30 Poems in 30 Days

[wildsweetone]

82

Makarora

The booted feet of a thousand men marked the route from east to west, crossing barren mountains, breaking rock to build the tracks that carried gold and greenstone, carried passengers and supplies. Their footprints remain, buried under the sealed-in stone of today, their axes left history embedded in the rock. If we listen carefully to the spring melt of mountain water, we will hear the collapse of villages when the raped rivers rebelled.

 

[darkerdreamer]

4-23

Sing-Song Farewells

When the time neared to say goodbye
we tried to cherish our final nights,
we saved the lies and all the fights,
decided silence would suffice.

And as I watched her disappear
she whispered sweetly in my ear,

xxxxx"These are the last days
xxxxxwe have left,

xxxxxso toast our ghost
xxxxxand make the most
xxxxxof what we get."

 

[AChild]

2-22

slower
too night is not a night
for stars there are other fires
that need watching

 

[vampiredust]

8

Mother's Day

For Someone

Daffodils by the windowsill
droop, feeling an empty space
in their stems where something
used to be. Windscreen wipers,

sheets of newspapers, imitate
this action, feeling their stomachs
for what might have been there.
And men everywhere do the same,

stroking their bellies for what was
there once. Clouds pregnant
with afternoon rain say nothing
as they pass crowds shopping

in the cold. They release fistfulls
of undeveloped memories, waiting
for us to catch them in the folds
of our umbrellas. We will cradle them

in the evening, listening to their
cooing before shaking off the droplets,
wandering in the morning why
everything feels lighter than yesterday.

 

[wildsweetone]

83

Just another night stand

I have salami breath,
cracked pepper salami.

I don't care. Tonight

I'll be laying on my side
facing my nightstand,

staring at the dark silhouettes of lamp,
book, cellphone turned on,
tuned in waiting for your call
that I know won't come tonight.

Breathing in
and out, slow
and deep.

Sleeping with salami breath.


(from RF's Free Thoughts Thread)

 

[darkerdreamer]

4-24

The Monday Edition Theater Review

I.

a prologue where
a hapless protagonist finds
a damsel, causes the distress.

II.

the meat;
the hearty chunk where
the darkest corners of
the character's soul are revealed to
the sound of percussive rapture.

III.

in which the conflict is
initiated, a failed
internal monologue based on
intrigue and youthful hope
inevitably escapes, leaving the audience to ponder during
intermission.

hopefully someone comes back
to see how things end.

 

[vampiredust]

9

First Crossing

Disembarking reveals cloudless
streets, each letterbox a sentry
watching cars stealing into night.
Porches creak. Lampposts extend
boom-mic necks. Headlights fumble
through a maze of 15th century
streets and slippery paving stones.
Shop windows reflect the scene
through their chainmail faces.
A passerby thinks he's witnessed
history again, his breath snatched
by hooves and an unnamed cart.
Motorists watch his body stretched
out like a star on the horizon,
marking out the place where we
first tread.

 

[wildsweetone]

84

84

Snail Mail

You don't say much
and I wonder
if you are sitting watching the mailman
with his dark blue uniform
and brown shoulder bag
strut along the street,
waiting to see if he will post
a letter into your box
or if you are not bothered,
not anticipating my next move.
Maybe I'll write
next week.

 

[AChild]

2-23

brown dove
floats above freeway channel
tattered wings never
notice traffic

 

[vampiredust]

10

Motorway

Sunlight spins anticlockwise,
taking the hard shoulder
of a clapped-out motorway
before nosediving behind
a graffiti muralled bridge

and straight into a thicket
of brambles. Streetlights
hang like yellowing headlines,
playing games of poker
with cracked tarmac

and whatever the wind
throws its way. Priorities
are set by men in pre-fabs.
The landscape just ignores
their requests and takes out

another card from the pack,
the soft shuffling keeping men
awake in their beds.

 

[darkerdreamer]

4-25

Truth

trust me,
i can never trust you again.

 

[wildsweetone]

85

Use

I should make more use
of the things around me,
the dog over the road
who barks at other dogs
as they wander up the street
catching dawn in their yawns,
the girl in bed at the end of the hall
who staggered in at midnight,
fell onto her bed fully clothed
as if giving herself a head start
for the morning,
and the fish,
the two gold fish
who eyeball me as I walk
from room to room,
lending me the belief
it is I
who is surrounded by four solid walls
I am unable to leave.

