30 Poems in 30 Days

[vampiredust]

7-6

The Distance of Song

Telephones blossom
in the chests of burgeoning
generations, oblong
bricks pressing against pink
flesh as they wade

across pavements.
Each child has a distinct
ringtone, like a songbird.
Some use it attract potential
mates, others mimic

them for sport.
Parents hear these songs
when they sleep; shrill
notes echoing inside ribcages,
absorbing into blood and bone.

Distance is never found here.

 

[TheRainMan]

8-27

.....

 

[darkerdreamer]

3-9

Under the Burnside Bridge

A playground for
ages twenty and up.
A hostel for the weary,
poor and strung out.

Swarming along edges
of shadow,
creating a border fence
of poverty,
the rarely seen Burnside Bums
contemplate your fate,
they are the
Supreme Court,
down here.

 

[wildsweetone]

9

Drive by Drinks

It's not until closing,
past the time of stretched yard arms,
that they even look to the neon lit depths
of cardboard boxes in fridges.

They get that urge to swerve
from the highway
into parking lots, to break
and bail from the car
and race back, black plastic bag in hand
in a timespan no longer than a pause.

They tilt their heads back,
let the liquid sooth their throats,
numb thoughts to that forgetful stage
in the hopes tomorrow comes soon
and yesterday is gone forever.

 

[AChild]

1-17

Tonight's moral compass is
brought to you by beer
where it point's won't be
known until tomorrow

 

[TheRainMan]

8-28

.....

 

[BluePoet]

1-16

48th wedding anniversary



Papa comes home with mums
and vanilla cake.

Mama pushes him down the stairs.

A shard of clay pot
protrudes from Papa's head.
Mama calls it devil horn.

Mums are sturdy,
good for replanting in the front yard.

Cake is too vanilla for Mama.
Papa goes to the store for onions,
cautiously.

 

[vampiredust]

7

Vixen

For H.L



A solitary vixen sniffs
around dustbins
coated with the last
of Spring snow.

Cutting them open,
she rummages
through tins
of condensed soup,

used up aerosol cans,
rinds of bacon,
old cheddar.
Rain falls and she darts

with her bounty
across an ink-black road,
to a bolt hole
underneath the old elm,

rats waiting outside
with sharpened knives.

 

[darkerdreamer]

3-10

statues shrug,

sullen and stoic?
how can stone
represent
paradox?

cherub wings
encircle
your soil.
your plot.

not much smaller
than your apartment.
it must be cleaner.

i hope your
new roommates
are less annoying.

i will work on
perfecting
sullen stoicism.

 

[4degrees]

10-10

ten good reasons,
its what she said
someone else's words
possibly, but she
pulled it off so well.

ten good poems, if
i could pull them from
a vault, and use them
sometime later, to cause
you to smile or maybe
rest your chin on your
knuckles in a
pensive thought mode
it would be the answer
to every shitty poem
i've ever wasted time on.

like this one.

 

[AChild]

1-18

Pass the fancy
chance the time
check in clock
prefabricated
move on a second
hand focus

the choice, lights
up like dream imperative
searching for the reality
clues

drawn curtains
ruffle splay the light
out side
saturday

inside
old moldy clothes
and seasonal brews

 

[wildsweetone]

10

Dust Motes Are Okay

Dust motes are okay
when they're dancing
in the sun's blessing.

They're a pain when sleeping.

On screen,
on table top,
on telephone
they make me imagine
that if each mote grew legs
it would crawl
over my face.

I really don't like things crawling there.

I'd swipe them away
with the back of my hand,
or some quick cloth flick
would send them flying
wishing they'd grown wings instead.

Dust motes are okay,
in small doses.

 

[darkerdreamer]

3-11

The Problem With 2:39AM

Were I to undo these pen caps
in my arms, let this ink flood
these pages, not even the echo
would reach you.

We are both different channels
of static. While our randomized
particles of black and white
may occasionally match, it is
merely coincidence.

Were this yesterday, I would
have believed in the signs, still.
I would have expected to uncover
a lost relic in the depths of my inbox.
Yet, as I scanned, I barely hoped
for your one-year-late response.

We are automated responses
from mailer daemons; "Unable
to deliver message." Did I have
problems, delivering the message?
Too abstract, perhaps. Or,
more likely, the problem occurred
with receiving.

