30 Poems in 30 Days

[ShyErraticTable]

30

Coda

All things end, and I do now.
I end quite simply. Really, how
Much more simple could I get?
My rhymes were simple. Now, forget.

 

[4degrees]

8-6

red rubber heart

made of baleen
and galvenized on the inside
my heart is waterproof
insulation protecting the
fine inner armature
of no less than
100,000 volts.

 

[Sara Crewe]

5-30

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

 

[vampiredust]

1-13

Summer

Fountains crack
under the blast furnace
of an overactive sun.

Ironwork melts,
releasing a zoo
of animals & people

trapped in its anthracite
cages. Dogs pant
and lie in shop doorways,

watching legions
of ants take apart
the landscape,

products of a closed
auction.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

1:28

Your eyes water
you press the scalpel
of legendary time
until there is no
mountain slope left
drawn like this.

 

[4degrees]

8-7

destroy your house and
everything in it
atlanta's sweet memoirs
fair weather and birds of
a feather speaking in
tongues and lamens terms
the only way i comprehend
anymore
is destiny to go in reverse
and have a round of deja vu
the blue kind,
maybe my new mind
set in stone
will free me of my past
.....

 

[Lauren Hynde]

1:29

Somewhere
in the coldest
place
in your memory
but
sharp
as a square
centimetre of snow
the landscape of
lichens
blooms

 

[vampiredust]

1-14

Estuary

We tie a knot
in the river

to remember
the break

where we split
before flooding

one another
with leftover

water found
years later

 

[4degrees]

8-8

knotted around
this onionskin oragami heart
just start,
start at the top and
take a long slide into
a pool of me
where fathoms are not
so deep
and there are no secrets
and belief is
entirely optional.

 

[cutsnakes]

Plough, Chao, Tau

070201

1-1

With crack'd knuckles,
care knot'd brows
The Ploughman shoulders
A need'd plow.

Solemnity shattered,
Dark creeps o'er
Sun beaten down,
Her folded core.

Shuddering surfeit soaking sex,
pleasure pounding painful pecks,
careless cunning
glowing guile
lust not looked for is lusts lie.

The ploughing point passed
back he wheels
loamy lachrymose his earth lingers
sagging against her bonds
her fertility full fucked.

---

Commentary welcome in PM, lets keep the thread for the lovely poets that proceeded my churlishness, eh? All comments sought and asked for.

Come one come all, hear ye, hear ye and so forth.

Anticipatory wishes,

-D-

 

[vampiredust]

1-15

Poetry

Cut out the crap,
he said, and get to the point.
Leave the mustache of snow

on the windowsill
and the leaves on the roof.
Chip away at the snowman

you built in the backyard
and pull out its heart
with your bare hands.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

1:30

Heteronym


Pessoa was a text invented by Portugal.

It just so happened that it had eyes and glasses. Hair and a hat.

Sex and a fly.


Portugal is a brilliant author.


It just so happened that Portugal was into import/export
like courtesans often do.
That is why a whore is more important
than Álvaro de Campos. And Alberto Caeiro
as important as a barrel of liquor.


But more on that later.


Pessoa was a fiction
that made letters and words burst. And when without rhyme
it came from pure thought
it was a thirst like no other.
With a heart, you see.


But more on that later.


When Portugal starts writing
it is a drunkenness of flesh in the first person.
With ships and diaries; and letters and volumes;
and a taste for the tenderness of words immemorial;
of draft and of talent.


In the mirror, Pessoa is a fish. Semantic.
Tears time along the river and the windstorm. Decisive.
Has margins with images of villages. Prepositions.
Of, to, in, for. Floods towns. Adverbial, adjective.
Beautiful nonetheless. Submerges cities. Ancient verbs.


But more on that later.


It is then that the poet starts nibbling
its fingers, gnawing at sleep
within its skin and within its papers. What a meal.

 

[4degrees]

8-9

an open hand releases
a past of broken bones
while the other digs deep
and buries them whole
just another treasure
for my stray dog.

yep.

 

[vampiredust]

6-16

Homily

He unbuttons his shirt
and breathes in London,
watching the upper storey
of his chest turn black.

For a brief moment,
a vista of the city
appears on the skin
continent. Pigeons trot

on pavements charred
like burnt charcoal,
tourists pose by Nelson's
Column as police cars

whine and buses swerve.
His frankincense fades
and he walks away,
holding a piece of St Paul's
in his hand.

