all of a sudden passion suddenly

[vampiredust]

Building a boat mould

Hands lay fingers
on frame. Hands

fall frame onto
fingers. Frame

breaks. Fingers
stay in shape.

The job is done

 

[vampiredust]

Trailers

Trailers drag forests
onto ghost-lit roads

feeling the roads
taunt forests as they

drive past ghosts
standing tall as lightning.

Only the forests remain
as they emerge from

night.

 

[vampiredust]

Leo

Cat plays with
night. Night bites

cat. Meow hisses
night. Cat leaps

as night asks stars
to throw stones

at the hissing cat.
A constellation is

born

 

[flyguy69]

There are certain letters
I was told to be careful around. Ones
that will prick
your finger,

ones that will rob you blind, ones
you may fall hard for
and make them useless by the over
usage. J, especially.

Even Atwood recognized
its fishhookiness
into an open eye. K

when said pizzicato, ‘kay,
ends all argument as well as ‘fine.
Subversive q cloaked
with partners; the spy

at the cocktail affair. The sometimes y
will always lead to more
and more y
like chasing a footnote,

like looking backwards. Fruitless,
really. But vowels, I’m told,
are the most dangerous beings.

Those that are i,
those that are u.

C seems so innocuous, a slow roll
of the pen, a mouth opened
for a kiss. It draws you in, says
trace my curves
with your finger, feel
my weight in your palm. And before
you know it you've brought it
to your lips, wrapped your
soft mouth around
its welcome, fumbling buttons
as your breath grows
short. But this poet's
no fool, she knows
what you need. She peels back
her verse to reveal
a pair of C's that will weaken
a grown man's knees.



This is exceptional, Calli!
Spit and polish it baby!

can one have an alphabet fetish?

 

[4degrees]

symmetery of division
four equal parts defining
a total worth, my wait,
in gold is never in vain;
apocolyptic annunciacions
say it over again
this thing is
as big as its ever been
every door that closes
opens into a porthole
inside a hot bleeding beating heart
don't not start
paralysis calls the buzzards
from afar i see bones picked clean
luckily,
i still have you thumping
in my hand.

 

[vampiredust]

We descend into the ghostlit
lung, following our guides
torchlight scrambling like a
bat across moist walls. I can

feel her breathing, every breath
creating new sculptures on
the cavern walls. She senses
us coming closer as we duck

our heads and become babies
for a second, crawling along
the tight passageways to see
her artwork. It is cold here and

we huddle in our plastic wings,
listening to things we will forget
in the morning. Cameras flash
but she doesn't like it, the feint

rumble filling the air with every
blink. And as we start to leave,
I imagine her slamming the steel
doors at the entrance shut.

I want to be her prisoner so I
can sleep in her womb tonight,
where I can hear only the earth
singing me a lullaby. No one would
mind, of this I'm sure.

 

[clutching_calliope]

Goodfellas

.....

 

[clutching_calliope]

.....

 

[RhymeFairy]

free thoughts leave me
numb, from pounding jack
hammers jump jacking
in my mind.

eyes criss cross like a rope
jumped to high, light footed
head screams for mercy, blinks
with the releasing of nonexistent
tears.

stomach gurgles, playing race
track mania. no indy five hundred
just a zero to sixty convulsion
of will it come around again
with the waving of the red
flag, or pass on by to visit
mr tidy bowl man.

ears catch every sound
making those hammers blast
faster, tongue thickens
while goose pimples continue
to rise.

just give me a dark room.
no light, no sound, no movement
of any kind. read my last rights
whisper them monotone low.
for this lil fairy is down
for the count. no passing go
no collecting two hundred dollars ...

 

[Tzara]

Confessions of an Adirondack Chair

I am a deck chair, set unsurprisingly
on a deck, hopeful and waiting
for someone's feathery, or not so, ass
to sit
on me.

That
is not
the happiest prospect in the world.
Unless, of course, it is a girl whose
gluteus are nicely shaped to settle into

shifty
comfort
on me.

 

[clutching_calliope]

.....

 

[clutching_calliope]

Monkey Tooth No. 46

.....

 

[annaswirls]

he tells me
no
not trying to outdo myself
just trying to not come undone
I keep my breath and sentences short
monosyllabic
my trorusers loose

motherfucker motherfucker
this is the game
the draw to a point
that scratch of sharpened plaster
down my thigh

I send the message
motherfucker
I dont want you
I am in love cant you see cant you see
you show public roses skywriters for her
but we all feel it
the sound of self struggle self
I pull the strings tight
blue tip fingers
numb numb dont be ashamed
we take turns on knees
and brushing them off before someone sees
i cant stop lord this pull towards you
also draws me back
to home
god I hate you
pull the elastic tight
tell me when did you know
does the profile show
you send me single words and I chew all week

 

[vampiredust]

Trappings

Mother snips the boxes
foreskin off and we bury
our hands in its belly,
sifting through polystyrene

guts to get to its plastic
skull. Carefully lifting off
the foam cage, we put it
on the table; nobody hearing

it murmur as I unwind its tail,
flicking off the denture
covering. Packing away the
guts, we do not hear it speak,

our mouths full with its plastic
trap. And as we turn blue, we
slowly decompose. Recycling
was never made for our race.

