30 Poems in 30 Days

[4degrees]

11-8

black block, a chunk of
anguish solidifies into
some monolithic barrier
unclimbable immovable
un-see-throughable
knowing what lies
on the other far-off side
isn't enough to make
me swing that pick today
still too sore from
yesterday's,
maybe if i had a jack hammer
i'd be more in the mood.

 

[wildsweetone]

77

Southern Autumn

Between barren mountains
a vein of gold runs through brown rock
as Autumn dresses Queenstown
in a designer gown
decorated with the scattered gems
of amber and ruby.
The Whakatipu corsage
pinned just so,
belies its brilliance,
blooming a blue background,
the envy of any Starry Night
print owner.

 

[AChild]

2-17

tears of a clown
not random running,
make-up all the life lines
contour figure

the only truth I know today
is the raven on the road,
tapping out it's dinner
disturbed by cars
making each helping more pasty

poem like the dream
loose, with rot gut rules
in the all or nothing days
of youth
father in his infinite insanity
folded my will at the
smithy's

till my heart was hard

not interested in a hard heart
i want to kneel for my happiness
to know how the blood is dripping
down to the ounce

trying to get the glow back
from the making times
choose my own form

but the closest i can get to that
hammer on metal
is beak on gravel/
fucking clock chant in my eye triangle

another grain fall though the life-glass
it smells so much like a tear

 

[vampiredust]

3

Love Below The Equator

Night dons its ballgown,
menfolk roll up the sleeves
of their relationships.
Streams of spat out tobacco
dance with the lady-in-the-sky.
Love - exhausted, tied down
on a passenger seat - flicks
a white-hot rose petal. Stars
remove their hats and bow,
almost expecting to offer
their condolences.

 

[loserstyx]

7-1

Unsent Letter
Dear Elizabeth,
I'm writing this letter
to tell you how I've missed you.

Things have not gone so well
since I left you at your door step,
after Hors d’Oeuvres
and our conversation by the Fireside.
Those words I spoke and
the tears they drew from your eyes
still rings true in my heart,

but

they were the beginning of my downfall.
I never knew that you kept me from drowning
until I was completely submerged.

Now I travel the currents,
winding this way and that
in their convoluted senses of direction.
For three years I have been pulled deeper
by my struggling. Because all I can see is your face.

Your patient smile,
the way you would look me in the eyes
without a trace of hesitation, guile, or fear.
The way our hands fit together as we walked,
and how my arms felt when I embraced you.

I have met others in whom I saw
some muddled quality of yours.
The raven could not communicate
and while I lived on the street,
she flew away.

To the temptress I gave
every thing that I wanted to give to you.
But it was not enough to sate her longing
and she never accepted who I am.

So I sit here on my blue couch,
wanting something to change.
Waiting for you to come back to me
so that we can start it all over again,
or waiting to finally leave you
upon your doorstep,
and finally be able to

Move forward.

T.O.Y.
Loserstyx

 

[darkerdreamer]

4-18

Jazzy Burger


let me soak at your juices
with my sesame seed bun remnants,
a trickle of liquid delight.

ketchup, mustard, mayo
and you, with a side of me.

super-size it.

 

[champagne1982]

2007-2-29

tree of spring

Look at you, it's almost time
I see. You're fleshing out,
sap rises and you'd realize
that if you but dance
with springtime breezes
that loft your skirts
toward the sky, limbs
spread to welcome kisses
shed by the moon. I can't help
but smile in shadows and marvel
as you come into leaf. Don't grow
too fast, not so that you lose
the coltish length of spindly
boughs and slender profile.
Grow slowly into a mature
tree of summer.​

 

[wildsweetone]

78

Mr and Mrs

It is an existance
one that I no longer want,
a coming to understand
that there is more than just life
to live, more
than simply children,
teenage angst
and trial and error
to maintain.

There is us.

Somewhere along the way
we forgot about us;
somewhere along the way
the postman stopped delivering
to Mr and Mrs.

 

[AChild]

2-18

back on tv
smack,
dab
off time

the people stare as I
meditate cross man in the aisle
waiting,

remember which
product is new and improved
polished shine so thin and
spectacular it can't hold much
of the matter advertised

hey I just don't want the economy to fail

 

[vampiredust]

4

A Future Hollywood Starlet Takes A Nap At Heathrow Terminal Four

The jolt before waking
reminds you of being somewhere
else entirely. Not here,
not this city lit with a hot

gasoline breath, passengers
walking home with bags
stuffed with future objets d'art:
candy pink combs, t-shirts

with a heart and a catchy
slogan, a cache of postcards
that (probably) won't be used.
And you, looking at them

through your ghost lens,
seeing not their portly frames
but their heat, each heart
burning with thoughts

of being near you, of being
part of you.

 

[champagne1982]

2007-2-30

No, Polly Doesn't Want A Damned Cracker

Noone ever understood
the parrot as he spoke
of what he'd heard.

Just yesterday
there was a man
walk by and in a mawkish
voice inquired
if Polly'd like a cracker.

The parrot locked his beak
upon the hawkish nose
of the man who wore
a print shirt of jungle
and sea instead of replying
politely to the query.

