30 Poems in 30 Days

[loserstyx]

6-1

Two months clean
--for the most part--
until last night.

My friendly Vietnam vet called
with poison on his tongue.
"I know you want a taste, come with me
we'll do it together my brother."

My resolve has been beaten down
through calls like this for weeks.
My body will no longer let my mind control.
I find myself driving, finding my way
through the twisting labyrinth of the gray city sameness.

He enters, covered in scales,
this friend of mine.
Whispering in my ear the directions:
turn left, two miles, turn right and wait.
The shadow pulls from a concrete wall,
trafficking his deleterious brew: cocaine, heroin, and opium.

(starting yet another attempt at 30/30. )

(well it's a start, I ran into a wall, hopefully I'll get some more by the end of the day and be able to edit it.)

 

[champagne1982]

2007-2-19

Author's Notes

I've been wanting to tell
this story. It's a plot
without direction
a climax without resolution,

I can't go on without end
so I don't know how to begin.

I don't need help to find
a theme or describe
a scene. I need you,
your character.

I can't be me without you. Begin
to be you, so I learn how to end.

 

[darkerdreamer]

......

 

[AChild]

2-8

time is just a fraction
of the problem
the line that divides
seems to be growing

my father called to guilt me
with not knowing him on
his death bed

he doesn't see the fact,
trying to move my
mood is why I never speak to him

I don't carry cell phones
so I can catch life making
phrases

beatitude exhalation
mirrors smirking
"it's more than hiding now, so much more."

 

[wildsweetone]

68

Morning Walk

There is no crunch underfoot.

Yesterday's leaves are today's
threadbare carpet
creating a wet thrunch,
thrunch,
thrunch.

The pavement is pounded
with their landing
and my walk.

Autumn has begun.

I shower in green
with yellow leaves and blue sky
until winter.

 

[champagne1982]

2007-2-20

On Mothers, Eve And Gaia

Daughters know a promise
of a mystery inside,
a deeper commitment
to a birth,

knowledge that what lies
within will blur lines
between the here
and the outer light.

What is it about Eve
that makes her sons
fear the miracle
of conception?

Women draw the water
from the well
with empathy for Gaia
as She labours,

bringing her sons
forth and filling seas
with her birth waters,
as only mothers know

the worthiness of effort.
Their sons will stumble
through the darkness
and see the light

know fear no more,
and celebrate that mystery
of conception, that miracle
that Eve brought to birth.

This one's gonna need a lot of work to rid it of that pompous, smugness we women tend to adopt when speaking of birth. I may just consign it to the trash. We'll see.

 

[Guest]

07 2:2 Donor Remorse

Dreaming, lying here designing
your death,

each one more painful
than the one before,
though your reality is more.

Every breath is thick with tar,
is wasted—the devil within remains.

I can't tell you how happy that makes
me but still, the glimmer of humanity
gives sympathy.

Sorry.
I really do hope you get that lung.

Maybe the one you get will be
more than hope for yourself. Maybe
the donor will gift you remorse.

 

[loserstyx]

6-2

I have come to realize that I am
living life looking forward to reruns.
Stories of the past come to life again
in this decrepit present where I find myself.

 

[darkerdreamer]

4-9

Fan(fare/fair)

An ocean of strangers'
casually-shocked expressions;
I wade through them, arms outstretched.

This is no echo of Moses,
my staff does not slam into the sun baked ground,
sending waves of bewildered patrons
skittering off to the sides.

Instead, I walk calmly through my lynch mob,
allowing them to clutch at my robes
as if I were their savior, and not their victim.

 

[4degrees]

11-1

deep breath.
blood solidifies midway
between the interchange
from vein to capillary
vane, understated represents
and ego bigger than
this whole entire room
all yours. all for you
so let me bleed a fakey
an agnostic acrostic frosted
with sugary sand, land's end
of no one man, along
with many hands and
constants; constant
moving fingers tickling
a mystery spot within
the one that makes me
say stuff i don't intend
intensified by hundreds
of caps popping like a
regular champagne celebration
no relation, of course--its
only by law that we're kin
what a lie, what a lie
all of us begin
began at that very same spot
underground
like a microscopic centipede
wriggling free eventually after
a lifetime of stuggle
for that one moment
to break up through the dirt
and feel the crazy sensation
of sun on face
right as death eats me all up.

 

[AChild]

2-9

space for chance
allow the music
to wash trouble/pain

close outward eyes
whisper,
speak a song

water the world
with what the child
wants

admire the w's

 

[wildsweetone]

69

it's just a car

i wonder if i wiped the windows
inside the house,
if you would suddenly appear.

it would be as if you never left,
as if you weren't snatched
and stolen
from the driveway in the night,
taken on some joy ride
of your life,
your full tank
enjoying the secret spin.

i wipe them anyway, the windows,
sad that you don't miraculously re-appear.

 

[Guest]

07 2:3 Satis Fac Tion

I watch your lips move
in slow motion, forming vowels;
exquisite are the O's and U's.