 

[vampiredust]

The Glassblower

I watched him exhale
the ghosts buried in
his lungs, burning their
bellies as they slowly

squeezed out, emerging
with a silent pop in this
life. He started to shape
them, not in his image,

but in things he had never
seen before: swans, bears
and stars, each one tinged
with his poetry.

 

[Guest]

I read something else
instead of, all of a sudden passion

then it did happen, passion suddenly

tears stung and rolled
worries of "what if" went with it
Maybe I can do
without the weight fears

It's too heavy, I've realized
letting it go, will let it fall away
because today, all things are possible

 

[vampiredust]

Iraq sneezed all over America
who was busy bathing in the
Euphrates with a couple of
goats and an Iranian. It wiped

off its goo, which promptly
landed in the Holy Land. They
had asked for many things in
the Wailing Wall. Snot from a

herd of 250 million elephants
wasn't one of them. As they
started clearing away the rubble,
prayers fell from the neighbours,

each one piercing the stars as
they lit up their heads and burnt
out their minds. The elephants
had started moving.

 

[bluerains]

Iraq sneezed all over America
who was busy bathing in the
Euphrates with a couple of
goats and an Iranian. It wiped

off its goo, which promptly
landed in the Holy Land. They
had asked for many things in
the Wailing Wall. Snot from a

herd of 250 million elephants
wasn't one of them. As they
started clearing away the rubble,
prayers fell from the neighbours,

each one piercing the stars as
they lit up their heads and burnt
out their minds. The elephants
had started moving.

sounds like sheep herders to me..did I get the snot stuff...

 

[clutching_calliope]

Movie-cinema, Friday Evening Fare

.....

 

[RhymeFairy]

I read his poem
you know the one, about a bag
of goodies and licking sighs.

Would that be from smiling lips?
Smiling, because she finally got it
one kiss, a taste of him
her godlike muse who has run amuck
on the poetry field, chased every dream
with slicked back hair and his
oh so charming grin. Yes, he is smirking
a smile. Finally, he pinched a piece of
his favorite female and liked it
liked it a lot ... "sigh"

 

[vampiredust]

Swimming Lesson

I held onto the bar, with
inflated nappies wrapped
around my wrists and ankles.
I wanted to sink so I did

not have to kick, cutting
the water with my legs.
But they held onto me and
I cycled the water around

me on my bicycle until my
legs were made out of foam
and I could feel only the lights
watching me. But that never

happened. I could never let
go of the bar, nor shed those
weights from my arms. I held
onto them as I slept. Still do.

 

[annaswirls]

things to do
today

write that poem you have always wanted to write
always at least since last night
stuck in the glue of guilt sleepless feet
each with half a heart to run
half a mind to open
wide and forget prayers and promises
forget that John Denver already wrote that line somewhere
in your childhood she played that song
Mother never admits to loving anyone
not even him who she obviously felt moved
you heard her solid song break
during Annie's song when he sang
"she's getting ready to fly"
and looked for signs of spring while braiding three stitched tubes of used cloth
into an oval rug and when he fell from the sky
we asked her aren't you sad Mama?
he is gone! he is gone!
and she said
why would I be sad
I never even knew him
You can't love what you do not know
and I knew that day that she was wrong
and how sad she really seemed to believe it

things to do today
write that poem
about wonder woman
why her jet bothers to be invisible
you could still see her there
in a sitting position upright
proud pretending it was all under her power
the soar and superspeed swoop with nothing but the air
to hold onto

 

[champagne1982]

It seems idyllic to rest against the hill
on the soft grass as the clouds above
climb chimneys to explode with the wind
aloft miles high to tempt the eagles

Come soar in lazy circles here in beams
of sunlit sky some call stairways up
to heaven and the warm rays of golden
promise touch the earth Come fly away!

If I but had eagle's wings to sail on airy
whispers as they lift me up and carry
me to heaven on that stair I'd choose
to stay bound to this place with you

in all the rain that falls and doubts shared
on this hill and in this grass as we watch
the release of beings on the climb toward
Heaven's Gate and the golden warmth beyond.

 

[vampiredust]

Poetry Reading

Every part of him was a god-driven
equation. But he never believed
that as he sat slumped like a half
dead donkey on the stool, exhaling

his words. But they were not his
own. As he started to speak, the
reborn trojans left his mouth, causing
every syllable to stammer. He had

never visited the poets' grave. Never
kissed his mother and offered her
condolences. He had seen his words
in a printed obituary and plucked

them, stuffing them in the bowels of
his journal. But now they have left,
each one pecking his cheeks blood
red as they strip his body clean.

No one in the audience laughs

 

[Maria2394]

interaction, storm and pine

for three months, there was shade
then lightning struck the pine
with the double trunk, by our bedroom window.
It existed, exposing the scars
imposed upon it's body. Jagged lines
from thinnest tip to root

the tree
was felled yesteday
by men with chainsaws and heavy boots
and the sparkleberry also fell
victim to logistics in the felling of the pine
and the shade was sucked screaming
into the steamy ground