all of a sudden passion suddenly

[flyguy69]

I saw descent today
and went blind. Don’t even ask
me to raise my arms and scream
as a rabbit. It’s down,

down, down
and the wind snatches tears
from slit-lidded eyes
and turtle soup for dinner.

There were diamonds
so close to reaching.

A rippling steel arm thust
me skyward, like a rock star's finger
plunged into air saturated
with screams and lust. A hundred and sixty feet
into heaven I wondered is this
the metaphor I've been waiting
my whole life for? But three seconds
later I knew, no,
this is.

 

[Maria2394]

window shopping dorian gray

as if a single glance would break
his emotional bank, he ignored her
like the morning glare on a east facing window
he was arrogant, and she was merely a fleck
on the ass of his self important life

as he gestured for the aid of his partner
who had designed those fancy windows
forever, he was more concerned
with the appearance of lines around his eyes
than the condition of his crumbling stature

that painting in the background, the one
with the frolicking children appeared
in every season, in every theme, it stayed
there, among the trappings and gilded
wrappings of an artist in utter despair

i'm sure I heard him lament the existance
of thinners and towels, the peculiar airs
of those society fraus, with their wealthy
husbands and tacky faux pearls

a fright, yes indeed he explained as he turned
the corner and stepped full force
into the front of an oncoming train

 

[RhymeFairy]

motioning this tide
drown me with passion
replace my breath with you
and remind me how
to swim

this.

Simple but so true.
Just the


depth of emotion
shall cause me to drown
in your words
into your form

shall I swim or sink
into the rushing currents of loves
memory
a lost embrace
a sharing time between us
slow mountain rain
butterfly kisses

and being brazenly baptized
by your body
worshipped

I remember your gaze, like staring
into the sunrise too long
blinding my eyes
for remorse has set in
the tide has turned
and bottled up hindsight
broken ...

 

[tungtied2u]

How many times must the point be driven home
until the pain is sharp enough, the scar deep enough
to avoid being erased from memory
by painted lips and penciled eyebrows

Her facade foretells answers to questions
rooted deep in my psyche, born of neglect
nurtured with contempt, complacency
her hands cups, coddle, caress my wounds

she will let go, I know
the promise will wilt, I will be left
a flower smelled, plucked and discarded
no roots, no value, no scents

 

[annaswirls]

sometimes this is what you are given
ten minutes while the boys are still laughing under the hose
puppies hiding under the shrubs
pour a diet soda
read a few poems while the sweat dries
paint chips stuck in the creases of the inside of your elbow
wondering why this part of your body
does not have its own name

sometimes this is all you are given
a few minutes to remember how Uncle Charles,
the one who moved to florida,
the one who fought the war and climbed the temple stairs
in South America while the rest of the family
worked the farm

he always ended his letters with
"keep the home fires burning"

Nana is alone in the farmhouse now,
the last of your generation
does not have the strength in her fingers
to strike a match
but we each have our stick that glows
we each carry our own piece of home
hold high the embers like a runway

 

[vampiredust]

Rollers

Mother liked to keep
her rolled up waves
tucked underneath
a green net. I could
see them watching;

waiting for her to slip
so they could wash
her away, caught
in their giant hands
as they dragged her,

breathless, to the bottom
of the sea. At night
I would always hide
them, burying them
under wool sod.

I had seen her buried
already, her cries heard
only by the night; not
by us.

 

[vampiredust]

The Bigot

The old man sitting opposite
me on the bus opened his
mouth and a spitfire flew out,
spitting bullets as it flew a loop
round the inside. I imagined

platoons of soldiers crawling
out of his ears, scrambling up
cracked cliffs of bone before
falling onto his trousers. The
enemy would appear next,

gliding down his nostrils; yelling
things in languages that were
forgotten. Nobody would notice
these things but him;

his hands covering his eyes as he died,
not wanting to see the things that made
free.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Today, today, today
it's the first of something
they say over and over
promising, no?
the poets cry out
"grasp the day!"
and run off laughing
hysterically
but it's good poetry
so who will complain?
not me
I'm laughing too hard.

