30 Poems in 30 Days

[TheRainMan]

8-5

.....

 

[4degrees]

9-28

you are my cracked mirror image
this twisted twin
gets thinner by the day
not because of the meth
but rather,
the atrophy of some
rusted lust
the kind that spreads
botulism
it must feed no matter
how horribly
the bones protrude;
there is always enough meat left
for another bite or two.

 

[darkerdreamer]

1-4

You are (the) Gotterdammerung,
a hanging, taunting perfection
twisting (only) counter-clockwise in gale winds.
Storms brew in rumbles.
Black and flashing (thing) white gold,
I twist counter-clockwise on your finger.
They(I) call it faulty,
this perfect imperfection
quenching and making my thirst greater.
Breeding within,
(have) spawning, stewing, struggling
drowning feral parasites, but dying of thirst quicker.
Karmafucked,
grasping upward with
clenching and unclenching automation.
Sputtering on consonants,
(left) bleeding vowels.

 

[wildsweetone]

16

...

The rain and sun work together
to paint bows in the sky.

Man works alone
to find his pot of gold.

 

[RhymeFairy]

3~9

sims


she plays computer games. they're like life
only, it's not real mom. her addiction
grabs hold as I see a popup binky
where her guy wants, a baby. watch mom,
I didn't know you could make babies
while in a jacuzzi. red blushes grace
my cheeks, replying in a monotone voice
why yes, that is possible. couples
can conceive a baby anywhere
these days. rolling her perfectly
sculptured eyes, she stumbles out
I hate talking about these things
with you mom.

 

[Tathagata]

2-16

.....

 

[TheRainMan]

8-6

.....

 

[vampiredust]

8-17

Gas!

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime

Wilfred Owen

At the Holocaust exhibition
in the Imperial War museum
I pause to watch Steven
fumble with his helmet,

choking on mustard gas
rising from the exhibits:
a wall of corpses, photos
of boot mountains,

each artifact laid out
like a different survivors
testimony. Zayed smirks
behind his inhalator,

Steven finally paying
the price for an earlier slight
(comparing his gas bill
to that of the chambers)

Tonight he will choke
on the gas of memory,
floundering in a field
of the forgotten.

 

[4degrees]

9-29

delusional non-poet
seeks verbose and oversexed
muse, one
who'll ride in the
crotch of my jeans
and fluff me into
that next non-poem
sucking cock supplicates
duplicates the writing process
in my head
one form of art the
same as another,
synthetic sweetners replace
hawaiian grown sugar
it even tastes better
but i'm giving up on monster
one form of crack the
same as the other
twenty nine and some
non-poems to fake me
into thinking
that i'm on some level,
functioning
functional is overrated
like everything else on earth.
except you.

 

[RhymeFairy]

3~10

the karma in your voice
draws me to the surface. housed
in memories of kisses, touches,
tenderness ... such tenderness.

sieving through these emotions
I feel the pain, seeping in. the pain
of being hurt, so many times.
draining away, from
our drowning passion.

our fish flopped out, riverbank captive.
to hope for the dry coolness,
of another dip. or stay, sunbaked
by senility. earth to earth ...

 

[wildsweetone]

17

Quench

I sip from your paper chalice
words that will give strength
to my back, meaning
to moments in my day
and the reason for living them.

Unnoticed are the clouds
that cradle grey
against the earth,
the failure of new light
to dissolve shadows,
instead nourishing them
until they loom
large and almost unsurmountable.

I swallow your story
of how you birthed me
from bones
but prefer to forget
the part where apples and snakes
tempted me to walk another path

for a while. And I pray
that the answers I seek
will sooth the ache
and give purpose to the set
of moon beams on unwalkable water.

 

[darkerdreamer]

1-5

(Alright, all these form discussions have me thinking. Time to start working my way back toward forms and formats... I think a blank verse is a good baby step.)


Measured sorrow, into fives, and then tens.
Lackluster sunset, creeping tomorrow.
Dusk encroaches, first into the corners,
moments later, spreading like a cancer.
Blackness hammock, please cradle me gentle.

 

[RhymeFairy]

~~ oops, wrong thread. Sorry. Moved to 30/30 companion

 

[sellthecookie]

Exits


Having bled
white throughout the night
another fluorescent lamp
dies in Lacson Underpass,
discreetly, satisfactorily, now good
as missing. No one
notices—the sleepwalkers still find their way
out, comfortable, as smoke does,
from out of mouths exhaling
all too grateful. Only the marble floor,
robbed of sheen, grieves
for that new patch of ceiling left bruised.
And the legless man, too, with the evaporated
milk can dimmed from the silent bottom
up to its serrated lips. I
stand in the middle, where footsteps have
eroded anticipation. None
of them was yours.