 

[vampiredust]

7-8

Uprooted Oaks

Their crowns once danced
with clouds, catching geese
that had strayed off course

and sending them back
on the correct flight path.
Rain ladders were needed

in order to wet every inch
of their sculpted bodies,
a prime example of ancient

bodybuilding. Sunlight rubbed
oil into their wrinkled torsos,
lighting up their pectorals.

They hang upside down now,
reincarnated versions of Peter;
night prepping nests inside.

 

[BluePoet]

1-17

the new neighbor
could have been a guy
i could have worn heels with,
could have brushed his belly,
braided his back,
could have licked his fingers,
never running my tongue over a gold band.

he could have kept faded hens
away from his lawn,
kept the big tire
flowerbeds at bay.

my neighbors have a porch
with plastic ferns,
flags waving to the confederacy
and dead dog barking at dirt.

 

[TheRainMan]

8-29

.....

 

[loserstyx]

3-1

Forced
I screwed it up
I took a break
But now I am forced
to write this poem
The Penguins have Ruger Super Redhalks
double-action
.45 Colt/.454 Casull ammo
with the fully adjustable scope aimed right at my head
I guess I should start writing again

(thanks 2d for being my Penguin)

 

[wildsweetone]

11

Tasted

Taste doesn't arrive
only on the end of tongues.
Sometimes it comes in eyes,

eyes that discern
the lout from the lover,
eyes that grasp the pleasure
of the unmasked,
the naked,
invulnerable to the impervious
penetration into the depths
that meld minds.

Sometimes too, taste arrives
to the blind.

 

[AChild]

1-19

my teeth are runes
evenly spaced and well worn
not beautiful but poetic

I have an old one
a baby who never fell
yellower than the rest it plays
old man and wriggles when I walk

in dreams it's talisman to femme amazon
warriors, I run but not fast
too stiff thinking about what
chasing cheetahs do to muscles
grinding thighs

they trap me and take the tooth
mouth bleeding I masterbate and watch
the victory dance

go figure.

 

[4degrees]

10-11

intense intemperance
built up on a basis
of isms and ensilage
overdoing is an art
something insipid is
truely deliscious, who
cares about nutritious
that doctor always cures
an intrusive pulse
or impulse that stings
in the pit of
my gut.

 

[vampiredust]

6-9

The Sculptor

Whitewashed bodies
frame themselves
in the doorway,
a ready made Polaroid

for his only visitors,
a blind dog and a deaf
cat. Both play with bones
from a grilled chicken

cooked on the beach
earlier that day, kicking
a wishbone around
like a mob desecrating

a relic. Radio leaks news,
bodies drip fluid
into hardening soil.
At night he sees the shape

of his grave forming
on the ground. The dog
and cat scratch it out,
but it reappears, barking.

 

[BluePoet]

1-18

30/30 has me writing again but I'm not producing anything worthy. Not like that freak, RainMan.

She frets over Boxerwood
worms, swears she'll never handle
strands of soily slithers.

Welcome-center Elsie
provides fork and plate,
so child may cleanly lift

and place
(for examination)
on chipped china.
I tell my daughter it's called dinner.

 

[TheRainMan]

8-30

.....

 

[4degrees]

10-12

regret spreads
like pooling blood
when words reread
hit this hard

taking back a sunday, or
a christmas only happens
if memories lapse
the beautiful ones
outnumber the other
by the thousands
but the weight of hurt
in that handful
are anchoring me to
the muddy bottom.

forgive me, again.

 

[wildsweetone]

12

okay, changed my mind to this (that other thing was pure rubbish):

The Poet

I wonder if he knows
that his words conjure landscapes
where the sun shines constant

in that golden hour,
where shadows are stretched
long and lazy
across the green
carrying those wonderments
of life I love, the birds, animals

and a smattering of people
he writes of as if he has studied
their lives from birth
through to that final breath.

I think he has even studied souls
how they grow, or dwindle,
how they set aflame the mind,
his, and mine.

I would swear he has watched
and waved them on as they've left.
They're in his words,

in his poetry that he spends hours writing,
editing, stretching out the creases
before laying them out flat
on top of me,
before leaving me alone
to deal with them.