all of a sudden passion suddenly

[vampiredust]

shut up and fuck

just shut up and fuck me
are the words you wanted
me to say. dressed in costume
you wanted to break down
walls, smash through furniture

just to get to you. blindfolded,
you wanted to scrape off
everything I had pasted onto
your body over the last few
years and watch them fall.

 

[Many Feathers]

How badly I've wanted to throw you down
fuck you angrily

abuse you horribly for the hurt, violate your body
uncaring for your pleasures or ease

cause you pain for the pain you've caused me
hear you cry out, not in ecstasy, but in agony

how many times have I raped you over and over
uncaring for your feelings now

no longer wanting to make love as we once did
somehow finding a way to destroy the beauty of you

the pleasure we knew
all I want now is to destroy that

destroy you in my mind
purge what was, violate what we had

hard as I try,
even with images more decadent than even I can stand

still I remember
and wish to hell I didn't

 

[373Kelvin]

Lunch room mountains, hulking over their brown bags,
welcome me after some months of lunches sitting near.
One turns to me to abuse my ear with nettles:
what he'd like to do to that bitch.

Pieces of his sandwich drop from his lips
with every venomous word: slut, bitch.
He says if she leaves she won't get a divorce
but a grill plate in her gut.

His right foot twitches as he sees her cross
the street; he'd race to make her meet her master
aiming for her, gunning faster, till memories are carnage.
He waits my approval. I walk away, no longer hungry.

 

[Maria2394]

sand, right there

moonlight shattering pale beads
of pale yellew pee with her mirrors
reflected, racing off the crest
of random waves, quick silver,
tidal razor blades escape
in curls of foam against sand

pink panties werent even missed
until the sun rose atop them
near the dunes and the number
seventeen sea turtle sign

sigh, no pervs in state parks
anymore, no graffitti on bathroom doors
and every other campsite
just another trailer park

pick them up,
when youre sure no onen is looking,
he whsipered as if the roar of the sea
might silence, as if the sand
gave a damn what we had to say

 

[flyguy69]

Echo

::

When we met I wanted to shout your name
off rooftops and cliffs, to hurl us
rock to rock, ringing beyond
my sight. How could I hold you
within ribs? You leapt
from my lungs like a dancer, an arabesque
of sound. As I learned you you multiplied
in my mouth, spilling
into smaller and smaller conversations.
Suddenly you filled every fissure from
dawn to dusk, and there was nowhere I could look
without seeing you. Even now, over coffee
I see in steam the way you moved
in performance. I guess that’s love; you dancing
beyond my eyes, large as a canyon, while I whisper
your name into my cup.

::

 

[Guest]

"You make a straight man want to be gay."

He says

Floors me, puts my gut in my crotch;
heart on the back of tongue
and all this makes me ache.

I hate him, want him,
want him, until
it's all one emotion.

But it's the liquor.
It makes men dumb,
the ones who drink it,
the ones who listen to drunk talk.

I make a joke of it

"Don't let yours or mine hear you say that
cuz', boyfriend...
our chicks won't understand.
We'll both be sofa kings
and you know how I am about that;
you'll be on the floor."

(Like you put me)

 

[Guest]

Let's not split hares, here
I don't eat meat, but you do
Give me the fuzzy feet
cuz' I need all the luck I can get

 

[Maria2394]

snake versus snake

fear, what could fear be but a rumor
someone elses narrow
view of what is good or better

how can a girl really know
a thing such as fear
until the one she trusts, so much

sheds his skin and eats her

 

[Sealace]

I keep wanting to say

you never loved me

or

my flesh was too soft
my hunger too strong
for you

but it is not true
truth is far less poetic
and who wants to have to play bad guy all the time?

 

[Sealace]

what sounds to make to communicate this sentiment
without sentimentality?

what crack and flag snap
can deliver this silver tongue excuses

would you have me risk this monkeyhouse
jitterbug soft cusion of bean bag comfort
this risk! this risk you darling
love you adore me but but
at the bottom of the sandbox
is the truth
you would not be there
band aid mortgage late night feedings
you have your own
pains to ignore
your own papers to pick from the floor
nails to hammer in flat save the tender feet from the tear


and can I say this to you
god I love you want you need you adore you too
but my lover
you are not worth the risk
nothing is

 

[Sealace]

the way she teases
reminds me of the day

and he came back from break
a break that I spent confinving myself it was over
that I would not love you
that the late night excuses
and secret press and fondle under cover of public darkness
was over
over I wasa finished with the
oh want you loove you and would have you if only if only if only this
and I was finished

and you called me to your room
said come here come here
patting your bed
until I moved in
hesitating

hold my hand come o9n hold my hand
you insisted I resisted
but reached out to the fire of kiss me come on I am so happy
just kiss me its okay i have ben waiting so long to kiss you
and those eyes deep brown and god how I had loved you
more than anything you bastard leaned in for the kiss and kiss before you sighed
and said
oh jenn
I met the most wonderful girl this summer
I am in love
could not wait to tell you
be happy for me

 

[vampiredust]

Watching a distressed Japanese woman on the bus

You watched me
with your painted
on eyes, that slowly
dripped onto the black
and white flowers
on your dress;

colouring them
a shade of sepia. And
as the bus slowly moved
through the heat, I watched
your pale landscape crack.