I take my clothes off and put them back on
this time inside out, in hopes of appeasing the Gods of Getting Lost.
Maybe the Underpass was built with sand
in mind. Now our tracks are untraceable, obliterated fast
by those who tread nonchalant without looking back. Many times
I have roamed here, in this catacomb, these tunnels of dead
-ends, chewing grit, celebrating randomness. Around me,
the lonely crowd is kept alive
by its unbearable to-be-
continuedness for each other. While above
a church quietly folds
too dazed from jeepneys screaming
for the finish line. And though I try memorizing skins,
today, with elbows scraped,
I’m lost.


Upstairs, on any one of the five exits, I know you
are waiting, hands sedate. Like frantic madmen, I flock
to where the plastic talismans are sold, the squeakless rubber shoes, imitation fishballs, and keys perpetually needing duplication.
I will know you by the shape of sky you block.


Outside
night has grown
without warning.
Mercury Drug’s electronic billboard
loses another bulb, fails to register the temperature
too chill even for the faithful. In the underpass, where the cold draft can’t reach
us, we try all the exits, rehearse our lines, see where each one leads us.
So that by morning we would have mastered
our departures. The whole time we’ve been holding
the light inside us.
You say you want love subcutaneous.
Here we are.

 

[Tathagata]

2-17

.....

 

[vampiredust]

12-18

Accounting

Income, expenditure, profit
and loss must be applied
to everything, our lecturer tells us,
the tangibility of accounting
making it more important than anything
else in life.

On the way to the train station
I see gangs of nettles taking over
the old naval cadet base - profit -
forcing out the gorse and dock
leaves - expenditure.

Crushed Coke cans and broken
Smirnoff bottles are scattered
on the soil, 21st century fertiliser -
loss.

Men will take it away
and the numbers will shift
someplace else. Profit.

This is the way everything works.

 

[TheRainMan]

8-7

.....

 

[4degrees]

9-30

i almost don't want to post here today, because then its over.


an animism
of i, minimized the
ugly nature of a
poetic renderance
with a thick layer of
esoteric black glaze
all of it really
nothing but words
piled on top of words
making an incomprehensible mountain
that no one can read.
but
i want you to read me
and feel a few degrees
of this four, before
the evanesce brings me
into light.

 

[tungtied2u]

3-1

Remember when fun was easy,
attainable just by shutting your eyes
throwing arms open wide
and spinnig until dizziness dropped you

the delight in disorientation
the momentary release from gravity
giddy and giggling, weightlees
as the world whirled around you

now, these symptoms aren't self
induced, instead arrive uninvited
accompanied by nausea and cold sweats
as you grasp for an anchor

 

[wildsweetone]

18


Closure


The stages of loss end in closure
so says the paperwork, though
I never followed the rules
and this time is no exception.

Closure never comes.

I lay on the grass watching stars,
see your face staring back
through heaven's windows.
I swear you wave, just

as you always did before journeying
far, backpack over one shoulder
cap tilted over one ear, grin
and excitement plastered on your face.

I long to hug you one more time
to wrap my arms around your strength
to give you more
but here I lay, looking up
watching you looking down
and I know closure does not exist.

 

[darkerdreamer]

1-6

In glowstick light in depths of clubs
you have
Chernobyl glow
green and radiant
and radiated.
From here to there
and back once more
once for drinks
once for posterity.
In deafening silence
I weep.

 

[vampiredust]

7-19

Prologue

This is the prologue.
There are no car chases,
daring bank robberies
or escapes from maximum
security prisons.
There are no lynchings
or metamorphoses,
nobody dies.
This is the prologue:
a baby leaves the womb
and is caught between
beginning, middle and end.
The epilogue hangs
on its chest, stitching
its characterisation.
Life always starts from the end.

 

[loserstyx]

1-1 The Storm

The Storm

I stand above the vista
waves of sorrow crash upon the rocks
but I am above the storm

I hear their terrible sound
"need me"
"want me"
but I stand above their storm

She's three thousand miles away
But I stand above the storm
She loves another man
But I stand above the storm
She's done with me
But I stand above the storm

I stand above her storm

 

[tungtied2u]

3-2

I am full of half thought
unfinished business, a list
of needs unmet, desires unanswered

I am unpepared in follow through
my maps creased until torn
dead end roads with circular detours

I am longing for the short haul
to find deliverance by brevity
an early end to interminable tomorrows

Monday I meet the fortune teller
who reads black and white,
divines days and nights
will tell me when the pain ends

 

[Tathagata]

2-18

,,,,,