all of a sudden passion suddenly

[annaswirls]

i confess I only come to your door
to see the dress code
the requirements for entrance
I have no desire to come inside
only that you open up
invite me in
take my photograph and hang it there
next to Sen Sen the famous cat in the zip leather bag
with minuture versiouns of our best friends
and that college athlete yes his name sounds familiar
and that famous chin like Ryan ONeal and John Hall or was it Daryl Oats
I think their photo is up there too
god they loved your cheesesteak and rough rider bar stool humor
yes

I print out the guidelines
put my name on your menu
I cannot swallow any more verse
lord make me a carpenter

 

[annaswirls]

between the sttudy and dining room he forgets what he was eating
and asks for more cranberries
byt they are cherries and we make sure
t o let him know
he is wrong
because this is important
that the right words come out


and apparently the ants that have injected
their fire into my ankles are not fire ants
after all

fire ants kill deer
he said
and those horned toads that were really lizards, fire ants iklled them off too
so what are these? I ask
those are just ants
Just ants?
no way
welts swell and puss rises like a mound
of just ants poisioning our weekend


please do not take this as a complaint
there is a certain pride
in common suffering
we talk about the heat
and drought just to show
how tough we texas cacti really can be
lord I already got my tap root drilling deep in through the limestone
sister those killer bees were living right inside his walls
you know they could be anywhere
hook em hook em hook em right there
biggest tv in the western world
we watch from the highway
ssay damn it is hot
scorpion flexes his tail

 

[annaswirls]

we come together
mothers of the wounded
somewhere we all felt the slap
of the bragging rights smack us with injury
loss of limbs
it is confusing
to compare the depth of the wound?
the speed of progress?
the freak level of deforimity?
it all turns aroud to humor anyway
these are my favorite mothers
we just laught to keep from crying
confess the things we could be should be might have done
but just need a minute to speak of art
and furniture and no
I have not seen the news in weeks
is that your child eating dirt?
ha, must be- mine prefers sand
yes, and mine will only throw rocks
yes yes I did notice he plays Bach by ear
I did notice
lets not say it too loudly
because god knows hers has nothing
please pass the organic rice chips with sea salt please
everything has the color nature intended around here
no one noticed the dust

 

[annaswirls]

I want to write a poem
about how my grandfather ate the apple
all the way through the core
nothing left when he was done
well maybe the stem, we rae uncelar on that detail

it has to end


the seeds have poison
and you know why

 

[Vampiric_Mirage]

I know what you say happened
I remember it ever so distantly
a memory in black and white
a story told long ago
or maybe it was with someone else?

You think it should be clearer
it hasn't really been that long
but then you never did understand me
even then when I thought you knew everything
you never really knew me

I trust with all my heart
too quickly
too foolishly everyone says
and maybe that is true
but I am not without my defenses

You focus on the negative
those ancient hurts still haunt you
minor slights from anyone still sting
tainting happy memories
letting them become tarnished with your pain

Did we really do that together? Go there?
Probably yes.
But I don't remember it.
It's not that I didn't care
you know better than that.

I felt too much, too strongly
when we parted, when love went astray,
I had to cast aside the memories
good and bad
letting them blur together, fade away

Until they lost the power to hurt me
to make me cry
I still remember the emotions
the highs and the lows
but the incidents themselves were incidental


We sit here drinking coffee
pretending we didn't once love each other
then rip the other's heart out (in one way or another)
trying to be friends
haven't you ever wondered how we can do this?

For all my charades of innocence and oblivion
I'm not blind or naive
We all found ways to survive our pains
mine was to forget, to blur the memories
until whatever pain I felt became bearable

So no, I don't remember that event
although I won't deny that it occurred
hell, if I focus on the memories I can bring them all forth
spew them up like bile that burns my brain
and feel everything once again

Maybe I forget too much
maybe I delude myself
maybe I'm hurting myself more in the long run
but for now let me sip my drink
and pretend my life works for me a while longer...

 

[vampiredust]

Tightrope

They don't look human
from down here

just squiggles, something
doodled in between

performances. A spirit
level that slips

and
falls

 

[vampiredust]

Hale Bopp

We watched you dance
amongst waxwork stars,
a pale coloured bull
leaping through clouds

and hoops. Sometimes
you'd snort and white
fire would come out.
Every time you charged

you cut the sky, leaving
a glowing scar. We will
have a red curtain waiting
next time you visit, my bull.