 

[AChild]

2-24

lost my keys
now i'm lost
cause familiar door
won't talk

this is a bad day

 

[vampiredust]

11

Coyote Songs

One o'clock. The daily hubbub
of students gathering underneath
the bus shelter. Flies wrap
themselves in sweaty folds

and disused newspaper umbrellas.
Windscreen wipers swish
like donkey tails. The warpaint
of approaching buses interprets

each movement aggresively,
their engines kicking against
the wind in response. Bodies
switch identities with coyotes,

the only animal I can think of
everytime this happens. My body
crackles with the electricity
of fur. Take me now, I plead,

feinting from the inside out
with their strong, unearthly scent.
I always remain the same,
I always remain the same.

 

[darkerdreamer]

4-26

With everything you've done to me this week,
how is it possible that I don't have a single poem?
A single line?
Your poetic fuel is low-octane,
it barely burns at all.

 

[wildsweetone]

86

Sunday with my Son

Before he leaves the country
before I lose him to another land,
I talk dreams real for him.
I tell him of sunrises on rivers
where he might stroll with his girl,
of fast cities that carry pace
and neon beyond what he's used to,
of green fields and fence designs
that promise gold beyond and sometimes
actually give it up.
He watches me,
listens to my words
as if they cleanse his mind,
purify it,
before he leaves the country.

 

[vampiredust]

12

Donkey Soup

1.

The flamenco colours
of a gazpacho lights up
the thin film of memory
lingering on the surface
of last night's dream.

Last night's dream,
trapped in the terracotta
body of Andalus, makes love
to my grandmothers soul
buried high in the peaks

of Granada. My eyelids
record the transcript
for my heart and lungs.
The outside world never
pats me on the back.

2.

Nobody patted us
on the back when she passed
away. They watched us
make donkey soup, sleeping
in the animals soft wet fur,

using its leftover teeth
for pillows. There wasn't many
to go around. There was never
much to go around.

We sharpen our knives
in the slaughterhouse
of their dreams, smiling
as the sun, the bloody sun, sets.

 

[darkerdreamer]

4-27

If I revise myself anymore
there will be nothing left of the original,
just the editor's pick,
not the director's cut.

Which is preferred depends on the viewer,
the reader, the editor.
Letterboxed or formatted to fit your screen?

Somewhere in the special features
I'm sure there are still scraps of what I was,
if only in the blooper reels.

 

[wildsweetone]

87

87

It Depends on Your Perspective

If it wasn't for the dependent perspective,
I wouldn't bother looking down crane arms
from the wrong end,
nor try capturing the wave of the kiwi flag
from the windy edge.
I'd stand on a mountain,
shoot the valley below,
watch the sun wash the land
and look up to see the veil of night stars
I sometimes forget exists.

 

[AChild]

3-1

reset

mid-nights calling
with her garter belt
trying to lasso you into
a new day with a
caress instead of
those same old shifting
realities
breaking the light and such
fingers snap and
I tango away the hour
pre-friday and its been
a long week

 

[vampiredust]

13

21st Century Lullabies

Night unscrews the lightbulbs
in the cornfields. Cows beatbox.
We wrap ourselves in each others
dreams, counting the number
of breaks and scratches in the air.

 

[darkerdreamer]

4-28

Tonight while some dine on caviar,
others will eat the grownup form.
Others still will slurp meat from the bones of the dead.
The lowest totem, the bottom feeders,
they will snap the bones to suck at the marrow.

One day, each group will be only bones,
no castes to separate them,
for the bottom feeders are indiscriminate in their pickings.

 

[AChild]

3-2

pickings slim
the thought remains inside the box
see how focus hurts

changing tone is easy to
those who have the faith
in numbers

my minds not with me
pins and buttons peel
back revealing the real

i am the foe with out failing
no that is just a mantra that belongs to the who that I am
who am i?

so it goes
it goes on

the words don't help
they're hollow
plucking note from
space

the music hit
we don't ripple it's just an
iris smile

 

[vampiredust]

14

Aspen

Snowmobiles barbecue
frostbite, each visor
flirting with the setting
sun. Day in, day out,

they ski, downing daquiris
and gazing at a portfolio
of birkenstocks and shop
bought casualties staring

mannequin-like through
reinforced glass. Slopes
erode inside bodies
and wallets. Mountains

collapse, bringing up last
nights binge, $10 tips
and claret-red sex.
Toes numb themselves.

The sound of them falling
echoes only in newsprint
and dustmen's gloves.
The ink is never waterproof.

 

[darkerdreamer]

4-29

She’s got it bad for the Fed-Ex guy.
Won't admit it, but you can see it in the signature.
Nothing so tasteless as
dotting Is with hearts,
or appending XOs as a new suffix.
No, it's all in the wrist.

Maybe it comes from how he handles his cargo,
because it certainly isn't the purple and black combo.
If she were a lesser woman,
she'd make a joke about handling his package,
but instead she just uses her finest penmanship
and waits patiently for the next 9:45.