Perhaps the occurance
resulted from a parrot
gender crisis; or because
the nose resembled
not so much a probiscus
but a baked hardtack chunk
stuck on, like a clown's nose.

I think it was because the parrot
has a liking for papaya
and the shirt displayed a print
of just that very plant.

Who can fault a parrot
who only knows
just what he's told?
No more, no less.

The moral of the story?
Don't venture into the jungle
unless you've got a nose
for rhetorical questions.

 

[darkerdreamer]

An Early Mother's Day

recall that time i told you
i was dropping out?
twenty hours before mother's day
was when i got the nerve.

and when i told you
you were a grandmother?
the worst part was letting you know
you might never meet her.

how about the failed breakfast
when i was six?
granted, my brothers were more to blame,
for that mess at least.

for a string of untimely unfortunates,
i'll send this early,
in hopes that it reaches you
before i can mess up mother's day this year.

 

[AChild]

2-19

sliding
habits
good and evil

friction
yo-yo
that swing theory is wrong,
all wrong

so what's the problem?

positive passion isn't easy
to come by
yet there's always room
on the wall pie for the vices

 

[wildsweetone]

79

Lake Hawea's Dawn

I look to it today, the dawn,
for answers the night forgot
to drop into my dreams.
The mountains lay like sleeping dogs,
still and silent,
and draped in long shadows
left behind by darkness.
The sky holds the first promises
and I mainline the landscape
until it kick starts my heart
and clears my head.

 

[loserstyx]

7-2

Working...

Is a bitch for poetry.

 

[darkerdreamer]

my tongue whips and lashes
at the architect's dream
that is the crevices of my teeth,
hoping to free the pretzel
that has reverted back to the powder
it once was--
before the oven,
before the germans.

the swish of crude, watery
house brew does little to aid my cause,
i had visions of rolling the beer
within the cavern of my closed mouth
like listerine, and spitting out scraps of an hour ago.
but nothing like that happened,
now i just have pretzel fragments
and the worst aftertaste ever in my mouth.
kudos on the fantastic idea.

 

[vampiredust]

5

Of Rememberance

Our breath guts scent avenues,
stripping each one to their bare
foundations. Honey is reduced
to flowers, sweat reduced to
glands wheezing like accordions.
Those objects we treasure most
are wrapped in their stillness,
waiting for our nostrils to unpeel
their fragrant skins, each a
connoiseur of the hidden, of the dead.

 

[wildsweetone]

80

80

Writing is easier
when blank walls
replace floor to ceiling mountains,
when carpet
covers the ground
instead of schist shaken down,
when the room is a windowless dungeon
and the only colour
is ink spilling from my pen.

 

[AChild]

2-20

crystal palace market
square
and the little dreamers
drift the streets as if
the sand was venice
cannel

hive mind, slowly
we timequake
the essential stories
of struggle

need said wickedly it's not
these tales fix ideas
backed up silently by
a religion felt not faithed

no dogs allowed

 

[vampiredust]

6

Sleeper

Boarding the sleeper
to Scotland immediately
untethers our dreams
still lodged in skulls,
the slow chugging

of the trains pneumatic
muscles locking us
in a permanent state
of observing those silent
fears normally kept

in a safe between our
heart and lungs. Hours
pass, the dial keeps
clicking. Looking inside
shows us our childhood

blanket, still wet from
those unhappy nights,
father's solemn words
still lodged in the fabric,
slowly removing its colour.

 

[darkerdreamer]

4-21

Dr. Carter said I have a bad case of the Forget-Me-Nots,
"In every way you can mean something like that,"
he said over a clipboarded expression.
He admitted me, put me up in a five-star room
with two-star food and a cloudy day mural
that was more scenic than the view of the parking lot.

Somewhere between then and now
they got worse,
I'd take Forget-Me-Nows any day over these,
over this.

Dr. Carter said it's terminal, and his
hundred thousand dollar voodoo just can't cut it;
but, he said he was willing to try.

"Just give me that soma, Cart,
I need a handful of goodbye."

 

[wildsweetone]

81

Lake Hawea - a moment

There is a morning hunger
that eating toast and drinking coffee
doesn't quell. So,
I take seconds, soak in the stark mountains
and ice cold lake,
watch steam rise from my cup
and learn the blessing of dawn
through the sun's first kiss.

 

[AChild]

2-21

cutting cross
a moment
open up a memory
that was in the sand
can't see why my dreams
need more miles to make
them real
but I begin to walk

 

[vampiredust]

7

Favours

I plucked the aluminium star
off his left ear. He owed me.
Cooked his boiled leather shins

and prosthetic knees. Said
I owed him. Marigolds
in the windowbox clapped

when I rebuilt his apartment
with overdue rent and IOU's.
Used wallpaper glue to make

his body the centrepiece of
the lounge. Like I said, he
owed me, he owed
me.

 

[darkerdreamer]

4-22

You remind me of grammar school days,
learning fractions and division;
trying to figure out how I could go into you twice
and still have a remainder.

When you divide up all my failings,
it turns out I'm only a fraction of
what I thought.
Thanks for the math lesson.