 

[annaswirls]

I almost said
"will you be my valentine"
before reamembering the month

it is september
your women let the corners of their hearts
show
when they speak to me
the lace that you sewed on their hems
pretends to hide like the blush of feigned surprise

they make sure I see the names you invented just for them
they drop open covers to see if I recognize the numbers as yours
and I dont
I dont

we can pretend they do not exist
or we can admit they do
snip the sashes of purgatory
your fingerprints marked in the dust

this is not jealousy
this is inbreeding
so many skinnies to dip in one little pool
but this is not about fishing or pissing downstream
baby, I just want to know
will you be mine
suspend our disbelief and say it
Mine
Yours
for now
paint mine solid or dont paint it at all
folded into squares small enough for swallowing
just tell me to believe and I will
living and gone, we can send out our ghosts for pastries together
we can pick a place far away. surely they will get lost maybem eet someone interesting keep out from under while you take me
remind me again why we are here
solid and bent your hand supports my spine
feed me your evidence
love me blind

 

[Catalina Frisco]

the pussy offers her opinion on war

Maybe did you ever think, Im tired
of being the receptor of the sword
I want to be the one that marches
into battle guns drawn blazing
fear into every man who crosses
me, the pussy, hiding between
a womans legs, so soft, so sweet
so tender hearted,

I want to be hardened! I want to be
the general leading troops into battle
I deserve balls, I have earned them
putting up with invasion after invasion
ahh, the moist, the surrender
but wait! I cannot reminisce
not at a time like this, I must assert
my independance

step aside, you foul smelling flunkies
put your dicks back in their cases
time for a change in strategy
a new direction, a feminine erection
kill with kindness or fuck them
till theyre too tired to fight

 

[Catalina Frisco]

comme ce, comme ca

I am Jacks vagina, the one his mother
wouldnt give him when he was five
Youre a boy, boys have wankers
Darling, boys have wankers
but Jack wanted a vagina
so he waited until, at eighteeen
he had never masturbated
and he found a doctor in Miami
( with questionable certs to practice,
I might add)
but he was a doctor, nonetheless
and he cut Jacks little wanker off

Thats where I come in, I spose
Jack never heard the old saying,
its easire to make a pole
than a hole, and so he has this
thing there, like a scar
but not, and thats where I am
supposed to be, after reconstuctive
surgery, I am Jacks vagina,
the one his doctor wouldnt give
him, after he cuts Jacks lil wanker
off

and we are waiting for the day to come
when JAcks friend JIll can lube her pinky
and stick it in, make Jack squirm and cuss
wish I had something bigger, alas
NOW JAck understands
the importance of owning a good dildo

 

[vampiredust]

The Dive

We begin at dawn, swapping
our skins for rubber. Language
follows and adults turn deaf
and dumb as they are submerged,

signing only to indicate happiness
in our temporary womb. Men learn
to feel pregnant, carrying the weight
of several children on their backs.

Only the women can relax here,
listening to the sound of their babies
gargling. Someone is calling us in the
background, but we don't care anymore -

this is home

 

[cherries_on_snow]

It's true I'm doing his laundry today, I admit
to my friends majoring in Women's Studies (Masters)
but also I remind them he made coffee, rising first,
and he doesn't even drink it. So I wash
his clothes as he drives his mother to the hospital.
Duty is one of his ingredients.

It's true I'm emptying his pockets, but each time
I carefully hang his khakis, a smile plays
over my face at the memory of the root
I find within them each and every time I reach. None can
compare, not whispering magicians wearing straps
nor older grayer men who tempt, hands empty.
It's only him I'm cooking for tonight. Tomorrow
I'll wake in his arms plenty happy his poetry
is lived and never written, but through me.

 

[annaswirls]

similar to the old, "writing live" thread.
Poems written with no time restrictions but
complete ASAP, submitted and then regretted.
no copy pasted, no mushrooms on the pizza.
no rewriting!
Like life. It's sudden. It's all passion.

we do not even have tomato on our color list anymore


was it the pizza reference I wonder?
I wonder what I was doing on that day
02-23-2003, 01:33 PM
ten days after thirty five
down dog feet flat firm in the pre-prozac
delusion of reality that what I do somehow might cure
the slab of meat we were given

slice it with a knife
I wonder did you have a rolling pizza cutter
or serrated knife cutting the cardboard
who knew it would be important it isn't mine
I was not even born yet

 

[cherries_on_snow]

I knew a man once who worked at a hotel
and took a picture of every famous person that he met there
standing beside him, his arm behind them, pretending
that they were friends; maybe even pretending
they were intimate.

He sent all of these pictures to his brother
because he lived on brother's jealousy. He had no other
way of accepting love.

Similarly, another
man I know will whip his lover's jealousy
into a merengue for otherwise her passion
falls flat upon his palate. He can only
dance when all around him wail
the sad and pointless songs of furies.
Thus, he courteously offers kerchiefs, patting the mouth corners
of women he meets on sidwalks going nowhere
not to save them from embarassment
but to transfer the stain later
to his collar.

