all of a sudden passion suddenly

[vampiredust]

Stalks

Mounds of lopped off corn stalks
stand like X's on the farm's map,
pale green slagheaps waiting to
be burnt later, or if their lucky,

fed to the animals. Spines broken
and chewed. No bones will ever
be buried here. There are no gas
chambers or shallow pits,

just the cold troughs sitting under
the sky. One by one they will fall
until there is a pile of leftover scrap,
those things we forget or deliberately

try to forget

 

[vampiredust]

Toolbox

It sits under the sink,
a rigid mouth stuffed with things
I will never use: old screws fat
as termites, washers, bent nails.

Nearly everything is coated
in paint. I won't be able to wash
it off, it has stayed on for too long
and besides, I like the look.

Rust will swallow all the remnants
whole. When I am old, I will look inside
and find nothing but rusted pieces,
lined up like the inside of my mouth.

 

[vampiredust]

goddess

I am top of her broad
mountain base
fingers slipping through me
like melted snow

and my crankshaft
will not turn as I look deep
into her universe
and see myself turning the wheels

of something bigger
She has no aroma no name no taste
but i feel her calling
not as i dream but as i live

 

[vampiredust]

Mushrooms

You are the earth's
silent weightlifters
a million eyes blindly fumbling
under layers of sod and concrete

spreading, lifting everything
we have created
We do not understand your mythology
you do not worship our witchcraft

No one hears you scream
as you are burnt
but you will be replaced by a billion more
tentacles

terrorists trample under your feet

 

[Maria2394]

scheme addicts

crushing, is the feeling of being
beneath the concrete and steel
of the buxom lady rising
from the dry edge
of the man-made dam,
there is always a certainty,
a two dimensional plan

the machines insist upon humming
they scream their electric
language as we expand
the structure from within itself

there is blood on galvanized skin
and sweat drips from her I-beam brows
I know her in an intimate way
she has held me between her
thick and sturdy middle, squeezed
the air from my lungs, the strength
from my female arms

most of us will return
untill she is wrapped and nearly molten
tentacles of four inch reach
from her belly to the main house
and she is born, in an odd way,
in an aching way
I am born too

 

[clutching_calliope]

Extinguishing the Operant

.....

 

[Tzara]

Falling Down Stairs

is like falling in love,
head over heels, bruised,
scraped, out of control.

It's usually quickly over.
You're lucky if
nothing's broken but

your ego (which
deserves it). You go
from high to low.

 

[vampiredust]

Daddy stank of diesel
as he emerged from underneath
the cars' belly, his face covered
in a black moth print.

He never wiped away the stains,
preferring to keep them on his
hands so he could watch them
nuzzle speckled skin.

And as the exhaust started leaking
again, I knew he wouldn't wipe off
dirt and grime. He still tries to coax
some out, trapped under fingernails

and woven cloth.

 

[TheRainMan]

Meathead


How the days passed I hardly know—
This much is clear: each invited
stupid little me
to go with it and learn something, to see
all that is beautiful beyond telling,
to wear the edges of my ignorance soft
on the dawn, to feel the slight racing
of a pulse as the fireball comes
round again and determine why,
or at the very least, if nothing else,
to notice and mourn the long descent
of the sun. And today, as I
and my life watch in late
and growing admiration, it again casts
us comically small—
I don’t want to be bigger
or smarter or fix
my mistakes. I’d only make new,
larger ones—I know the drill—
all I want is to be the same
dumb fool one more time,
to trip on the same sidewalk cracks,
to not know much
of much, to shield the same eyes
from light, to do it over and miss it all.

 

[clutching_calliope]

Whitewashing the Fence

.....

 

[TheRainMan]

The later days in August
should be given to bare feet in grass,
and the crisper Taber corn,
nectarines in cream,
and the last chapters of the three part

series started in May, not
to whitewashing the fence. Work
is what a boy is obliged to do
and I am most certainly
not.

i hear that Sawyer kid is available at a reasonable price.

 

[flyguy69]

::::::

 

[flyguy69]

:::::

 

[annaswirls]

another main sewn into my hair shirt
so much more agonizing in public
they tell me shhhh no
dont use your real name
dont use your plastic money here
dont let them see
but the fece can only go sohigh
anyway
and once someone gets in they can do what they want
unnoticed
so I put it here anyway, security council be damned

I am tired
my hands are arthritic
twisted in paralysis of self doubt
we clench in gipprocacy
stutter over double standards
where nothing has changed, three years later and still I think
fuck all the bimbos you want
but
save the best for me
always this greed
always finding myself in you
getting my own treatment played back
still I cnanot understand the whys of my reflection

not good enough

so kiss her ass sweetheart, in front of god and everybody
pucker up and suck it in
dont expect me to stick around and watch
smell her shit on your breath

I will never tell you this

 

[Tzara]

Lacerated

So complicated,
like how

when I bark my shin
on your mulishness

you'll rub cream
on the sore.

