all of a sudden passion suddenly

[vampiredust]

Scrawled near South Kensington Tube Station

Zoink, swerve. 52.
A random mobile number,
18 stages of man. Half
chewed safety sign. Swerve.

 

[vampiredust]

Found poems on bus 391

Earn up to £30 a week
with EMA if you
carry on learning after 16

Every week 2 women die
due to domestic violence.
Don't let your friend be 1
of them

Carry on learning

Bus drivers wanted
Earn up to £30 a week

Pirates of the Carribean 2 £5
Buy it for a fiver on the street
and you could be paying off
the people smugglers who brought
him here illegally.

DVD piracy costs too much -
carry on learning

 

[Guest]

What's this about not toeing
over the edge? Why is this a rule?
I don't know, but we set it

We step up to the line
so close, but not to the other side
It's an invisible wall. We press against it
forehead to forehead, touching glass

We mimic the others movement
hotter, we fog the window
Can you imagine how our condensation
would taste?

Licking the line; it's caged lust
the fear of what if
want for something more
but all we leave is our breath
sweat and come stains

 

[vampiredust]

Marine throwing hand grenade
(based on photo by Don McCullin (1968) )

He is a pitcher with perfect aim.
Observe it closely (not a man today
but a machine) as a rubberskinned
grenade is thrown at the other team,

exploding into a cloud of nail-grey
shrapnel. Everything stops to applaud:
ruined timbers, half broken boats,
burned out houses. Even a mustard

coloured sky has paused to find
the time to congratulate it. Freeze.
Spend an hour doing something else:
the laundry, hoover the house,

wash dishes. Anything. Ignore
the next couple of frames. You won't
see much - just a lens slowing down,
capturing humanity as it falls and burns.

 

[vampiredust]

This poem is dedicated to

no one in particular. But I lie.
No, these are words are for
my spitfire. She spins tricks
everytime I see her. I could

spend all day watching her
do loop-the-loop with words,
crafting them out of paint,
pie and cigarette ash.

Statues come alive when she
walks, blushing with every foot
step. Trees stop frowning.
Life is in a permanent state

of flux, caught between pause
and play. But that is the way
I want it. It is the only means
to record her in action.

 

[vampiredust]

Pin the tail on the donkey

that's it, take a few steps
to the left. No, we're not
cheating. That's uncle Jim's
foot. Don't touch that.

Come a little closer. Avoid
whacking the pinata, you
won't like what's inside.
Spin anti clockwise, nearly

there, nearly...nearly...
imagine you're in a minefield.
Crouch a little, plant your
flag. Open your eyes, if you can.

 

[Tzara]

Votes

I hope that I will never see
a vote that's lower than a three.

Those ones and twos are just too rude
and those who vote them really crude

and mean to us, who deserve more—
at the very least a four

and even that's too low. I thrive
only when my vote's a five.

If voting fives you cannot do
all I can say is I hate you.

 

[champagne1982]

Votes

I hope that I will never see
a vote that's lower than a three.

Those ones and twos are just too rude
and those who vote them really crude

and mean to us, who deserve more—
at the very least a four

and even that's too low. I thrive
only when my vote's a five.

If voting fives you cannot do
all I can say is I hate you.

To hate so strongly must really hurt
those ones who drag you through the dirt

when voting low takes away that "H's" red glow
then naught but bitterness you'll know

as the average of your masterpiece slips
and the place on the top list skips

down one hundred places off the list
I know dear poet you get the gist

of this rant and now, behave
the troll will haunt you to your grave

if you but let him bother you
he'll always rate your stuff a two

 

[vampiredust]

Ealing Broadway to St James's Park

There is a language here that I cannot
understand; spoken through dog eared
nettles on railway lines and old District
line trains, their red war paint peeling.

Listen carefully to paving slabs, feeling
words channeling underground through
sleepers and bustling crowds of Poles
and Somalis. Nobody admits to hearing

the sound here. It is a ghost hanging
around the tube station, waiting for its
time on unseen gallows. Perhaps if I walk
away from this place I will not see it,

just hear it in my dreams. A repeating loop
of memory resetting in my skull. Nothing
will remove its voice, not even the silence
between waking and forgetting.

 

[vampiredust]

Waking Hour

Life deconstructs itself, atom-by-atom,
in the hours between twilight and dawn.
The only revellers here are stars, watching
animals sneak out of safehouses.

It is their time now. We are only an audience
here. Stories are told, mythology reenacted
and retold. Streetlights, hooded watchmen,
watch over the stage as acts come and go.

There is no insulation from interference,
no policemen or vigilantes. Night cannot protect
its young as clouds crash the scene,
light breaking through gaps with electromagnetic

crowbars. The young are burnt, shifting colour
quicker than a chameleon as they are seized.
Refugees escape through holes in the atmosphere,
a zoo of immortals on a resetting ark.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Votes

I hope that I will never see
a vote that's lower than a three.

Those ones and twos are just too rude
and those who vote them really crude

and mean to us, who deserve more—
at the very least a four

and even that's too low. I thrive
only when my vote's a five.

If voting fives you cannot do
all I can say is I hate you.

Wow. This is so unlike your usual stuff, Tzara. Makes me wonder what's up.

The voting is a game: an unregulated popularity contest and nothing more.

