all of a sudden passion suddenly

[Maria2394]

google me not, (said jack)

for ~as

perhaps it was Jack
who gave Lecter the idea-
a post from the Ripper
describing his dinner,

half a kidney, soaked in wine

 

[Vampiric_Mirage]

a shower of overwhelming emotion
eroding all logic with it's tumultuous waves
revealing the lie I'm trying to hide
the secret I keep from myself

Did I not know the definition
was I confused by the word
when you said "casual"
so very long ago

Didn't I know this would happen
didn't I warn myself over and over again
why then couldn't I just turn away
leave you be like I should have

It's my own fault - you always spoke true
there were no lies between us
except now for the ones I refuse to believe
the ones that run down my face

We tell each other everything about this
whatever it is we have
yet this one thing I must not say
for fear I will lose it all

I wanted you to know everything
always said too much before
but if you knew this all would be lost
forever

so why do I type
bearing my pain to the world
do I hope you'll see this,
maybe somehow understand

don't I know better yet
or do I hope someone will show you, tell you
a mutual friend to us both
taking the choice from me

letting me escape my own cowardice
breaking me a little bit more

whatever the reason the words have escaped
a jumbled mess as always
meaningless in their silence
as they scream out your name

 

[Angeline]

All the sly and slick demurrals
and the metaphor of seas
where the ship strove down
to the depths of you or me
and the rats that swim or drown
when the watery truth
foams over sand. Blood
long sunk in the grainy past.

Daddy's ten years in the grave,
sixty years past U-boats,
but the war never ends,
just a new campaign,
the General tied to the prow
with a smile on her lips
like a proud Valkyrie
hides a sword in words,
says Please Love Me,
feed me time, feed me pride.

I lay in the bed with the tubes
of my veins pouring life
back to me. Do you see,
do you see what the dead
won't speak? Pip, pip
we go on when the battle
is won and the war
is a myth. Day dawns,
tide breaks and the soldier
peels off medals, tosses them
to the waves, swords
to ploughshares, swords
to pens.

 

[Tzara]

Maria seems like such a nice girl, but

she lives for pineapple, chopped and strafed
and left for dead, bleeding on her plate.



loved your poem the other day, Ms. M.

 

[Sara Crewe]

There are climbers here of every sort.

They hide their tails in kaki
capris but I know they pull
them out when no one’s looking
and use them to slap their neighbour
in the head to make it flat
enough to step on like a set of human stairs.

They search for a break
in the canopy of consumption
to win king of the castle and kiss
the queen but the sun plays
Sisyphus games and pulls the trees
higher every year in an escalator
of foliage that has no top
and if you ride too long
it will take you to the ground.

In the mornings we hear their primate
screams of frustration and watch them
jump in a blurred line that brings death.

It’s quiet then but for the birds
and no one wants to mention
that there were plenty of bananas
if only they had looked sideways
now and then.

 

[vampiredust]

Dyslexia Test

Look at the cards and write
what you see. Pizza. Tomato.
Sky. Plumbing. Examine
their images closely. Focus

on me, not on the tree outside;
that's not important. Ignore
the clouds closing the sky. No.
Let me check your symptoms:

migraines, memory loss, poor
co-ordination. What was I saying
earlier? focus on me, not on the words
outside. Don't listen to them

 

[vampiredust]

The Bee Keeper

Mother dresses like a beekeeper
everytime she does the washing
up. Donning her muslin veil and
wax gloves, she opens up a pair

of steel bee hives attached to
the sink; feeling the swarm of
liquid bees whoosh out,gnawing
on dirty cutlery and crockery

as she feeds them saturated
pollen. Sometimes they won't
return; forming a veil of mist
over her face as they leap over

her. Other times they'll follow
the scent of flowers growing
in the plumbing and plunge
into nothingness. No honey
will ever be made, that I know.

 

[vampiredust]

Rainbow Trout

It slipped through your
wooden fingers when
you held it in your arms,

writhing on the bank
before belly-flopping back
into the river, mouthing

curses in the wind. Your
skin never recovered after
that. Looking in the mirror,

you saw a thin layer of silver
slowly crawling on your cheeks,
exhaling like valves. Your feet

were glued together and all you
could do was hop into the bath,
floundering as the world dried up.

 

[vampiredust]

Miss Dog

Clouds of liquorice dust
filled the air as people
started to light up their
fairground delights. You

hated that, preferring
to gnaw on plastic chess
pieces or mouldy shakespeare
books. Shaking your mane

in disapproval, you crawled
to the kitchen; brewing tea
nobody would drink. Nobody
heard you howl, just patted

you on the head as your eyes
melted, watching the stars
play fetch over and over again.

 

[vampiredust]

Sacrifice

qué sacrificio

You'd say, expecting Jesus
to step down from the cross
and offer you his place. But

that would never do. There
would be no TV crews, no
audience to make clouds,

no make-up artists to cover
up the fake blood, no director
to film the play in grey;

no God to take you up, just
the silence pecking at your
body like crows

 

[vampiredust]

Charred poems came out of
your burnt lips as you spoke,
smoke from the dead sky
still lingering in the air. It

had reminded you of him,
so you climbed on a ladder
with a petrolcan and threw
a match over the dampened

sky, watching it scream as
you sat on the cornfields.
The Sun never forgave you
after that, poking you in the

eyes with its molten fingers;
lighting up the darkness with
his memories, an image branded
on your skull forever.

