30 Poems in 30 Days

[darkerdreamer]

3-17

Animal Gallery

instantly upon completion
the artist regrets his work.
regrets creating that which will sit
in the confines of a dusky studio,
to be rarely viewed by those too snobby
to understand.
he doesn't hope the painting will sell,
he would much rather it find a home.

as i sit at the pound,
disheveled, unshaven.
a thousand glances from
five hundred cages beseech me.
instantly upon completion
the artist regrets his work.
i can not help but think of those paintings
who did not find a home, today.

 

[AChild]

1-24

What the fuck is writer's block?

ninja man in the river
each droplet is an element of life
connected strung together

a perfect tool
when frozen

to dissect the thoughts
wrinkles in the brain
waves in the sea

Cooler heads condense and pluck a gem from
water

Crystal splits the thinking color
values and hues not known rainbow

which drop to pick?

 

[wildsweetone]

17

...

There is no light at the valley's farmhouse,
not until elevenses
when tea and scones are served on silver
and the sun peers over the mountain peak.

The days are not black,
merely without colour, washed
as if the cleansing will call colour back,
brush green into grass
and begin the burn of trees.
Their fire pauses the sun,

persuades it to flirt a while
before dripping down the wrong side
of another mountain. First snow
traps the lingering light, a beacon,

a last ditched display
that refracts the farm
and curdles the smile of goodbye.

 

[vampiredust]

9-16

Astronauts

Derek sits on the rottweiler
chewed sofa, bending used
cigarette stalks into new
flowers. Moon landing
repeats endlessly on TV.
Carson talks about Nixon
and the need for change
in between double takes
with his neighbours.
Neil Armstrong steps out
of the set and takes
a flower, blowing ash petals
in Derek's shoe polish hair.
Daisies grow in dumpsters,
the rottweiler has puppies.
(it's a male, remember)

 

[darkerdreamer]

3-18

I've got an artichoke heart,
surrounded by spines to
cut at the tongue,
should anyone try to consume it.

 

[AChild]

1-25

choke down a heart of art
so what a cut
I've got blood to spare

armed with ease she walk
taking that low res path
her muscles stink
with no use
the scenery doesn't inspire
but at least
it was easy

 

[RisiaSkye]

I just dropped in briefly, and was struck by this thread. I'm not around as much as I used to be, and for a while I wasn't writing much. However, I just this 4/1 embarked on what I'm calling my Year of Fools--a poem a day for a year. Some of those will probably find their way here, because while I love print publishing and all that jazz, I miss the immediacy of this place.

In any case, I just wanted to wish everyone great good luck, and inspiration aplenty, for your month of writing!


RS

 

[wildsweetone]

18

(rough draft)

gridiron grip

They move through the field
game play keeping them straight.
A mismatched mixture,
black and white
their intent a delight,
a neighbourhood of men
paths caught in the crosshairs
making team motions
back patting,
high fives,
finger-fist grips.
Bleeding tears
like red flowers in the rain.

 

[4degrees]

10-16

down to the wire,
with no poem, again.

someone said once
that nothing was poetic about
a forceful face-fuck
but i beg to differ;
it's all about context and
positioning
and the meat of the words
chosen to capture the visual
unfortunatly, tonight,
i fall short of this
descriptive ability
because my reality
includes none of the above.

 

[vampiredust]

8-17

Not Knowing

I don't know what to talk
about half the time,
making conversation for me
never being easy

as striking a match
or opening a tin of soup.
I have to tune
my voice box carefully

until something is picked
up. Take last night,
for instance, when I spoke
to my friend Sara

about doing a road trip
from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
She spoke half the time. I
didn't. The journey would almost

be like that: car radio
drip feeding the conversation
as my breath dropped an anchor
in the shallow water of her body,

cacti and a train of motels
markers for which way my syllables
should swim along the channels
of her sea.

Silence, perhaps, might only be just
silence for once.
I used the word almost,
remember?

 

[darkerdreamer]

Twenty-One Days

Twenty-one days
at twenty-one can seem an eternity;
I last saw you
three Mondays ago.
When I made mention
of that sad fact, you remained
expressionless.
Do you not have enough RAM
to process your sadness?
Or does your interface simply
not allow for melancholy?

Twenty-one days
at twenty-one can seem an hour;
I hardly noticed
you weren't her(e), anymore.

 

[4degrees]

10-17

a scorpion sting
a two headed twin
sings me to wake
and i wake, i do
with the deep anguish of
an acid burn, melting my muscle
and turning me to pulp
fiction is what i live,
and fuck 'em all who say
that its wrong, i know i'm wrong
all along and does it stop?
never.
i breathe your imagined essence,
since your true scent faded
long ago, and i still feed away
chip away and watch the atrophy decay
while i picture its you
that i'm feasting on. for. whatever.
can you feel this?
i sure the fuck can, and
i will reply, and can,
till the bitter end
the one i hope i never
live to see
because muthafucker, baby
you are in me
and i'm so fucking lost.