In the stories section, one may get enough votes to be even slightly an indicator of popular opinion. In the poetry voting, one person who is peeved or sucking up can entirely alter a score. It took me 5 months to get 10 votes on one of my first submitted poems (Lover's Hips). If I piss off 4 people (and I'm sure i've done more than that just by saying true things noone wanted to hear) then does a 3 average mean the poem sucks? no. And if I made a lot of friends by saying nothing but what people wanted to hear, would a 4.5 mean that the poem is amazing? no.

I hate noone. But I do know that this place is cliquish. Most places are. And it is human nature to prove our loyalties to one another by slighting and laughing at strangers. I try to avoid that and it is pretty easy for me, being, as I am, odd duck out. Maybe if I were in a clique I'd be just as ugly to people. Who knows?

Best wishes as ever,
C.o.S.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Scrawled near South Kensington Tube Station

Zoink, swerve. 52.
A random mobile number,
18 stages of man. Half
chewed safety sign. Swerve.

scrawled in a subway station in silver marker

you call me crazy but
god calls me blessed

(smiled when I saw that and wondered if the pee on the sidewalk was blessed too)

 

[vampiredust]

This frontier needs heroes

I'm sitting here having a conversation
with silence, listening to the cafe's

ceiling fan imitating a train. People
are frozen for a second as I look

at her, caught in that place between
here and there. It's only me and her

lightning stained eyes. We could
be anywhere right now but this will do.

And somewhere in the distance, a fly
is caught in the radio, tuning static

into silence.

 

[vampiredust]

Pilgrim

A carousel of rain greets us as Father
scouts for Chaucer's map in the mud.
We are lost and have only medieval
words to guide us. But we don't need

a compass or the sun because Chaucer's
directions are somewhere in this landscape.
Listen carefully, he says, you can hear them
beating under rock and roots. But I can't.

Using fingers as a trowel, he digs. Nothing.
Rain starts pecking nearby fields but he is still
digging, hoping to find the bones of God.
Forget Chaucer, eyes say, this is the issue.

Clutching the map like a holy relic, I smile
and start praying. We are both pilgrims today.

 

[annaswirls]

he tells us of their day
carnival sweet candy
floss stickiness between intertwined fingers
there must have been a prize for fallen pins
over stuffed over sized
surely helps them sleep alone

I lie
tell him there is not too much pastel in his stories

they are digging a hole outside atlanta
I see from the sky
where their precious red clay soil stops

"ow! you are hurting me"
sorry sorry baby he kisses her forehead,
loosens his grip on her strawberry blonde
the landing burns the rubber from our tires

 

[annaswirls]

he should have run
when I asked him to promise me
an endless supply of puppies
fifteen years later
we turn three times before
falling asleep

he ignores the jingle of metal tags
I make sure this one
has had all his shots

 

[annaswirls]

"she being brand new"

for god's sake Jimmy
whatever you do
don't Sharpie your name on the bottom of my foot

it is Christmas day I am newly opened
pull my string seventeen times you will see
it all repeats itself sooner or later
undress me yes I have all lifelike parts
dissect and hot wire my circuit boards
but dont lose my parts Jmmy
Spring always comes soon my darling
leave me whole
dont make marks
pass me on

 

[vampiredust]

Rain Dogs

I'm sitting here watching a pack
of rain dogs chasing through

clouds, splitting up whiteness
with grey. You would have liked

this scene, comparing it to life's
daily metaphors. But you are not

here and all I can imagine are rain
drops clouding up on windowsills,

each one uttering your name.

 

[vampiredust]

What colour are black holes?

We came to watch the theatre
of air, eyes gawping at hot air
balloons fat as inflated silk stomachs
and planes imitating the paper

aeroplanes we used to throw.
Nobody ever paid attention
to announcements or warnings
made by weathermen. Fun is king.

The first time I noticed it (I never
knew its name at the time)
was when he stood in a mock up
of a wind tunnel. Lips started

melting, even though it was off.
Fat and skin started slurping on
each other, slowly being pulled
into the nothingness eating him.

And all I had left was a single
eye, black as that which ate him.

 

[vampiredust]

Waxwork Taxi

I'm listening to boats bobbing
on radio waves, watching

the French man in front of me
(he has a Hitler moustache)

teasing the man behind him
with fake kisses and megaphone

lips. He hasn't noticed his wife
whispering fuck me to the other

guy with her eyelashes. Yet.

 

[vampiredust]

Tags

You are masters of cryptography,
hiding messages under languages

most of us cannot understand.
Sometimes you suffer, cut off

from your host and dumped
in incinerators. But still you stay

hidden, under places we ignore.

 

[vampiredust]

Unzip

that place. Do it gently,
don't rush. Focus. Place
your hand there. Move
slowly. Unzip.

Start over

 

[vampiredust]

That O Moment

I thought I saw a star
near her clitoris

light shimmering between
the labia and opened

lips. Perhaps I was imagining
things but light hummed

flittered its wings between
darkness dripping thick

and slow - forbidden molasses
for the sinners.

 

[RedHairedandFriendly]

Get off the international highway if you don’t like the
curves and the bumps
Don’t stand there waiting for the Yield sign to trip you up
and take you where the grass is greener on the other side

If you aren’t enjoying the view, switch the channel,
unplug the speaker, push the off button and go for a walk.
See something on the beach that makes you shake your head
in disgust?
Cover your eyes baby, it’s a free world
and we’re all here for the ride.

Don’t walk or run, just skip yourself out until
you sit on the right hand of God
and you have a stone you are worthy to throw

Watch out for your house
It's made of glass. . .

 

[Tzara]

Rur·al

I am
in no
way, well,
opposed
to your

position,
senator,

I just
want to
think it
out more.
OK?