 

[vampiredust]

there are no gods here

looking at the wrinkled
map on your face, I
could see where the gods
had left. Boils marked X

on your nose had erupted
and the river of pus wept
like tears, forming images
of the things you never

believed as they fell. Your
brow was covered in ash
from the fires lit in mourning,
covering your mind in darkness.

You would never wipe it off.

 

[4degrees]

Rf,

tread until
your limbs ache with
a stiff weighted anchor
of passion

my one purpose is this
passion

to expel and compell
both at once,
at once i found it
to be as simple as
that.

thank you, h.
curt

 

[vampiredust]

love is a very bad thing when you're twelve

I wrote you sonnets
in the wet sand,

hoping the sea
would deliver them
to you.

But they never did
and I tried to blow it up
with the atomic bombs
I drew in my notebook

The only thing that went puff!
was the thought of you

 

[RhymeFairy]

Once passion was tucked into my sleeve
worn with pride only hidden well. So well
that it became a stiff weighted anchor
weighing me down. Concealed to hide
from the world. A world who would become
judge and juror.

I would let it loose to sow some wild
oats, breathe a fresh breath of everlasting
love, then tuck him deep inside, back
into his world of fairy tales.

I would be his damsel in distress. In need
of a savior, a knight on a white charger.
Only, my knight turned to nightmares
shadowing out, retrieved from past
memories. Real life nightmares
much worse than anyone could ever
dream up.

My passion slipped from my sleeve
into reality. Into what could never
be.

 

[vampiredust]

I watched a fish
swallow lightning;

exploding into a
mess of filligree

bones, scales and
rubberised innards

as it danced to the
thunder exploding

in our heads

 

[vampiredust]

Dissecting frogs

Jam jars are neatly labelled
with today's names: London,
Glasgow, Edinburgh

ready for the dissected frogs
that lay on the worktops;
each one a martyr for their
pond, not merely their race.

Arms are spread out as they
are split open, cutting through
to the rubbery skeleton buried
underneath. Boys coo as scalpels
are coated with the goo. Ignoring

the teachers instructions, they
keep some of the flesh, blotting
their handkerchiefs with the liquid
fire, knowing they will only see it
when they die.

 

[vampiredust]

Fishing near Sellafield

I

We start at dawn. Supplies
squashed next to old radar
detectors and robotic lures;
their humming motors record
the poetry we are making.

II

The boat is quiet. Facial
expressions introduce one
another as we leave, the
whirling propellers singing
a song in the fading wake.

I don't know the words. Nobody
does.

III

Our mermaids have found
the fishing area. The captain
lets them go, watching them
fizz away as the air crackles.

Our eyes trace the outline
of the beasts belly, watching
the waves dip and rise as they
follow her curves.

We want to hunt

IV

We release phosphorous lures
onto her shallow skin, each one
giving off perfume as it races
towards her; her back arching
as she feels them coming.

As we lure her in, her bony net
slowly cracking from our poison,
I feel the sky cracking above
her heads; as if we had snatched
one of its young and the gods
wanted it back.

 

[Guest]

Hush you, those little pains
in crook elbow, forearm
in your chest are not a heart attack
That bruise that seems to never heal
isn't diabetes. Numbing in your lip, cheek
isn't a stroke

It is a panic, garden variety anxiety
nothing more, pure imagination
of a hypochondriac
(did you know that's white coat for:
pertaining to below the cartilage?)

You are too nervous man
worry too much about nothing
whatever happened to make you this way?

(Ya. We remember, don't we Doc)

The indecent 'incident' where super-ego did the splits
good went one way and bad stayed
left mired in black and blues and phobias
stuck with them
and everything they include
but thank you for leaving poetry too

What would you be without that?

 

[vampiredust]

look at her, old women cry
staring at the plastic girl
with peppermint clogs;

the peacock wrapped around
her shoulders twitching nervously
as she prepares to pluck it

I imagine she has a flock of them
in her attic. I want to her ask
her to give me a feather but

don't know how

 

[vampiredust]

untitled 17/06/06

Everything is singing today:
the number twelve bus howls
in the traffic jam behind

the queue of growling cars
as the bruised clouds start
to play their version of the blues

before dissipating as the sun
starts to beat his drum. Sandals
clap their tunes on the pavement;

I want to join in but no-one can
hear me sing.

