30 Poems in 30 Days

[ShyErraticTable]

21

Sonnet for Herbert Spencer

Attachment—love, career, or home—the goal
we all desire for happiness, is pure
and white as any field of driven souls
we'd kill to grasp our bliss. We are but sure
of one thing only—our own wants and needs.
We are as species formed of will and clash
as Darwin said; we all compete to feed
our varied passions, variously slash
our neighbor's slender throat to have his wife
or stereo. Our mores speak through genes
to bones and cons to muscles. All our life
is grasp and hold—accumulate, it seems.

Yet spend I freely when I must. I give
gifts nightly of my genes, so they will live.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

1:19

It's in the poem that all words are synonyms,

the archangel soars on the sway of light bulbs,

courteous the drawings
baroque
lumin-(ous)
aries,

all this while I fire, nervous trigger, the weapon,

the bell chimes the time to genuflect,

the yellow concavity of the plant.


It's in the poem that encyclopaedias are born,
the manner in which leaves are turned,
the illustrations, the passions, the passionflowers, the smell, the dry leaves of books
and the dry leaves. "I know one was left for me
between the pages of Rilke, almond-coloured".


I . . . .let the rain fall and the sky fall,
. (we).


God said that wasn't the temple,
that it ought to have angrier stones, Ezra Pound,
more sea-
manite.

To offer an answer at the poem's sunset it's in the poem that all words are
minimal.


She had a cross,
a bell,
a plant,

the convex rain on her breasts.

 

[vampiredust]

5

The Cowboy

Toy guns were forbidden
at the battered women's
refuge were my mother,
sisters and me stayed.

I kept mine, a shiny
revolver snatched
from the Lone Ranger,
underneath wings

made from socks
and moth eaten shirts.
Its 8 bullets came
from my breath,

cold as the woman
in charge. I practiced
duels with her in dreams,
always hoping she would

be the first to fall,
never anticipating slipping
on a weapon of my own
design.

 

[ShyErraticTable]

22

O Knave, Where Is Thy Poesy?
O Breath, Why Can't Ye Sing?

Now here, a poem that glosses knowledge so
That even clever Pope could not bestow

Pomposities and Priapisms such
As those here found. I fear I am too much

Maligned a Poet to complain at this
Sore treatment—critics whose attacks do miss

Their mark far Left and Right, their barbs embed
In sullen wooden prose whilst my poem's fled

Unto Eternity, where Chaucer and,
Oh, Milton, read my verse with trembling hand

And green-tinged sight. I say, "No worry, lads!
I've read you too, and think you're not half-bad,

For older poets, anyway. Let's drink
Some ale, twist up a blunt, and sit and think

About the stink that now is poetry:
This new free verse seems so like crap to me.

What say ye, poets?" Chaucer sips his wine
in silence but for slurps. His crooked spine

Is puzzling until I see that, Nope!
That isn't Chaucer after all, it's Pope!

Oops! My mistake. I turn to Master John instead,
In hopes he's him and not misread,

Made Dryden, Milton—Englishmen, both Johns
And easily confused, though that is wrong

As they are very different men. Anon,
I see I'm screwed again. Fuck! Dryden! Dumb

I am, in fact, pick up the check, slip out
The back, and slink away, direction South,

Morale now crumpled, moral set, to wit:
Best know your English poets, lest be twit.

 

[champagne1982]

2007-1-22

Newspeak

I know it won't sit well with some
if I were to delve into politically
incorrectedness. They'd open mouths
in hollow O's of shock and hiss
aghast at these indiscretions.
But she is blonde and can't speak
and his family's from Punjab.

 

[Sara Crewe]

5-22

.......

 

[vampiredust]

6

Resolutions

We'll defrost the freezer,
my love, and chip away
at our thawing hearts.
We'll unpack the new
sheets and iron out
their wrinkles and marks
left behind from last year.
We'll put the chicken
in aspic and christen it.
We'll dance the fandango
and listen to snow falling.
We'll trip the light fantastic
and feel photons crackling
under our skin.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

1:20

Cowboy

That hat makes you sad;
beauty makes you sad;
beauty suspends the songs
far away
on sadness' clear plane.

Perhaps I shouldn't
speak of the time that ages
those lips disenchanted by time;
perhaps that dance pose
is a manifest I cannot read.

 

[ShyErraticTable]

23

Reading

I love to read a book that you have read
and know I scan those words your eyes have scanned,
perhaps made drowsy by them while in bed.
I love to read a book that you have read,
relive experiences that you've had—
I feel closer to you, understand
and love you, reading books that you have read.
That's why I treasure words your eyes have scanned.

 

[Sara Crewe]

5-23

..........

 

[champagne1982]

2007-1-23

To The Man Outside My Window

I have a problem with this;
heavy lidded eyes loosely
shuttered to conceal improper
views from the reflection
in the mirror. I see you.

I know your want when fingers
weigh the strip of blind
just enough to be mistaken
for the evening wind -- I hear
leaves whispering the sigh
of heavy tread where you crouch.

I get that you want my hands
to slide along the silky
basque and release the gartered
stockings lovingly caressed
along my thigh until brushed
against the satin of panties
musked in feminine pheremones.

I'll keep this on for you;
we'll lift my breasts above
these ivory cups and imagine
exactly how these berried nipples
must reply to each telepathic
kiss from lips against the sash.

My panties drawn to one side
in restrained liberation for one
french tipped finger to explore
as I close my eyes and you
open your mouth to taste
the air my sighs ride upon.

 

[ShyErraticTable]

24

Another Moralistic Sonnet

No sun, nor wind, can ever make you plain,
can disarrange your hair or burn your skin.
Your beauty is a beauty from within,
not from without. You're like cocaine:
a rush that makes for tremors in my limbs.
Is that too much to hype? I'm sorry, dear.
It overstates your case. It seems so clear
to me that you're way more than simple whim.

