all of a sudden passion suddenly

[clutching_calliope]

Afterbirth

.....

 

[flyguy69]

Why Flames have Edges

::

Niels Bohr taught me I can't exist
anywhere but here

.............................or here,

and inbetween is no-man's land, neither
in nor out, right nor
wrong. What are we? Lovers?
Friends? Star-crossed crazy
adreneline junkies? And so I follow
quantum laws that keep me
from you, but with every touch I leap
orbit to orbit and shed
fierce light, caught
in your strong force.

::

 

[vampiredust]

Watching a tramp take Daffodils in Hyde Park

I watched him snatch the stars
from the park. Ripping up their
roots, he stuffed the yellow
bulbs in his tatty jacket. I could

see them blinking an SOS in his
pocket, hoping someone would
plant them back in the sod. But
you didn't believe me when I told

you about what he did, preferring
to concentrate on sending smoke
signals to the other men in the park;
I could see the lightbulb inside your

ribcage dimming, as if your own wires
had been tampered with and you could
only see the world without sunlight; seeing
the glass stars slowly cracking.

 

[vampiredust]

The Dead TV's

On the way to Kentish Town
we passed a couple of cracked
open TV sets, their brains exposed

on the empty pavement. No flies
landed on the flesh to lay their
eggs, nor no rats came to chew

through the fibrous hemispheres.
Their last messages was carried
only through the wind; an SOS

bleeping through the infra red
remote, slowly fading like the last
of the summer weather.

 

[vampiredust]

Near Camden Town Lock

We jostle our way through
the crowd of Japanese punks
and kids dressed in fake leather
skirts and peacock masks, trying

to get to the other side of the
road. Songs by unknown groups
explode from shops selling dog
collars for the under fives. Men

with military tattoos and pretenders
with washable designs drink beer in
pubs next to the canal. It is empty
and the canal boats sit moored up

at the other end, waiting to be let
out. I imagine them taking photos
of the fading sights as they go along
hoping they will still be there tomorrow.

 

[vampiredust]

Long Island Tea

A shotgun explodes
on the horizon, clouds
scattering like birds

as the nest of lead
spills on to the sidewalk,
coating it in a suit of grey.

A housewife nearby is making
long island tea, mixing the ice
cubes with whisky, ignoring

the splinters of rain that are
falling, cutting everything
with its poems.

 

[duckiesmut]

This isn’t that sky-bright Sante Fe
cafe, open-air rooms painted
sun yellow, brick red-

you won’t have salsa omelets
and Coronas for breakfast,
steal each others’ limes
for an afternoon
in your backyard swing.

Her sunburn peeled
and faded twenty
years ago, and your beard
is as gray as her business suit.

All that’s left
is to sign
the papers.

 

[Maria2394]

Even tramps need flowers
if nothing more thna a reminder
of things soft and clean
and clinging to hope
imagine peeking inside his pockets
crusted with dirt and time, and
somehow those bulbs take root
and spring to life through the lining
would you call the tramp a thief
or would be be a sort of urn
undoing nature and nature
in turn, using him as it's lifeline

 

[flyguy69]

Tension

::::::

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Stabbing

.....

 

[Sara Crewe]

Christening

Glass breaks into bubbles
and shards for someone’s sea-glass
jar. Champagne fingers stretch
down her side only to be swallowed
by the river without a taste.
Most days she’s cool to touch
but today she’s been bathing
in the sun, waiting for him
to take her away from the calm
of muddy shallows and steer her
into the rapids, bend her
over rocks until she feels
like she might break
but doesn’t care and pushes
herself further and deeper
into the current with him
until she has forgotten
where they came from
doesn’t care where they are
going and is calling on god
and Jesus. Not to save them
just to leave a message
that they may not be coming
back any time soon.

 

[vampiredust]

Sunburnt

I plucked the stars off
your back last summer,
watched them fall and
burst like swollen fruit;

covering the sand with
their boiling juice. You
never could resist the
sun, you were always

lured to step outside
onto the balcony and
bronze your zinc coloured
skin, even though it

would shoot arrows at
you; knowing you had
no armour but the night.