 

[Guest]

Midnight blue, swirling in a haze
a smattering of irradiate moondust
All wrapping paper and trailing bows
this nighscape is designed for you

Right now, look at the one that peeks
between the clouds
green-hued
glittering in the velvet sky

Even the stars can be had with a price
(not really, it's a symbolic gesture)
a gift, yes
that one is yours and mine

 

[vampiredust]

Memories of Genova

Old women wash their
bones, hanging them
up on dirty washing
lines; forming puddles

on ancient pavements,
drawing a landscape of
what once was. A column
of marching cats follows

me as I walk down the
street, backs arched
like a hill as they spot a
rival legion. Stepping over

bloodied fur and smashed
eyes, I reach the sea. Picking
up a piece of black glass, I
suck up the memories of this city,

feeling its warmth even as I grow
colder

 

[Maria2394]

his love is flat

unfold me, I beg you shape me
into something resembling
something other than a person
folded, form me back into
that fluid that was me
that walking, talking being
that could speak and feel and see

unfold me, I tire of being nothing
but a scrap of tattered paper\
stuffed into that corner of your wallet
that you never open, never see

hold me, tell me that I matter
that theres something here to be
adored, abhorred or beaten
just unfold me!! give me back those two
dimensions that you stole from me

 

[Maria2394]

i bought a pineapple
that looks too much like a lady
her long neck diverges into a mess
of prickly hair and her dress I imagine
was purchased in some second hand store

and yet, as I contemplate her, I imagine
the down stroke of the largest knife
I own, carve her dress ino a kirt and she bleeds
the sweetest yellow juice, I say
t'was merely her fate, to lie
so beautifully, cored and sliced
upon my breakfast plate

 

[vampiredust]

A Self Portrait

Running my hands across
my face, I can feel my fathers
lines slowly beating through
the sod. Stopping only to taste

the air, he pushes faster and
faster through my skin, until
he is I and I am him. Looking
at my arms , I can see his cluster

of spots absorbing mine; new
stars gradually popping up, turning
me into his sky. My eyes are not
clear anymore. I can see his reflection

in the mirror, mouthing words I don't
want to understand. When I sleep,
I feel his heart beating next to mine -
an echo that wanes only when I am weak
and he is strong.

 

[wildsweetone]

Running my hands across
my face, I can feel my fathers
lines slowly beating through
the sod. Stopping only to taste

the air, he pushes faster and
faster through my skin, until
he is I and I am him. Looking
at my arms , I can see his cluster

of spots absorbing mine; new
stars gradually popping up, turning
me into his sky. My eyes are not
clear anymore. I can see his reflection

in the mirror, mouthing words I don't
want to understand. When I sleep,
I feel his heart beating next to mine -
an echo that wanes only when I am weak
and he is strong.

hip-shoot

His lines score the corner of my eyes, grey
temples and the wit that woos dreams
into the day. I don't walk like him - he walks
around puddles, dashes directly
to the door in a downpour, carries
her over the threshhold
and sets her down on a stool to peddle
her wares. I wade slowly
letting the rain erase the dirt
that settles on my skin.

 

[echoes_s]

for once I have actually found a movie, but think I am going to bed instead

White feathers dust breeze
Into dripping, clammy brawn
Of musky wetness
Clinging, saturated webs
White strands, slight sway
Under wing tip
Scents permeate and spray
In a thousand tiny particles
To hang and linger
Wet heavy grass, minced leaf
To dirt and mud
A hint of garlic for supper
Even the first faint garbage
Elicits spice
And the sudden heat
Engulfing
Fullness of male scent
Testosterone
Immediately swamping
All process
to feel the humidity from him
standing so close, so long
has it only been seconds?
You see the wet of his skin,
Even through his clothes
And wonder to slide a finger down
Bared skin
And rub it in
Nothing else matters