But cue up change. I am so fortunate
in gathering of friends that I am blessed
with clever, splendid company. And while
you're beautiful, you are also wild
and that's a problem. Still, I'm not that stressed—
intelligence and beauty overcompensate.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

1:21

Breeze, - I say - :
breeze, you who runs
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . climbs
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .kisses
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .sips
. . . . . .the sheets of sea
. . . . . .summer dresses
. . . . . .endless pages

Watch, - I tell you - :
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . watch me
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . closely.

 

[vampiredust]

7

The Arctic Fox

Months now, of wandering
amongst the ruins of fallen
men, strewn across this
landscape like latter day

Machu Picchu's, their flags
covering up the bodies,
turning them immediately
into holy relics in the sun.

Perhaps someone will find
them one day and record
their thoughts buried with
them in the snow, rusting

trophies for would-be kings
decomposing in the sand pit
of newborn gods.

 

[4degrees]

8-1

empiricism
milking dry the
empire, every last
idiom seems the
same dull interpretation
s'at so, son?
what maudlin interior
hidden in ditches
of redundance
peppered with
nom de guerre
all that refer
to the same predilection
affliction, affection,
after lengthy disjunction
single function to passion
you. more.

 

[champagne1982]

2007-1-24

I Remember

Write me a memory,
he said. As if all my words
just pour freely into a bowl of once
befores, there to calm and reflect
each wished for and if-only
ever spoken or written inside
a book filled with tomorrows,
possiblilities and what-ifs.

What if I wrote a memory
and it was full of sorrow
and regret? Would
you say it's not too late
to make a happy-ever-after
out of should-have-would-haves?

Don't think it's all our fault
that weak in comfortable definites
we languish, mired in memories
we couldn't live for fear
of losing what little we regret.

I love you now and always
even though this memory
is only ink and happiness
is just a song we listen
to together.

 

[Sara Crewe]

5-24

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

 

[Lauren Hynde]

1:22

I want to play a song for you.
I'm afraid of getting it wrong:
Elvis just seems too sad,
The Beatles you'd laugh,
and I don't know if Lou Reed
wouldn't bring even more silence
to this late afternoon.

Don't say a thing; don't tire
your purity of a broken bird.
I know it resonates
in every song
aligned in ceremony;
we can't escape
the presage of melodies.

Don't lie like this
in the shadow of my night;
when you open your arms
someone might die
of love and kill you.
Wait a little longer;
let me be the one to run.

I want to play a song for you,
a blunder you might forgive of me.
I'm afraid of Joni Mitchell;
don't laugh at The Beatles,
or at Led Zeppelin.

Maybe you will answer,
relive my kiss
inlaid in the pages
of your body, dilacerated
by the song that was lost.

 

[vampiredust]

7 - 1

Asparagus

Pick when young,
wash, steam quickly
to retain flavor.

Snap off their scepter
heads and become a king
until the steam cools

and you feel earth
tiptoeing on your bones

 

[Sara Crewe]

5-25

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

 

[champagne1982]

2007-1-25

In desperation for a topic, the poet sees her toes.

I don't know how in hell
I'm supposed to write
when all I have are four walls
with the same marketplace collage
hanging on it, a patterned quilt,
a vase and my toes to look at. Lovely
toes that they are, they are still
the same ten I've been looking
at all my life and definitely
those I've watched this past week.

I don't want to seem ungrateful
for the company my toes keep
with me but I have to say
that their stares are starting
to creep me out. The way
they nail me with their cuticles
and explain that a pedicure
is a small price to pay in return
for the way I walk all over them.
I can only whisper that I've
been kind to them lately.

 

[ShyErraticTable]

25

Sonnet XVI

Inside a tower built of stone I lie—
uneasy, nervous, eager—as if blind
and dumb and deafened. In my coward's mind
is mere uncertainty. I ponder why
you'd think you love me, know that I don't know.
You have no reason to. I am not young
as you are, handsome neither. I'm not hung
like horse (uh, that's a joke, of course) but grow
substantially with you as stimulus.
Now, I'm embarrassed. I just want to kiss
you, hold you—other things much more adult,
draw pentagrams, wear capes, indulge occult
raw fantasies where you are nude. I know
my tower's struck by lightning. You're tarot.

 

[4degrees]

8-2

2007-1-25

In desperation for a topic, the poet sees her toes.

no way, i started to do the same thing the other week. but i then had a moment of clarity...and wrote about entrails or something more tasteful than my toes.


the scent of
your inguinal region
detonates my
inner man
momentarily
but then brings about
a deep rumination;
once recovered, of
how vital your part
in me
really is.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

1:23

Reinvention

I don't want this city these ruins this accelerated time
I don't carry within me another dream that's not
the city I draw over this city
these ruins this condemned time.

I don't want this sky these weapons this condemned time
I don't carry within me another idea that's not
the sky I multiply over this sky
these weapons this fragmented time.

I don't want this garden these stones this fragmented time
I don't carry within me another lesson that's not
the garden I invent inside this garden
these stones this imagined time.

Imagine the stones
the lesson and the city
the cats and the ruins
the sky made of blue
and the dream
of planets reconciled with the balance of my poem.

Imagine your poem
drawn over the surface
of my skin.

 

[vampiredust]

1-8

Stitches

It is Friday.
Last night's snow
hangs from windows,
teasing dogs walking
along the pavement
covered in melted
ink from unwanted
newspapers,
their stitching
stuck in a crow's nest
halfway up an old oak.
The neighborhood
points and stares,
before trying to grab
one of the old threads,
letting it unwind
like it always, always
does.