30 Poems in 30 Days

[Tzara]

(Let x be some number greater than, oh, 7 or so)-1

On the Ordering of Priorities
by Some Bad and Lazy Poet

I was trying to write a poem today
about a stone bell, from an old garden,
a bell found lying on its side in mud,
and how I struck it, delicately
tapped it with a leather-wrapped mallet.

Oh, yeah. The sound it made? A simple thud.
As did that awful, awful poem.
..........................................I'm done.

There's baseball on. 'Night, everyone.

 

[4degrees]

13-18

you snuck into my dream
in a shadow, nearly silent
and when i awoke
there was no recollection
until
you buzzed my pocket
exhumed the past-past
rooting up something
i'd thought i'd forgotten
but no, you made certain
forgetting isn't forever, lover
and now i remember
now i remember.

 

[Sara Crewe]

7-2

.........

 

[Eluard]

1-1

. . .

 

[wildsweetone]

6.


Eve knew too

......................They were sweet,

....................................................the last apples,

golden delicious -

.....................................yellow-green and bulbous.

....................................................................Dangling

........from ....................near-barren............ branches.


Tempting.



..................................Sweet.


.

 

[TheRainMan]

10-10

.....

 

[Tzara]

2

Interlinear

I cannot talk to you through runes.
Their voice is hard and unfamiliar
to my sedate and crude approach—I want
to sleep with you. Not plain enough?

I grant that sleep is euphemism
for my carnal lust. I even grant
that I may not be man enough. Yet am I plain,
and yet, I'm not. I'm fond of you, I say,

and with that, mean and mean and mean: I want.

 

[4degrees]

13-19

earlier today,
the most lovely poem,
adverbs and all,
sauntered into my mind
like some tall dark and handsome
but unlike a tall
dark and handsome, its been
totally
completely
erased from my mind.
it could've been about cigarettes
or sucking cock (or getting sucked),
it could've been about tantric budhism
or seeing fireworks sober
i have no idea
because baby, after that poem
came, so did thoughts of you
and following that, all else
is forgotten.

 

[Eluard]

1-2

. . .

 

[wildsweetone]

7.


One Bloke

You lay on the bed
like blue on the ocean,
slippery smooth
with a rising and falling
that rolls on the swells,
each breathless motion
a well
that carries you deep
into the green
beyond the mere touch
of mouth,
beyond the whisper of love
into the realms
where lust rules thought,
pumps red to your eyes
and cream through your cock.

 

[TheRainMan]

10-11

. . . gone elsewhere.

 

[Sara Crewe]

7-3

The kitchen floor reads like a menu
of yesterday’s meals, the laundry sleeps
in baskets of unmade beds
and the bathroom walls still wait
to be clothed in sage paint
that won’t make me wiser
but it may turn others green.

The grass is both long and dead
like an old man who must bend
at the waist to carry the weight
of his years. The cat has freed
his latest living toy but the baby
chipmunk does not run away.
It jumps around feline jaws
like an amateur boxer
accidentally invited to a title match
but who remains confident
right up until he sees black.

I could save him. Water the grass,
paint the bathroom, fold the clothes
and mop the floor. And I would
if I thought it changed anything.
But it’s hard to rescue a rodent
from certain death on Monday
when you know that in order
to really make a difference
you’ll have to watch for him again
on Tuesday. I sip my lukewarm
coffee and measure my apathy
and guilt in teaspoons. They come out
even in terms of cosmic order
and conscience so I call the cat inside,
tell myself a life-saving hero deserves
the day off, grab a book
and head for the hammock.
Who cares about the floor.

 

[Tzara]

3

Describing My Stigmata

...................I found slow blood

on my right finger, near the tip.
I thought it was behind my ear,
but when I rubbed the skin there,
there was nothing.
..........................After some while,
I found the spot: the back of my left hand.
Small, it kept bleeding despite my gauzy dabs
and would not stop. Still, still it bled.

I am a miracle, I thought, and went to bed.
The next morning, my hand was bleeding still.
My blood was everywhere—on blankets, sheets,
smeared across my face and cheeks. This was

odd and disturbing. Not to my wants.
I have just one exit wound, I thought, Not
near enough to qualify as saint. I want
the blood to simply stop. Just stop.

