30 Poems in 30 Days

[SeattleRain]

100-3 move along nothing to see here

flannel pajamas
I am soft floral rose
I smell of crayola melted
on leather

I want to hide you
from the others
but not for long

confessional
is that what this is
well nail me to the door
and proclaim me
dead
living
there are too many things trapped in here
nothing related
what were you thinking waiting this long to write

 

[4degrees]

8-14

your name goes deep,
burnt inside my bones now
lasting until the day
that they crumble into dust
your name was the first
according to ancient lore
and i will wear this
perminant mark
blue scarlet letter
always and forever.

 

[vampiredust]

6-21

First Light

After Ondaatje

Sunlight hangs over
a mirror

In the light of the house
beds yawn from yesterday's exhaustion
holding worn out bones
and muscles the unexpected
3 a.m cries. Dreams detach
themselves from victims.

The first light upstairs
throws circular patterns
through ornate iron vents
to become a living room's sun.

The door calls the dog, the cat
in perfect light tiptoes over the bed.
Insects, those bringers of truth,
hide under enamel stoves
and inside pipe throats,

avoiding mirrors.
All day lies happen.

 

[SeattleRain]

100-4 what would it be like to be a mysterious woman?

I laid everything down a long time ago
free to anyone with breath enough
to blow away the dust
I lie restless for the polish

 

[4degrees]

fuck its 12:02.

i knew i shoulda done this before i did the dishes.

 

[4degrees]

9-1

starting over
turning over a new leaf
a cold engine, first a sputter
then it coughs up some
kinda noxious fume
that reeks of possibilities
the last 14 were not wasted,
merely more much needed
practice, practice
and so it starts again

 

[vampiredust]

9-22

Between Walks

A train of opened antique
trunks lie beside the pavement,
their contents scattered
on dulled paving slabs.

Moon faced children pass by
with their mothers,
pointing to a 19th century
vibrator and a couple of silver
opium pipes,

asking simply:
what are they?
what are they used for?

Mars will be setting early
somewhere in a far corner of the city.

 

[TheRainMan]

7-1

.....

 

[4degrees]

9-2

revised and unabridged
smoke turns clouds gray
neath a burning bridge
next to a free way, my way
where the best writing happens
and each time i find
four more reasons to
love you, and four less to die
to die for, a poem so
packed with perfection that
every single strewn out syllable
makes me ache
exhale
and bleed out every pore
transparent blood leaves no
visible stain until it
hits the floor.

 

[vampiredust]

10-23

Territory

Receipts fight for their corner
at the bottom
of my wastebasket,
growling every time

I place a banana skin
or peach pit
on top of a scrunched-up
city.

My mattress is learning
to do the same, bending
its elastic rump around
my body

whenever I ask
for more space. I never keep
a book by my bedside,
just a bright red boxing glove.

 

[TheRainMan]

7-2

.....

 

[SeattleRain]

100-5 just throwing the tiles down for now

something just write something
I cannot operate in a vacuum


it is not the temperature
that draws him center seaward
all tones off
only the strongest can reach him

why did you not call

we count carbs
there are four
we tie knots like sailors
drunk and greedy for the teeth

no one uses silver anymore
she counts my mouth like tree rings
of course
everyone counts something like tree rings
they are tree rings
they are the perfect metaphor for what you need
if I say it enough will it reverse itself
will it cease to exist
will the diamond lighten into the darkness of coal
become the first time again?

just throw the tile down
somewhere
before it melts in your hand girl
throw it down
come back to build something with it later
just dont
let
it melt
not yet

 

[SeattleRain]

100-6 Pier Side

Pier Side



I do not dream of San Francisco
or swimming bay to barge
with sailors smiling in disbelief
I stand summer grounded
coffee, chocolate, papers.

Always it was you who wanted to escape
face to sky
shark under mind no one
no one could catch you,
you who taught guards their stroke
mothers to set limits
women to loosen strings.