 

[vampiredust]

You found a nest of mice
once. Hearing the sound
of squealing in a kitchen
cupboard, you found them

huddled in chewed newspaper
and wire. You had no electricity
then and couldn't electrocute
them, so you choked them with

your hands; feeling them swallow
the darkness.

 

[RhymeFairy]

dark passion has ridden
my coattails. flown through
power keg skies, beside
inside me. showered with
my burn, as it branded
every muscle
and skidded across my
molten skin. this poetic
passion whispers to me, in
the red darkness, then
kisses me thoroughly
with bolts of crackling
pops till I am
nothing but a wreckage
torn asunder
thrown overboard into
the murky depths.
leaving nothing but
ashed flesh and singed
bones ...

 

[vampiredust]

Watching a man doing tai chi in St James's church gardens, Clerkenwell

Sculptures of silhouettes
watch open palms swirl
in the morning light, jabbing
at the warm air like a tiger
attacking its prey. Silence
watches, waiting to attack.

There will be no retreat.

 

[vampiredust]

The Three Kings, Clerkenwell Green, London

Two ship figureheads
stand like Aztec gods
on the pub roof; one
clutching a roulette
wheel, the other a pink
dice. An old woman tuts
at them as she goes
into the church opposite,
praying for her numbers
to come up. Nobody will
win today, that I know.

 

[vampiredust]

Clerkenwell Road, London

Crumpled traffic cones
lie like pieces of shrapnel
in the road, next to a column
of unused gas bottles standing
like unexploded V2's. There
was a war here, that I know;
I can see it in the graffitti scrawled
on the walls and in the air, screaming
its poetry at me as I walk by.

 

[vampiredust]

St Peter's Italian Church, Clerkenwell Road

The painted clock on an old
building in Hatton Cross starts
to melt as we start to approach
the church, the old women checking

me out as we walk past Italian deli's
and cafes filled with relics from our
homeland. A woman stands outside
the doors offering lottery tickets. I

don't understand the details, so I smile
and say grazie, the only word that I
really know here. Dodging past people
I will forget, I light up some electric

candles and say my silent prayer. Mother
smiles as we leave, knowing it has already
been answered. Crossing the road, I can
still feel Jesus in my head.

 

[Maria2394]

Thor visits with smacks of his hammer
and I crave German men, and those
of somewhat Nordic dscent
with stark green eyes and muscles
flexing, coaxing, luring gullible maidens
with testosterone laden sentences
that always begin with "come"

 

[vampiredust]

Break up

unopened love poems
sit like unexploded V2's
on the desk

now I know
what fire finally tastes like

 

[cherries_on_snow]

You are the cat I try to walk when I am
misguided by good intention.
Your name is the true discovered word I breathe
and you correct my pronunciation.
Your tastes are the cherished dish I offer
and you slather it in ketchup.

I give up.

No amount of love
no amount of praise
no amount of respect
no amount of care

can win your gaze, your most
temporary favour.

If my hand is still open
it is only because
there is nothing here
to fill it.

 

[vampiredust]

On Damien Hirst's latest exhibit

The bakelite baby plunges
out of its plastic womb.

Tasting the air, it returns

 

[champagne1982]

How many versions of this am I going to play,
rewind, fast forward back to the mark
where I 'met you? Stopping short of the ugly
time when we learned of bitter future fear.

You call me brave as I face the choice
of a time when I might wander farther
than either of us has been, alone.
This is not suicide and of course I choose

to take the chance that the light I see
will be at this end of the garden,
where you tend the sprouts which push
through the earth that we have planted.

Hopes and joys nourish our roots and sunshine
warms our hands when we join together, folded,
entwined as vines bind our palms fast. Together
without witness other than our garden. The fruit
we harvest stays fresh as long as love grows.

 

[Maria2394]

conscious suffocation

how does it feel to die
a little at a time, like oxygen
being squeezed from alveoli?

I will tell you, it is decompression
utter despair and outright depression,
the loss of emotional hemoglobin
to my each and every cell

my brain is awake, just barely
the heart is struggling, its sinus
rhythm caught and pulled
into bradycardic arrythmia

I'd just as soon be slaughtered
(by a pack of starving wolves)
than keep on breathing this empty air
without you to keep me sane

 

[Guest]

************