 

[wildsweetone]

19

(after today's review, i think i'm all poemed out)


The Ocean

Memories of you will linger
between the mountains
in the valley where the river runs,
along the route it carried me
to your mouth.

 

[AChild]

1-26



crazy fool of love draining
what path too pure?

add water fall
to foot print
fuckin' lost

could I transfuse some logic
no book to bind sense
no elders tale to jump start
right living

ill in the face of old love
solid in the drink
my fever can't catchin' wind
the time is bard
the face is empty and
my eyes, my eyes
sleep the sleep of percentage

losing lost in learning how to
win
were off women for now
just don't tell my second heart

 

[champagne1982]

2007-2-1

Candied Touch

The sugar off your fingertip
lures my tongue. You chuckle
at my display, my eager
enticement of your bait,
prey turned predator, you,
my meal of choice,
you, the dish - I hunger
for - that honeyed digit
you allow me to caress.

 

[vampiredust]

15-18

Carter

That day, London was heating up,
crowds swelled its streets, each body
a marketplace for sweat rosaries
traded amongst Italian or Japanese

tourists. Car radios droned.
Cameras flashed. Leaflets were handed
out. Promotion, sale, promotion.

Newspapers argued about sailors
selling their stories. Anger flashed
like thunderstorms across the nation.
Ministers urged for cool heads.

What I remember better is being lost,
wandering amongst the back streets
of Gloucester Road, my feet
being dragged by a wandering trade

wind, and discovering something
I had never expected – Carter's
house. There were no scarab beetles
or monuments, just a plaque.

Pausing, I opened my mouth
and released a pyramid I had been
building inside of me
for the last twenty six years.

Anubis mummified it.
I imagine all the sand beads
were taken back to their point
of origin, transported through

layers of elements carried
inside of us. History has always
taught this is what happens.

 

[darkerdreamer]

3-20

uninspired.
single
words
won't
fill
the



blank



left
by
an
uncooperative
mind.

 

[4degrees]

10-18

never is so long
so is always
i cannot comprehend either
mostly because i exist
in this moment alone

but i never forget
the pasts
that still make me smile and
sigh, and
i will always look to you,
up on a poet's pedistal,
kissing your feet in waiting
for the day that never
morphs into always.

 

[wildsweetone]

20

Whiskers

She plucks them,
six stubborn black hairs
growing on her chin
as if they were somehow transplanted
from male to female
by an unseen bee
with no sting in his tail;
six whiskers, a continual reminder
that time has passed,
has come back to throw mud
in her eyes

 

[AChild]

1-27

intake potion

smoke filter focus
sugar verbs brain
tea speed heart

----------------------------------------------------------

all the people ready to scream pain
when the cut is clear
yet
when the breaking of bones
comes from a slow crush
a multitude of converging pressures
they call it life
and let it be

 

[vampiredust]

9-19

Kibbutz

Josh moans. David
scratches. Rachel
mutters. Their guard
says nothing,

his lit cigarette a f u
to the teenagers.
Stopping at a dead
jackal, he pushes

the butt of his rifle
in its skull to make
sure it's dead. Rachel
moans. Josh scratches,

David mutters. Sunset
falls. Katusha rockets
wail on the horizon.
Nobody dreams that night,

everyone just listening
to each others prayers
weeping.

 

[darkerdreamer]

Were I to tie
all my wasted words together,
that raft wouldn't make it
halfway to anywhere.

 

[4degrees]

10-18

a dog in the snow,
posing and smiling by a
weighty evergreen
pictures and books and
other dusty things
a paperclip for a
zipper pull, and a new
box from a church
that wasn't 'in my zone',
and endless cd's to burn
why?
because i can
my fish hates him; wants
his spot in my bed back
instead of ending up
kicked off the foot
where i've recoved him
every morn for two
weeks straight

what the fuck kind of poem is this?

poetry seeks a beat, a step
in step with mindless
time and timing, rhyme
occasional sporatic and
made of sacrificial skin
cleansed by some fuck
of this imagined sin
your lectures, pictures,
past fractured bad actor gig
is as see through as me
threw you away again today
you boomerang come back again
not to stay,
not to stay
this is my room, not ours.

 

[champagne1982]

2007-2-2

My Boy, Cooper

He wraps around to scratch an itch
right there above his tail.
An itch remains no matter how he nips;
he bites and nibbles to no avail.

When he sits proud and ears stretched
ahead he seems so grown and mature, until
he moves and unwinds his spine,
then we see that he's a puppy still.

Gangly limbs that flail akimbo
as he starts to tumble and run.
his awkward gallop becomes a lope
across the ground. Oh, what puppy fun!

After all his joyous bounds and leaps
tired and worn, the puppy sleeps.

 

[wildsweetone]

21

Peeling Pain[t] Prison

Peeled teal paint on the walls
holds the wails of asylumed women,
the groans of men
who cast eyes
towards the gathered light at windows.

They call and cry for the freedom,
that ability to climb, that was taken from them.

No vase of flowers brightens a corner now,
just the lighter tones of different paint layers,
exposed to the elements,
aged beyond the years of its inmates.