 

[Tzara]

General William Boost
Sings of Poetry in Heaven

(Pedal steel guitar plays softly in the background.)

A kingdom's glory have I seen
Washed in the blood of the ham
Where poems are simple, sweet, and clean
Washed in the blood of the ham
No feathered glories ply girl's thighs
Washed in the blood of the ham
No pompous words, no ether'd skies
Washed in the blood of the ham

(The pump organ joins in.)

We are washed, we are washed
We are washed in the blood of the ham
Our words cheer, are not cross
'Cause we're washed in the blood of the ham

We are washed, we are washed
We are washed in the blood of the ham
Not severe, merely dross
For we're sloshed on the blood of the ham

(Tacet. Boost addresses the arriving poets in a booming voice.)

I welcome all you tender poets
Whose heartfelt verse has strained to showeth
Your inner beauties. Those who are mean
Cannot enter here. They spin their schemes
In a foul place where they pick apart
Each other's verses, cruelly snark
On breaks of lines and faulty meter.
Here, I am just—the friendly greeter
Of your art. You're all fabulous.

Let us sing.

(Organ and chorus. Loudly and joyfully.)

We are washed, we are washed
We are washed in the blood of the ham
Our words cheer, are not cross
'Cause we're washed in the blood of the ham

We are washed, we are washed
We are washed in the blood of the ham
Not severe, merely dross
For we're sloshed on the blood of the ham

 

[annaswirls]

ohoh stop I cannot afford to fall in love
I am not clever enough to decipher your puzzles or
ride the classics onto my own shores the shipwreck
rests a few miles out
procrastination I am not patient enough to write a poem
before I write it
somewhere
back there
among Byran and Shelley and KEats there was a rose
and that rose was for everyone
who had the patience
and interest to find it there
if you play my poem backwards you find nothing

somewhere I got the idea that maybe life should write a poem
instead of the other way around
we invent each other

prepackaged never she tries to start a line
without I

I

I

but this is it, it is the writing into understanding
it is the solution in themiddle of the chalkdust
not copied from soem answer key in the back
proof


someone predicted these changes would bring new inspiration
but I am still waiting
for the fire ants to burn my skin into submission
I have some new proper nouins
Amarillo and San Antonio
and we are fixing to find our way

let me slap down some chain link conversation drive thru commerce
I throw down my silver to buy up seven rusted stars

what is the opposite of permafrost
?
god baby I cannot afford to fall in love,
I am too much the fool
too poor to spend my ttime polishing our egos
I brought the camera

 

[clutching_calliope]

.....

 

[cherries_on_snow]

The gods came down one day
and saw a man struggling
reminding himself over and over
of something, muttering.

One god says to the other
(there are only two, because
this is not that kind of poem)
that poor creature can't keep
everything he thinks inside
his head. He needs a way
to remind himself. (This was
millenia before the microchip.)
So they taught him to write
and he cried in his astonishment
and he danced in his merriment
and thanked the gods a thousand times
before writing

that fucking bitch is a fat old whore
forgoing the charcoal for pig's blood
because it stained the cave so noticably
and for so much longer.
The wonders of virtuosity!

 

[vampiredust]

Notting Hill Carnival

Astronauts wearing gilded helmets
dance alongside the floats

Policemen join in, jiving to steel
drums echoing a distant sun

you can smell sunlight here, not
merely feel it licking your skin

a marimba to forgotten generations
Brightly coloured peacocks dressed

as women strut their stuff, waving
to people in balconies. At the end

of the day, newspapers and burnt
mangoes are still dancing.

 

[vampiredust]

****

*******

 

[Maria2394]

chocolate haiku

fudge-striped breakfast
empty bag, cookie breath
naptime

 

[clutching_calliope]

staining marriage

.....

 

[vampiredust]

A love poem

you are poetry
electric, crackling
fire-blue

as your feet stamp
over atoms
breathing syllables

spilt from yellowed
lips

 

[Tzara]

Mars says please

don't remind me of that time
you held out loops of nylon

rope and softly murmured
sheet bend. I blushed,

but you only tied a knot
and then went on to bowline.