I wanted to pick up
your pieces but you didn't
want to look at me, muttering
things in a language I never
understood.

I imagined you crying
that night and watching only
the walls comforting you

 

[Maria2394]

how to love ( a married man)

I.

from afar admire
the ache he professes
to hold for you

II.

expect less than
anything he could never
give you

III.

believe in the never believing
of words and subtle messages
translated by unfeeling bundles
of optical fiber

 

[373Kelvin]

Agents of Harm Reduction

• The smooth plastic lining of a tin can packing tamales
• The buttoned lip
• Coffee and cigarettes at an A.A. meeting
• Pharmacist dispensing methodone
• Firearms Safety classes
• Internet sex
• Marriage

 

[drown]

terrazzo-cold
cheek down...

would it had
been
you.

my shift.
my shift.

 

[vampiredust]

Propaganda

A crow falls
from a sycamore
tree, spinning

like a propellor
as it tumbles

towards the ground
before crumbling

into pieces of black
ash. Each one

making new crows
as they grow.

 

[vampiredust]

The butterfly collector

He pins butterflies
onto the board

when they are still
alive, just to watch

their wings beat
furiously as if trapped

in a wind tunnel; scraping
off their colours with

alcohol to preserve
himself - never to transform

or fly.

 

[vampiredust]

A Japanese woman
went on the bus

yesterday, carrying
an antique chair. I could

see the effects of time
etched onto its oak

frame, as if a swarm
of wasps had gnawed

its way through, leaving
only a ghost. She dipped

her beekeepers hat
as the sun came inside,

trying to see the path they
would take next

 

[373Kelvin]

Resources

We have carefully glued all the popsicle sticks
as high as we could reach, towering to the sun
thinking to climb it and steal the ember that gave us
life, to steal the fruit of our mother. Fingers
are plugged in our ears as we climb, unhearing

the song of Oedipus, that mother fucker, or
Icarus, who flew no further than now we climb
up and up, gunnysack over shoulders, in our
survival kits, only magic beans. Confident,
powered by the best verbs money can buy,

We rise into the sky, into the burnt blue edge
swinging our sledge hammers into unyielding flame.

 

[vampiredust]

Finding solace in small things

This house is starved
of time, that I know.
Watching the punctured
water troughs, I can see
last night's sky peeking
through the holes. Dust

dances in every room
before collapsing, coating
everything in a silver snow;
running a finger over a pile
of board games on a shelf,
I see the family that was here
once. The spine of the house

has been ripped out, as if
to make you look through
the rafters and stare at the stars
still left inside, clinging onto
the night that slowly exhales
its last breath.

 

[vampiredust]

Cigarette Ash

Fireflies leap
from glowing embers,

colouring the air
with an electric sunset.

 

[vampiredust]

Send me away, please

I watched the clouds
sweat as we drove
along the motorway,
slowly collapsing into
rain. As the wipers
cleared away the horde,
I thought of all the times
I wanted to be put in a
shoebox and sent somewhere
far, where your words
wouldn't be able to unwrap me.

 

[vampiredust]

sunlight strokes dogs
fur, they yelp and start
to chase invisible cats;
tripping over cardboard
jaws, six legged old women
and one-eyed men crawling
out of drains. Some return,
others dive into a puddle
and drown, their fur weighed
down with words.

 

[vampiredust]

Mopeds dodge buses,
beaten up cars and snarling
SUV's as they weave their
way through the morning
traffic. Spotting a bus,

they challenge the lumbering
beast for a race, offering
the smell of a wad of notes
as a prize. The rubber valves
of the bus breathe in and out

as it twists round the sides
of the tarmac mountain, grunting
loudly as it speeds ahead, trying
to catch the hornet stinging
in its eyes. The one eyed referee

blinks as they stop in the pits
and tactics are discussed only
by the wind. Approaching the finishing
line, the bus slams into the moped,
giving victory only to the stars.

 

[373Kelvin]

Perfect

Buddy across the street, I thought I had him beat
this year. Taking advantage of his spring vacation
to get ahead, I aerated, scratched the thatch
raking away the dead, hauling off in bags, reseeding,
careful in my ministrations of moisture. For once

come May first, I pull out the Honda mower, leaving
blades as even as a cadet's high-top, smooth as a table.
He's slipping, Buddy is. Usually by now he has run his reel
mower in careful rows and finished it off with scissors.
Actual scissors! This guy has no life, I tell you. He returns

boat in tow, family unpacking like ants, carrying coolers,
sleeping bags, toting in a line. And for one brief moment
I shine as he shades his eyes, looking across to the wonder
I have wrought. Yes! I am victorious. Gaze upon my works
and despair, say I, Ozymandias of lawns. He is not shaken.

The next afternoon, I come home to see he's taken
his lawn in hand, with torch and flame, killing all the thatch
purifying it pitch and black. Against the black what green
is left shines bright. The carbon gleams a promise of next year.
Pulling out the trimmer, I mutter, "passive-aggressive bastard."