You who pressed on faster further
neither paddle nor motor could reach you
out there, open ocean lonely,
pushing distance, racing time
like some kind of Einstenian death trick
your mitochondria pulse
pulse pulse with the power of the first seas
woven into each cell.

I watch the waves lift you
my feet are dry
I hold your towel, wait
like the splintered bench I have become.

 

[4degrees]

9-3

homemade soap wrapped
in rainbow felt
along with a tiny bottle
imported from an easternly place
are just two daily demensional
reminders that this thing
isn't invisible, and you aren't
my imaginary friend.

 

[vampiredust]

6-24

Black Hole

This is god's version
of the Indian Rope Trick,
an umbilical cord
dangling from a belly

secreting the base metals,
the product of a man
doing the New York Times
crossword somewhere
in Brooklyn.

 

[TheRainMan]

7-3

.....

 

[4degrees]

don't-don't-don't lets start...
no
wait

a muse between the ears
taps steady, tells me
time is running out
i know i know, i'm going
and i'm here

recall prose of the past as i
sing out loud, i'm sure the neighbors laugh
because they don't know layne's soul,
only 50 cent or barry white
or some over produced inbetween,
but i know, i know
i sing that shit good
as the hot water turns cool, while
there's still seven more dishes to clean

i look up into the dark and picture
your picture, billboard sized and publicised
for everyone to see
then they would know, at least partially
why you consume every part of me
why i'll never let go,
at least not voluntarily.

now there's 14 minutes to spare
i'll save the rest for sometime later.

 

[SeattleRain]

100-7 rough but here

I am beginning to wonder if it was no accident
how she called me to the hallway
sweetheart, come
I got too much handcream
and she took my awkward hands between hers
this excuse for closeness
touch

 

[vampiredust]

19-25

Reading My Father's Face

Your face, o father,
was never easy to read.
I spent years, decades
almost, learning
its syllables buried under

alcohol crushed veins
and mountains of shrinking
bone. Afternoons were spent
trying to find vowels
in every wrinkle,

memorizing them
in case they held some clue,
something that could help
open you up like a modern day
Rosetta stone.

I took up fishing,
spending evenings searching
the blackness of your pupils
for sentences, paragraphs
of things you said.

But there was nothing there.
Your eyes had dried up
and all that my hook
brought up was the first bone
of your skeleton, ready to be buried.

 

[TheRainMan]

7-4

.....

 

[4degrees]

9-4

and the rain comes here too
but in frozen form
ticking off stiff suede
like poprocks without the buzz
the colletions of precipitation
shimmer like a looking glass
and ehaust fumes ruin my fairy tale
no, not really
exhaust fumes and the 'shhrrr' of rubber
on the slick black path
has become a white noise lullaby
from this window i see nothing
moving blind down a broken sidewalk
just like my mother when she sang
bah bah black sheep
she knew that
i'd never really leave.

 

[SeattleRain]

100-8 place keeper

Remember that movie
she said to me
that one with Valerie Bertonielli
on Lifetime
and how we could never imagine how
a woman could do that?
You know what?
she says
it is actually pretty easy.
Kind of like going on a date.
Remember dating?

 

[vampiredust]

7-26

Dear Archie

my poem is not mute
as a globed fruit,

preferring to climb
onto the balcony

and yell to passers-by
how beautiful it is.

It is not dumb, either,
having gained entrance

to MENSA. Motionless?
forget that. It enjoys

climbing over Everest
and mooning at the Sun,

returning home to knit
from the bones dropped

along the way.

 

[4degrees]

9-5

i recall it
like a movie i once saw
but we were the stars

rain began to fall
onto your back, my face
into my amazed mouth
as the temp dropped
under some kind of conifer
we were head-long into
a cold hard fuck

when we'd had our fill
stretching and shifting; standing still
you were white with a layer of snow
and we both began to feel the chill.

 

[TheRainMan]

7-5

.....