30 Poems in 30 Days

[4degrees]

13-9

numbing cold ices up
my spine
spreading to my extremities
as the extreme nature
the lack of love
even in minute amounts
for a fellow man
beyond sad and more
than disgust
although now i'm mindful of
celebrating my pride,
i'm ashamed to be human
sometimes.

RIP Edith Isabel Rodriguez

 

[TheRainMan]

10-1

.....

 

[4degrees]

13-10

 

[TheRainMan]

10-2

.....

 

[4degrees]

13-11

sticky whispers
i am .50 taurine
half essence of masked men
clanging bells in their chambers
i am the remainder
left over for ever
chained awaiting thinking that
never is another
word for failure
sunburnt and paler than
the whites of a poet's eyes
like zorro, my disguise
hides nothing at all.

 

[TheRainMan]

10-3

.....

 

[4degrees]

13-12

full mastery of d-tach
but
the common bond and
fear that comes
with it makes
me re tach, and fearful
again
again you get free rent
in my mentat
my insecurity lets you take
every last cubic fractional fragment
fucker
you fucker, every time
i start to feel the softness
of the plush between my toes
and start to think about sitting down,
you pull the goddamn rug
right out and laugh, i'm sure
why, i dunno
cause i know my pain
has to be less than yours.

 

[TheRainMan]

10-4

.....

 

[Eluard]

The Safety of Circles


I could lie here ten more winters and I’d still be
waiting for the sound of your key
turning the latch, the knob
squeak as it twists, the methodical
way you had of revolving your hips
until you screamed. The seasons spin back
and forth with everything else. A snow
shovel leans on the wall but my mind
keeps growing palms. I can not stop
thinking about coconuts. I can see them
halved on our breakfast plates,
spread on your skin, my finger tracing
oily eights into your back. It’s dark
in this room yet I’m all eyes—
the night is my way to claim you. To breathe
you in. To rub my hand on your everlasting
imprint in the sheets like a lamp
and feel you rise, to dream my thumb across
the arch of an eyebrow, myself as close
to you as I have ever been. To crawl inside
you and give back
everything I’ve ever taken. I dream away
the vanishing, its thick permanence. I dream
away the gathering, the laying on
of flowers, the spreading
of ash, the darkness that goes on
and on like an interstate with its hairpins
and tunnels and always west, outracing
the sun. I dream a sunrise that reminds me how
close God can be. I want to believe
in flames, that something
can come out of the night and be strong.
I want to believe there is enough
of your daylight left here
to realize I will always want more.

This was very moving — I really felt this one powerfully. Great invocation of something we have all felt at one time or another.

 

[4degrees]

13-13

serial killer profile workplace blues

...and i've got it all planned,
she said
her lips made like mona lisa
as the white-blond locks
waved a frame around her
girlish face
ever so mismatched with the
deviance that was relayed just then
...and the first bitch wearing next to nothing,
who comes up to me and says 'it's freezing!'
will be the reason i strip off this
goddamn sweater
and i'll toss it at her and say
here, knock yourself out
and as i do, my gun is revealed
and as she does, she'll be the first
one to get popped
then, then i'll go and cap
every last security cam...and those
fucking alarms, you know, the ones
that go off for like, a full minute
its the worst sound to a hangover
...and i said 'tonight, you're
my poem. its so perfect'

disenchantment over time
comes in even the most
glorious of places

when uniforms and no-talk laws
are enforced. step aside, postman.

 

[wildsweetone]

1.
...

There is no vase of flowers on the table
no music playing on the stereo,
somebody forgot to paint the sky blue
and it's cold, bitter cold.

The kind of cold that scuds on a southerly,
dumps snow on the mountains
down to sea level,

the kind of cold that sucks the warmth
from the air and leaves you gasping,
and grabbing, and babbling

like some dementia-driven retiree
who has forgotten the cold bacon
and fat-gelled eggs on their breakfast plate

and remembers only that the distorted knees
gaining carpet burns from vague praying
belong to them, that the sensible shoes
on their feet keep their toes
in proper alignment

and the pressure stockings hold their blood,
stop it from gathering in their feet
and forcing them to drag as they scuffle

from room to room with little idea
from whence they came,
and even less of where they go.

 

[TheRainMan]

10-5

.....

 

[4degrees]

13-14

coy and evasive
the sickness spreads
past my head
polluting my soul
temporarily
these words are merely
placed to hold my spot
so that tomorrow no. 15
might be a bit better.

 

[wildsweetone]

2


Coffee Shop

Coffee shops are warm
and noisy.
Mothers and children
crash through the entrance.
Males shred newspaper
across tiny round tables.
Legs jiggle,
hands roll cups,
and the coffee machine
starts a war
with white hot foam
and brown swirls
that twist
wintered mustaches.


edit


Coffee Shop

Coffee shops are warm
and noisy. Children
and mothers crash
through the entrance,
males shred newspaper
across tiny round tables.
Legs jiggle, hands roll cups,
and the coffee machine
starts a war
with white hot foam
and brown swirls
that twist
wintered mustaches.

 

[TheRainMan]

10-6

.....

 

[wildsweetone]

3.

The Silencing of Branches

The midday wind
has doubled its efforts
to strip the trees of brilliance,
to lay their boughs bare
as if in confirmation
that death is their turn,
or that remodelling
is the only way they will survive
in a garden naked of sun.
Few leaves hang tight,
the last golden lights
caught close,
become a final frayed wrap
snagged on silent branches.

 

[4degrees]

13-15

a phototronic memory
half imagined collage
makes up all those parts
yet to be seen
it pains me away
when asked, and i say
'i have not seen my love'
the fractals on constant swirl
the pieces fitted together
mis-sized and shapen
make you into a perfect picasso
and i will paint you again

 

[TheRainMan]

10-7

.....

 

[4degrees]

13-16

tossing out words
half hearted sowing
of verbal seeds
they may or may not
sprout up
into a random pattern
like so many wildflowers
dispersed unevenly by
passing birds
where somewhere,
in the midst i can find
a perfect spot to use
'juxtaposed'
right in the center of
maybe some lilys
or violet colored adjectives
or possibly, a dandilion
scented man.

 

[wildsweetone]

4


One Morning

The clouds fell,
crawled across the garden,
clawed their way
to the bank's edge
where they tumbled
into the murky water
and floated downstream
to the sea.
We walk with our heads
in the clouds, sometimes,
but have yet to master water.

 

[4degrees]

13-17

oh, if you could see
me now
not the flesh but an
exclusive inside peek
boiling waves of
mind over matter
none of this matters
we've all got change but
its none we can spare
with that change comes
much of the same
claims at differences being complete
are propaganda of the ego
the only difference this time being
i waited four hours to tell you.

 

[TheRainMan]

10-8

..... gone elsewhere.

 

[wildsweetone]

5

...

I saw it in your eyes,
the frustration of partial loving,
the inability to make your body work
as your mind expected.
It was good, though,
better than good
the way your hands
smoothed my brow,
gentled my trembles
and built them
one on top of another
until the room held no walls,
no ceiling,
and laying flat on the bed
was all that kept me falling
through one orgasm after another.

 

[TheRainMan]

10-9

.....

 

[Sara Crewe]

7-1

..........