Glimpse of tip of tongue
on the back of your teeth is more
inviting than your lipstick smile,
more than your hello.

I twitch,
stir.

I'm rude, already thinking
of the dirty words
you'll call, scratching exclamations
into my back while I grunt
ellipsis points, male satis fac tion.

 

[darkerdreamer]

4-10

As it Turns Out...

frosted glass lets high beams scream through
as cars turn about endlessly in her driveway.

it's not the light keeping us awake.

they all see the sign, DEAD END,
yellow and black, a yellow jacket of forewarning.

i saw that same sign on my way in.

she lives on one of those streets with no outlets,
in one of those houses with no dreams.

just endless creaks that begin at midnight.

i should have paid heed to the sign,
if nothing else at least noted the warning.

retrospect, the sign has already become a prophecy, fulfilled.

 

[4degrees]

11-2

no-go, another no-show
in a snow globe that's
shook like rope
in a dog's tight jaw
these man-laws are
easily forgot, in
some sense
of feigned innocence
sing to me again
of ignorance and
the promised bliss
of this
reap what i sow
eat this meat for
its food for thought and
the bread of a deathwish
do you miss
looking up and seeing
those thousand sky diamonds
that once made a smile
creep across mortality
ringing in reality
as only we two
know of it.

 

[loserstyx]

6-3

I pop them into my mouth,
down on my knees, praising these oblong objects.
The way they press against the inside of my mouth is exquisite.
I suck on them, rolling them around and to my glee
they release a sweet tasting nectar that is as only heaven could be.
When I have had my fill of the ambrosial fluid
I bite down...

Into the semi-sweet chocolate of Cadbury Mini-Eggs.
The only candy ever created by God himself.

 

[champagne1982]

2007-2-21

Biological Clock

A spring's unwound or maybe sprung;
a clock that doesn't time, a music box
that won't play a note of the song.
I hear it and I know what time it is
dawn and the birds sing the tune.
I don't need this machinery,
it's enough that nature
tells me all I need to know.

 

[wildsweetone]

70

I will remember you

I will remember you
when winter has stolen
all the colours of the world
and I am left with only memories,

reminders of your warm arms
and tender whispers
against my cooled ears,

thoughts of the red blanket
and that ground bump
that dug into our backs
and the dip that nestled our bottoms.

It's the trees I'll remember
most. Their sway when the breeze pushed,
their shade when the sun
determined to burn our skin,
their chatter that sometimes competed
with our whispers.

The trees
and their roots
that kept us focused
on our dream,
grounded in our reality
where wood and bricks
spaced us each night.

The trees, their roots and you.
The look your eyes held
when we parted,
that hunger, the need
to touch, to taste,
the salted water that threatened to spill,
the smile that spoke of tomorrow
and tomorrow
and tomorrow.

 

[AChild]

2-10

bing
the real is lost
down that same hall way
crawling on broken glass
trying to get back

 

[Guest]

07 2:4 Fizz and Blow

Pop Rocks in soda pop,
hear the crackling then not.

Your mouth closed and you listened
to urban tales, secrets
and again, bubbling when I opened up.

It wasn't funny. I told you it wasn't funny.
OK, it was funny, though, I tried
not to think how disgusting it really was;
that sweet acid eating enamel.

Good oral hygiene morals, an aversion
to saliva, things that squeak against
my teeth kept the fun out of candy.

I wasn't allowed to be a kid after,
ya know after, after.

You were an idiot, drooling
grape fizz and now forever
you are an immortal moron

Heroin and cocaine makes speedballs
and they kill. That's not a myth,
that's fact. Everyone knows that.

 

[champagne1982]

2007-2-22

This sucks.

I need to get over the twenty-two day hump,
I feel it every time I try.
Then I think: How can I sustain
my ego when all I see
on the page is drivel?
Then I think of all the drivel
I've seen in books.
People seem to thrive on fluff
and nonsense so who am I
to disappoint?
Count this as my "Day 22 Crap".

 

[4degrees]

11-3

sweet distilled
moments, better
water down my words
these 90 proof collectives
seem so unselective
but nothing is random
ever is this lasting
passion,
smash my heart without
another thought
its easy to kill what
you haven't got.

 

[darkerdreamer]

4-11

411

she said she wanted the 411,
the real real.
he told her
and she flew.

this is why white lies don't hurt nobody,
little annie fetamean whispered seductively,
with drano flavored lip-gloss
and old paper bag teeth.

the real real,
really real,
he liked them both just the same.

 

[loserstyx]

6-4

The Coffee Shop Mess Around
A call comes through on the other line
through endless wires and circuits
going round and round this globe called earth.
"We workin' tonight?" my savior asks.

Mr. Lady Bug pulls into my drive
and I enter, ready for another night.
Shop to shop we skip,
Cappuccino, one after another
they go down under our scrutiny.

All for the sake of more coffee.

 

[wildsweetone]

71

Of Poems and Thieves

Kill those babies.
Use the bluntest of knives,
drag it slow across skin.
Tease them bad, like sin
strips layers from their bones.
They won't forget
what a bitch the blade can be.