 

[SeattleRain]

maybe not this one, but that other one remember

even the president of the united states
takes a minute out of his day for whore sucking pleasure

passing handshakes to find her
and that moment of eye
con
tact
time stops
(like it does in all of these scenarios)

but not for you not for you
no no you are five degrees north
seven minutes behind
and on on on to the next best always

as always
tangent blind
overtime
tripping over the better mousetrap
and you are gonna need it sweetness
all these weeks and no cat
the rodents come while you sleep
nibble you a bald spot for their grey fuzz nest
I have already swept you down
no no not under the rug or into the fireplace
gone gone over the fence
with rusted tin and fire ant plastic
gone and twist as I am able
no image appears on the loom
you are such a fool

 

[4degrees]

8-10

ripped free of
a synthetic cadaver
mind over matter and
salting the latter,
makes it taste better
while i still like it bitter
a soul getting thinner
invited to dinner but
declining the invite
it just doesn't smell right
chewed away plight of
flightless pro life dove
tastes like chicken and more of
all the other discoteque sparkle
leaving my mark while
another day passes me by.

 

[vampiredust]

13-17

Prognosis

When the prognosis
was confirmed,
the sea flooded
her lower storey

and started
climbing the bony
staircase. Wrasse
and conger eels,

two feeders of decay,
moved in, mussels
colonized steps.
At the mezzanine,

sandbags sank
like lead weights
to the bottom,
gobbled up by a basking

shark mistaking them
for plankton. The upper
storey was empty
and the sea burst through

a window, reclaiming
her hospital ward,
each wave accompanied
by a roar in the background,

as if a god somewhere
had been woken up
and wanted in.

 

[4degrees]

8-11

another crackhead punk
renting that space in my head
with meals included
utilities too
only to skip out on the first
leaving me short again.

 

[vampiredust]

6-18

Irony is a timeless thing

Cells divide,
going their separate ways
in a labyrinth of ice
and wintry slush,

reunited centuries later
by Inuits fishing
in ancient holes, hitching
a ride in the mouths

of prehistoric fish
once thought to have been
extinct and now gracing
the cover of Scientific American,

only to lose a prestigious prize
to a competing science project
consisting mainly of barley
modified to hum Canada's national
anthem.

 

[4degrees]

8-12

self extort with no remorse
faked euthanasia to satisfy a source
another green revolution loses cynical appeal
impromptu dream-o-matic,
i'm cloud floating again
measured lust to precision by clinometer
restoration of the worst tuckpointing ever
inflate the negation beyond what is imagined
magnified transient bad-habit laden
random impulse shreds me to ribbons
undoubtedly, i am the crux of this problem.

 

[annaswirls]

100-1 I ask him the story of his life

50 words or less
and he starts going on about rubber bands
how they contain,
maintain order
he says newspaper
I say broccoli

we all tie letters with something
something light purple is launched from his thumb
we promised to not sink down
to where lost eye jokes reside
but it is gravity
gravity I tell you
that pulls us down into it

rock paper scissors
tension time teeth
we twist, stretch, snap
and hope something is left to recycle
or stuff under kindling
crossword magic puff and gone
one hundred words

 

[vampiredust]

7-19

The Bluebottle

"...and the whole cemetery began to complain
with cardboard mouths and dry rags"

Lorca​

and the moon
began to tremble
and hid its head
between its legs

and the flowers
left behind wept
and their notes
started to weep

as a bluebottle
scoured graves
for a headstone
marked for one

of its own. But
no-one told it
that it already
had been eaten

by an old man
needing a garnish
for his cucumber
soup and mute

playing a madrigal
to the mourning
families who went
to the graveyard

in the morning
and found maggots
wailing over a corpse
earmarked for them.

 

[4degrees]

8-13

that old pain is thoughtless
as it sucks you into
that black abyss, dismissed
somewhere along the line
right along with every other time
hearing a never ending echo
a soul-hole wide enough
to fist; my wish
one and only, truely is
to turn the black to green
replace the pain with
everything
that's good.

 

[SeattleRain]

100-2 answer me this

yes
I do want to permanently delete the conversation
no I do not want to order a “husband pillow”
yes I did pack a change of clothes
no this is not normal, (even for his diagnosis)
yes we will be attending
and attending and attending

the chalice on my neck is silver
the band is not leather
and the symbol is all I have left of my church

and that pain you feel?
you should get that checked out
don't worry
you cannot surprise your doctor
he does not want to know
how you hurt yourself there
trust me
or don't
no I am not doing all that I can do
no I am not doing all that I can do
I repeat
no, I am not doing all that I can do
I am not being all I can be
I do not have a clear view over the fence
I do not even know where the fence line is
I used to have one back at the farm
the fence rows between fields
would slow the wind
define the crop and also a thick hedge
between the edge of our property and the new development
where every road was named for a holiday
Independence Drive
Washington Street
Valentines Circle
the kids from Holiday Hills would cross over the fence row
pick our blackberries
smoke pot in our cornfields
I used to used to used to be able to see over the trees
Yes.

 

[vampiredust]

10-20

Farm

The city lives in the farm.
Fields of cars are irrigated
by sprinklers jetting out
Bakelite-black oil,

books grow in orchards
picked by unwanted
furniture, scratches
still visible on their teak
skin,

printing presses thresh
fully grown factories,
roads and buildings
are sown by traffic lights,

occasionally attacked
by colonies of telephones.
The city lives in the farm
and we are its animals.