30 Poems in 30 Days

[vampiredust]

10-27

Debtors

Everything in this world
is a debt to someone
or something. We feel
them calculating interest

as we sleep, dreaming
uneasily of the time
we will have to pay
and find there is nothing

in our pockets.
And as we lay in our beds,
wind pounds its knuckles
on windows and doors,

the sea prepares its fists
and stars sharpen
their swords. Somewhere,
a god is waiting for the cash,

ready to give its orders.
The bones of our descendants
roll in the bowels of the earth,
weeping for their children.

 

[TheRainMan]

7-6

.....

 

[4degrees]

9-6

the biting wind makes my
left eye water,
i constantly wipe it away
wanting to avoid a freeze,
a burn of red down my cheek
the people on the streets, they
think that i'm crying as i walk-
black-booted in this cold midwest winter
but i'm not,
i'm not.

 

[vampiredust]

22-28

Having A Bath With Father

His body pegs itself
into the folds
of my newly formed
tarpaulin, already
cut it into something

he designed long ago.
And me, letting it
become rigid, feeling him
climb inside and warm
himself by a fire started

in the womb. That tent
has been folded up,
but I can still see peg
marks on my skin, bruised
by a knife shard trapped
inside.

 

[TheRainMan]

7-7

.....

 

[4degrees]

9-7

slash accodingly,
my straightrazor lover
drink me in hot ribbons
seduce me again in
all your deviant grandure
until you wear my skin
its pure identity theft,
swiped clean of self but
i'd rather be you
anyhow.

 

[vampiredust]

7-29

Poem

8 a.m
I am not sure
what to write
about

all the cages
stuck to my spine
are empty

the last
of the birds
flying out of my mouth
yesterday

with a note
wrapped around
its left leg

saying
S.O.S

repeat
repeat
repeat

 

[TheRainMan]

7-8

.....

 

[4degrees]

9-8

bend me baby
daydreaming of a night past
the snap, a smack...
concocting further
nocturnal conscriptions
prescription emissions
forgetting the dishes
until
i step in the room, bleary
eyed at best and sigh
at a mess that i was too busy
to clean up last night.

 

[TheRainMan]

7-9

.....

 

[vampiredust]

8-30

Backwards

God's dialect
can only be understood
by a few: a fist
of mussels clinging
to windswept rocks,

tree ribs being pulled
apart by pneumatic
forceps, calves taken
from the womb

backwards, the moon
orbiting the earth
anticlockwise,
a woman at the back

of the church
speaking the liturgy
backwards.

This is the way
he is understood,

know
I
this

 

[4degrees]

9-9

seasons change, i know
the frost will slide off
its concrete pedistals and
chain links, morphing into
a sun glow that generates
buds and greens
today its winter gray,
somewhere beyond clouds
a sun rests, and i reset
the clocks and wait
for a warming trend.

 

[TheRainMan]

7-10

pffft.

 

[4degrees]

9-10

mmmonster

a half dozen empty cans
lined up on my dresser
tell me in their own funny way
that maybe i drink
too much.

so what.

 

[TheRainMan]

7-11

.....

 

[4degrees]

9-11

nineeleven
some random thing now
is forever changed, and
straightaway puts sadness into
people's hearts
i remember tennessee, i was sober only
thirty days, but it didn't take.
i saw it all play out
in the surreal media ways
i thought of rodney king
and porno for pyros, and
how everyone seems to
have this cause thats worth
killing for
except me.

 

[TheRainMan]

7-12

.....

 

[SeattleRain]

1 He asked for a sick fuck poem

How long
had I been staring away from our table
before I apologized,
asked you to repeat the question?

Instead you ask a new one,
Do you have these long pauses when you are writing?

My fingers tap on the table
and I try to form my lips into words
but my tentacles are pulled in,
anemone at low tide
you cannot swim through the motion.
I cannot feel you.

fuck it

Just get the bill
let me spell it out to you direct
like Annie tracing letters on Helen’s hands
W A T E R with my fingers under cupped and reaching
let me spell out my intention,
lips without pause taking you down deep
nose to zipper can you feel our strings now?
Sensitive as cillia that wave and quiver
your hair stands up and
sorry but you better keep those
goddamn eyes open
daylight hawk watch
and no
you may not touch me there
keep your hands on the wheel
I am talking.

No, I do not pause like that
when I write, fuck
or talk in my sleep
and no I do not need a glass of water
to swallow the evidence,
it is already gone.

 

[4degrees]

9-12

detonate a wasted day
and wear it like a medic alert
tell the world, or anyone
close enough to see
the tiny inscription saying
allergic to you and everything
sexual self medication
has lost its umph, i appeal to
a higher law of lust
that must go beyond this-
physical is
just nothing to me today
they don't know how to fuck
my brain goes dry, trying
to recall that wet swipe of
words that always
quenches the most
dry drunk.

 

[SeattleRain]

2 If I were a smarter woman I would just have said

something has come up
I can't talk

but I am not a smarter woman.
I never learned the feminine tricks
yet I lack the male tools.
my little bag and metal box are virtually empty
except my childish collection of coping skills
prescription bottles and coffee mugs
receipts of pocket sweat ink smeared,
illegible.

 

[TheRainMan]

7-13 (heavy editing)

.....

 

[vampiredust]

16-1

Domestic Wiring

Red connects to blue,
yellow connects
to purple. Brown
is not important.

1.

A vase of daffodils
on the windowsill watches
men rip apart the kitchen
across the hallway.

Melamine cupboards
are broken up, greasy lino
is stripped and the wiring
is carefully extracted.

The only item of any value
is unearthed from the mess
and put aside: a photo
of a boy on a swing,

his mother behind him,
smiling at his father
who will rewire him later.

Red will not connect to blue,
yellow will not connect to purple.

Brown will be there,
somewhere.

 

[4degrees]

9-13

hammer the iron when
at its very reddest, with
glowing cinders jumping
craft it into a cryptic symbol
that is of deep dedication
cool it, steam sizzle then quiet
before returning to the fire

i burn you into my bones.

 

[wildsweetone]

1 (can't remember if this is my third or fourth attempt)

Forward Thinking

And I read in the news
you were leaving the country,
began anticipating the empty
feel you will leave behind,
began looking forward
to your return.
You are comin' back, right?

 

[vampiredust]

12-2

Red must not connect
to red. Blue must not
connect to blue etc

Nothing must connect
to brown.

It is dangerous


II

The afternoon sky turns blue
then goes black a minute
later. Even heaven
has loose connections.

Electricians stare at the kitchens
empty shell, each connection
blinking inside their skulls.
They are from Kosovo and Serbia
and were rewired once, too.

Gritting their teeth, they place
empty coffee mugs as markers
for where they need to wire
and follow instructions left in DNA.

*

The father flicks open his son's head,
each wire inside coloured
like a line from Harry Beck's tube map
nothing must connect to each other
This does not matter to him.

Tucked underneath the cerebellum
is a photograph of the boy
with his grandparents, happy
and smiling, unlike the father
as a boy.

He will reconnect his wires
in another way

a better way