 

[clutching_calliope]

Beautiful Brave

.....

 

[Guest]

the wind howled
the trees danced
as I laid on the ground
spread out
making mud angels
squinting my eyes
when lightning struck
and Jesus cried
a small lake in the back yard
while mulberry's flew
like miniature ufo's
dropping out maddened aliens
beating my body
staining my clothes
leaving my cheeks
the color purple.

 

[Sara Crewe]

The Petals on the grass were chopped
into pink confetti by lawn mower blades.
They stop me and I stare at the spread
like it’s a puzzle spilled from its box.
My eyes move the pieces looking
for the whole but even when its put back
together in retrospect I leave it
to fall untouched into the present.
It’s not the same to give yourself
a rose. It’s like a pretty package
with no real present inside.
Why waste the nectar I think
and leave it for the bees.

 

[vampiredust]

The Audi in front of us
was playing 'Losing My Religion'
as I was making diving
symbols with my thumb
and forefinger. Everyone
was silent as we passed
news of disasters screaming
from the newsstands. I wanted
to let go and not hold my breath
as I dived deep down into those
places I had already seen once.

 

[vampiredust]

Friday afternoon with Mom

I watched the lampshade
in your bedroom hang like
an upside wedding cake,

hoping a fly would land on
it and nibble away at our
matrimony; distracting me

from the nebula spread out
like opened petals on your
left cheek, its hidden parts

waiting to explode and coat
me with more things I don't
want to hear, let alone see.

 

[vampiredust]

Your Landscape

I drew a beach with my finger
across your body, sculpting
polished hills with the sweat

that fell between your breasts.
You made the horizon with your
eyes and tongue, before we both

walked on the sand; listening to
the waves collapse in a sigh, one
after the other.

 

[Sara Crewe]

The dust billows behind the car
like a parachute in a game of tag
that no one wins till one covers
the other and everything is still.
The driver’s door slams the quiet
and even the night knows
that news delivered in the dark
is solemn and the crickets hush
with his first step. He is slow
in coming to the screen door
so I know despite my sleepiness
that he hasn’t come to get me
but to tell me she’s already gone.

I pretend to be asleep when he reaches
my room. Who needs to know
when or how if there is no chance
to say goodbye. When he leaves
I find comfort in crying to the wall.

 

[Guest]

For every sad thought,
there is a happy one.
How can one know peace
without turmoil?

All of us have our pain.
How better to deal with it
then write?
Emotions explode...

 

[flyguy69]

The Spill

::

It was the violation of her
that hurt, more than
the split pate, the spilt pail.
A betrayal of trust: her hand thrust
into his, the sparkling faith
in her face. Through the concussive ringing
in his skull he descried

her tumbled form, limbs akimbo, life
like water leaching into soil.
Perhaps he pursed his lips for her
one last time: a confession
of hubris, an apology.
In headstrong days he reigned

as king, the fetching
Jill at his side. He claimed heights where
few men dare, and found there a fountain
of wealth and wellness that overfilled
his bucket. He dipped
and was sated, yet dipped again and nursed

a growing pride, a smug denial
of lowly roots. His climb
was meteoric: a four-step metric
ascent, his affianced in iambic cadence
hand-in-hand. When she crowned him

water-bearer, savior it was easy
to lose sight of the hill and thrill instead
to the children singing
his glory, his story memorialized
in rhyme. But the weight of it: the diadem,

the legend, the sloshing pot, all
presaged the fall, and lo
he was brought down, his crown,
pail and helpmeet, too.

::

 

[Sara Crewe]

Today he didn’t come home
with a spelling test to sign.
He came with questions.
What happens to babies who die
inside their mothers? Are
there people in the ground
under grave stones? How does
it feel to be buried? Hand in hand
we walk in circles around my future
grave and even though I am there
he weeps for when he will walk
alone. He wants some answers

so we ease through them
carefully like a car on a Sunday
drive, moving slow enough
to take a look at the flowers, horses
and boats out on the water
but not long enough to linger
and see the weeds growing
in window boxes, recycling
bins full of beer bottles or needles
piercing the lake surface. He learns
enough to not get lost but not
so much that he hides at home.

I know sadness will find him someday.
I don’t need to show her where he lives.

 

[Maria2394]

his love letters printed out were more
that mere paper, yet I folded
them one by one into tiny squares
of indiscernable words

in a hurry to not look forward
and realize pain that has yet to exist
I folded the tiny sqaures even smaller
until there were no words, only dust

and I was the one who cast them aside
no longer his love iles on papaer
to deceive my gullible eyes

 

[Maria2394]

making progress by counting flowers

a silly proposition, I will not be there-
this realization just hit me, not me
there ever again, to count the seasons
of the daffodils
by
my
little
pond
because I am gone and I know them
with minds of their own, they will
bloom without me and missing them
is simply a waste of time

 

[clutching_calliope]

Xiamandung (Causeways, Spillways)

.....

 

[clutching_calliope]

Arguments With Myself Late at Night (Early Morning)

.....