 

[wildsweetone]

sometimes its unpleasant

The room takes on a different hue
where edges blur
not from tears
waiting to pour, but pain
that grips the belly with claws

extended, inserted, ready
to rip the empty stomach
from its life source. Blood

pound heard in the mind
hurtles through veins
until walls turn black
and the mirror
reflects nothing

except the bitter bile
swallowed.

 

[tungtied2u]

Labor Day

Labor day is a misnomer
Braxton Hicks more appropriate
What once was a recognition and celebration
achieved through sweat, toil and solidarity
of miner's, factory workers, meat packers
living subsitence levels in tenement slums
leaving and returning in darkness
has been rendered a mockery
for those who truly deserve this day of rest
can no longer afford the luxury

We have the low wage jobs,
we have the working poor
we have the low income housing
(and the crime to accompany it)
we have labor pains
we have Labor day for real
every day

 

[vampiredust]

The Curvature of the Earth

Can you feel
gravity warping space-time:
twisting skulls, sod, plastic
bags, cinnamon coloured
shawls, fake seagulls,
the neighbours fence,
your best friends chevy?

It is just bubbles
popping in and out of things
we like to think we can see,
spaces in between stones.
Perhaps if I closed my eyes,
I can imagine myself stretched

A billion atoms
spread out everywhere

 

[vampiredust]

Photographer

Plan your shot. Ignore
anything not relevant.
Do not smile. Cry for
the camera

(It makes you look good)
Step away from flashlight
and open wide. Show me
your secrets

(Everyone will see them)
This will be in black and
white. No colour is needed
to tell your story.

 

[vampiredust]

You will feel like this one day, my son

Dinner is on the table
next to half eaten verse.
Ignore it. Stare at today's
slop and focus on me.

Talk about things
I won't care about. I'll be
gone tomorrow and you'll
stand above me, weeping.

That won't happen
but I see it in my dreams,
next to the digested remains
of you. Enjoy your dinner.

 

[vampiredust]

This poem doesn't have a title but there's a point in here somewhere

Electric scarecrows watch
packs of wolves and crows
invade rust coloured railway
lines. Eyes flicker, restless.

We will watch the footage
later on CRIMEWATCH,
bills debated and passed
in the Houses of Parliament

crucify these animals.
Some will be hung, furs stripped
and sold. Jobs will be created,
mothers rewarded.

Now what was I saying?

 

[bluerains]

This poem doesn't have a title but there's a point in here somewhere

Electric scarecrows watch
packs of wolves and crows
invade rust coloured railway
lines. Eyes flicker, restless.

We will watch the footage
later on CRIMEWATCH,
bills debated and passed
in the Houses of Parliament

crucify these animals.
Some will be hung, furs stripped
and sold. Jobs will be created,
mothers rewarded.

Now what was I saying?

what I see...is voltage to vein...from the beast sheep are fed...and the sheep in fear of losing the scarecrow..

 

[vampiredust]

Tatooist

Teenagers wait impatiently, eager
to swap their skin for a new, ink
coloured one. Some pick out a
dragon, others fairies.

Artists come out of their salon,
smiling. No one is sure what will
happen once they walk through
the curtains. The boys are eager

to become men, so they can buy
beer and smoke cigarettes. You
cannot hear them scream, they
will not allow you to think that.

 

[vampiredust]

weigh me down
with stones

so I can sink
to the bottom

of your metaphor
Don't pick up images

left over from my slag
heap

burn me

 

[vampiredust]

Love Letter

And I am here, watching words
scattered across empty streets
from your lips. I want to burn
every inch of that yellowness

they are scrawled on, so I won't
have to see myself stuffed again
and again. Pluck off everything
that's still left on me,

rip off my bones and bury them.
I am your scarecrow now. Let
me chase away everything you
will never see, never feel.

 

[annaswirls]

the truth is Ido not kno how this is supposed to make me feel

and that is the worst start to a confessional poem I have ever read

truth
I
know
feel

and it would not be so bad if it were just me gazing at my bellybutton lint
but to find myself naked hung, suspended from the clouds
my imperfect breasts dangling for their lover for the poets pens my thighs crossed and raised grass growing up all around me
and they come with their interpretations

see this is not expressing how it made me feel to find myself there on display
we are not together anymore, are we?
is that why you stopped asking permission?
no this is not modesty
it is shame
that the thrill runs so pure
especially when she referred to my thighs as her own

is it your fist between hers now?
god the thrill
the metaphor
her pulling your cock from between my legs
greedy birch I see my her fingers slipping down my slick memory

I guess the real ache will come when it is another's sex in your skyline

your photoshop montage stamped with unfamiliar female forms
is when I will try to snatch you back

still I keep wonderinf how I am supposed to feel about this
besides the returning desire to pose for you again
doll parts yeah just like coutrney sang doll parts

I want to move into soemthing new
I think I want you back