearts
and the desire to help others heal

while my mountains are tree covered
smothered with fox, bear and raccoon
instead of the soon to be
composition shingle, plate glass
manicured grass, arranged rock landscape

while the presence in my memory
of the days and nights we shared
and the fullness I felt
out weighs the absence of you
in my life and the hole left there

 

[AChild]

7-29

poem is not the function
but omnipresent like some
minor god

envision pan with a bigger cock
'cept for legs of fox fur
bent not just in fiber mechanisms
dionysus' s cup
not stolen but borrowed

A. apostle
snake hand to pen
and vibrate between the lies,
lines, spines to crinkles in void
fill my wise jug with what I come back with

temples in every page
speak your word
and i'll admire architecture

 

[tungtied2u]

1-28

the stroking never stops
the rhythm doesn't vary
it's up and down
in and out
methodical
never hurried

night and day
day in day out
pushing plunging pumping
the men all shout
as she starts to spout
she's a gusher
worth the effort

 

[champagne1982]

3-1-9

Leonids

I looked out and touched the clouds
from the ground and when I
paused to catch my breath
bits of star crashed through
the atmosphere as if to remind
me just where heaven can be found.

 

[AChild]

7-30

piece together poetry
so one day in the mirror i'll find
the master,
a measured hand,
instrument of base line,

know when not to waste time
to shake mind or
other sabers that need
rattled

the battle on our hands is onion
layers bring tears
on we peel
fingers sweat
to taste such tart reels within

real begins in word
layer combination complicate logo
lean against the wall and walk
an inky path
all the colors birds stalk
sing my name, hold me to task

"why are you still on the ground mute?"

nobody told them and they can't
do the math

I'm turning 30 to day
so flight is guaranteed

 

[annaswirls]

7-18

it was a matter of having to pee somewhere
cut up the logger's trail holding onto the red bud trunk
squat and piss there among the deer turds of course
I should have known I would not find you
along the paved trail giggling as I reposition to miss my boots
you told me two years ago
"Follow the deer path"
but I have always been slow to learn
fast to forget. I found your jawbone
teeth intact sun bleach white
right in the middle of the path where
their feet cross every day
stepping over their own dead’s split
ribs and vertebrae on the north side
ball and socket joint to the south
the lower jaw now in my bag

a small bird that looks like
our chickadee but even smaller
and with a longer call cries
to me from the Live Oak.
I follow you as dragon fly and high root stair
and wonder how it came to this?
These stupid bird and bone songs when
I used to find you in my panties and adult store shelves,
you would be so disappointed in these poems of moths
sucking mud and how here wildflowers bloom in November still
and what about the time you made me cum
with nipples and voice alone? Your sugar deep cut and crystal
scratch cap nightmare grabbing my
thigh up over and god your homemade tie backs
catching the bloodflow yes
yes you scold you scold me down down
to where the river splits now you say

baby don't you remember you used to ask my permission
to even bring men into your fantasies how you used to
dress them in my barn coat, red shirt, high string hiking boots
just to make you warm enough to even think about fucking
someone else still it was always me there admit it
how you posed them up in my language can you hear
that rhythm of my voice
can you move to my sounds
in anticipation god the anticipation
of the prayers oh god do you still
respond to my suggestion is it just tears
and shallow sentiment that follow the two deer
as they leap across the path in front of you
startled by a passing car they crash through your laughter
as you think of the yellow piss how I must have caught
the scent and
..................... found you blood rushed headward
dizzy standing too fast
bare ass in the breeze
nature girl trying to zen me back home
baby you know where I live bare back
cave painting palms pressed into the moss next time baby
keep the jeans at your ankles let the wind bring you here
where you left me cock in hand wondering where the hell
you were last night

 

[champagne1982]

3-1-10

To a well meant (but slightly bent) poet:

To wait so long to voice advice
is something you may perceive as nice;
instead, my dear, it's a parody
of another's skill, thus a tragedy.

You say encouragement is the better critique
and a virtue in which only you are unique-
ly qualified to voice and espouse.
Yet you gladly call everyone else a louse

who doesn't express that you are the best
and so much higher than all of the rest.
As they stand on their flimsy detergent boxes
you scheme and you plot to outwit the foxes;

with private notes to the unknowing voices
you slyly undermine the other choices
of mentors and friends, who may teach of things
that a different scope of experience brings

to the lectern of valued poetry review
whether you're a new writer or a lit guru.
We all love poetry and the joy it can bring
regardless of the tune this choir sings.

So why not just admit that it's all quite absurd
and the writing of poems is more that just words
on a page and no matter if it's true or obscene
it's not what we say but instead, what we mean?

 

[tungtied2u]

1-29

It's Sunday evening and time to get
to the Orange Peel Social Aid
and Pleasure Club to see Joan Jett
and the Blackhearts live on stage

kicking out the old, rocking in the new
drums beating,bass thumping, chords zinging
music that delivers a sonic one, two
as your body gyrates and ears are ringing

so put another dime in the juke box baby
celebrate the music, let it take hold
sing and shout, let yourself get crazy
thank the Lord for Rock n' Roll

 

[tungtied2u]

1-30

I couldn't wait for the clock to tock
tick off the final minutes until
tomorrow, I thought it's already then
somwhere, just a matter of a few degrees
longitude east, I'm headed there
anyways, if days are distance
then my sentence will be seen
tomorrow somewhere tonight

this eve I put behind me
number 30 of thirty, set one
is done, determined by number
now to slumber, rest briefly
from this test, carried through
to completion, the best are still
ahead, in my mind, waiting
to be born, tomorrow morning
and those thereafter

 

[champagne1982]

3-1-11

Driller

C'mon boys. Let's get 'er done
the dayshift's burnin' away
and I wanna get to town
to drink and get laid.

Momma won't be there to say
what's wrong or to slow down
your hairy ass. Coronas chased
with tequila shots on top

of hot wings so fiery the ice
between an old whore's legs
would melt. We'll get her done
and then stagger out and drive

two fuckin' hours and spend
the day with our eyeballs bleedin'
into the sun. Bore that hole
with another length of shaft

shoved down the pipe
and into the throat of another
until gas sneaks up outta the well
and we got one more done.

 

[annaswirls]

7-19 can you hear it?

something
is chewing our walls
from the inside

 

[champagne1982]

3-1-12

A Matter Of Taste

Tangy musk lingers on the tongue its fruity
flavour buds hidden beneath the top notes
of bee-kissed clover and the honey dripping
comb, waxy and delicate - not so fragile
as it would break; but malleable in my palm.
It heats and waits to become something good.

 

[annaswirls]

7-20 Pandora

unlike the king we skip spaces
tie laces with our eyes closed
unlike the sailor we catch our words
from the airwaves
acoustic riff raff paddywhack
thank you Arlo Guthrie
thank you for the soldier song
no I do not understand
hello you must be going
time is not a gem that must be cut
we face our facets unlocked in a minor key

 

[annaswirls]

7-21 meeting my niece's boyfriend

He watches us in the kitchen. Tells us
forty is the new thirty
and at first, I think this is a good thing
what a charmer
until my paranoid side steps in
and I imagine of his posting in the personals section
in search of "mothers I would like to fuck"
older women who know their hunger
how to feed it,
women without strings
despearate housewives,
to worship his sculpted chest
oiled tight abs smooth smile
I can go for hours
fucking the old bitches
into the last decade.
But I digress.
He seems like a fine young man.