Yet I keep on bleeding everywhere. Yet have I
pain from one iron nail thrust through one hand.

 

[Eluard]

1-3

. . .

 

[wildsweetone]

8.

Penny

I have passed from pink hand
to calloused, am worn smooth
with history sanding my edges,
though I was only born in this year.
I am decorated with death,
both memorial and bust
stamped in copper,
my zinc core hidden, pure
as the most pious hand
that has rolled me.

 

[4degrees]

13-20

it is my reflex
to love you
incessant reminders
ever present
presently, my gratuitous gift
resides far far away
my feelings stitch together
impossible space
reaching across the miles
with my elastic heart
that morphed from lightbulb glass
into the rubber ball that
someday maybe,
you'll catch.

 

[TheRainMan]

10-12

.....

 

[vampiredust]

10-1

Inner Circle

Fox coloured bricks in a tube
tunnel wall watch their colour
retreat under an attack from
bird lime, orders given the nod
from unseen management.
The bones in my legs creak
as the carriage lurches its way
to Victoria, each movement
another direction from an inner
circle. I cough and obey
their wishes, praying to God
for vengeance. I swear
I can hear them muttering,
pounding their fists against my
chest, telling me I don't know
who they are or how important
they really are.

 

[Sara Crewe]

7-4

On our first date I noticed
one or two eccentricities
that floated around the table
like unobtrusive moths, landing
now and then, but easily brushed
away. With each flick, I told myself
you had a good reason to be late
or perhaps you had forgotten
your watch but I don't lie to myself
anymore. We flipped the last page
on our mystery a long time ago
and live under the brightness
of 2:00 am bar lights
because we didn't leave
at last call. We must love
each other despite bloodshot
eyes and I have learned
to swallow urges to smack
you in the face when you eat
your cereal bent over the bowl
like a caveman protecting his cheerio
kill, clink your teeth with the spoon,
all the while breathing like Darth Vadar
with a cold. I drink you straight,
no ice to water down the burn
of reality but I am not a martyr.
I don’t comment on my cereal irritation
‘cause I don’t need to hear
that I sound like Princess Leia
when I’m talking to the kids
or worse, Chewbacca when
I’m singing in the shower.

People say marriage is give
and take but more often
it’s learning when to shut up.

 

[Tzara]

4

Driving Along Fifth

It's one of those things,
the kind you see everyday
but don't see until something
—the weather, a song on the radio,
that crow hopping on the street—
flips your perception on
and just as suddenly revealed
as was the Word of God to Moses
it sinks into your spongy brain
that the bar's neon sign
hanging over the door says
Free Wi-Fi Beer Specials
and you have something new
to think about for a block
or so and then forget.

 

[4degrees]

13-21

this might just be
my last chance ever
to tell you how i feel

the exact same fear
every day

but then
twenty four more hours go by
we both survive
and i tell you all over again.

 

[Eluard]

1-4

. . .

 

[wildsweetone]

9.

The Silence Calls

I wait to hear it blow
across from the west
on the breeze that cradles smoke
from your fire,

wait for that anguished cry
the one that palms
your bared soul
for everyone to see,
to hesitate to touch.

I hear nothing
except the wreckage of storms
crumbling on the beach.
No wail, no keening

mourns your loss,
yet I feel
the crumbs of your heart
on my fingertips.

I wait,
patience a learned art.

 

[TheRainMan]

10-13

.....

 

[vampiredust]

8-2

Anatomy

Heading towards midnight
revealed night working
the graveyard shift,
dissecting its environment
in a cold clinical method,

a job nobody ever sees
when day rolls up its sleeves
and flushes away evidence
from the hours beforehand:

the sky's epidermis pulled back;
ready to dissect its muscle.
A sandblasted tube carriage
revealing a buried Coelacanth.

Wasp mandibles carved
onto each plastic window.
Pavements lie split open
when I leave the tube station,

my footsteps the needles
needed to stitch them back
together. But I don't want to.
I like to see everything being born.