all of a sudden passion suddenly

[vampiredust]

There should be an aeroplane passing any moment now


I'm thinking, watching a group
of boys launch themselves

from the bridge into the river.
Rockets dressed in bathing

shorts and razor-cut T-shirts.
Some lie on their backs, eyes

fixed on our boat as we cruise
past. This is their spot. Papa's

mouth accelerates. Need something,
anything, to drown out the green

bile coming out of the exhausts.

 

[vampiredust]

Addiction

I swallow my grenade children whole,
gulping every time one rattles
down my throat into that place

I like to keep secret. Sometimes
I pretend it's coin operated
and swallow pennies, bucketfuls

at a time. They digest easily
thanks to isotopes hidden in its walls,
coming out only to feed.

And then, when I dream,
they start chewing on places locked
away in my skull.

 

[vampiredust]

Watching yachts anchored in Portofino at night

Pearl-lit fish fight turbine
skulls, fins anchored

in a slowly setting sea.
Some stay still and wait,

others float away, ignored
by stars tattooed on its

surface.

 

[vampiredust]

Russell & Chapple, Drury Lane

This is where our landscapes start
to divide. You are only interested
in the canvas, acres of crumpled
milk coloured skin.

I am only here to stare at paint:
saffron yellow, turmeric orange,
bitumen black. Bottles of linseed
oil, clear as runny honey,

entice me here. But you are not
interested. Running a finger along
a piece of freshly cut skin, you
ask how much?

The silence between our mountains
has started popping the bubblewrap
but no one has told you yet.

 

[clutching_calliope]

Single Size Serving

......

 

[champagne1982]

dessert

creme brule has nothin' on you
when you melt beneath my lips

the silken flow of sugared
custard can't come close
to tasting caramel candy

floating on a creamy cloud
and falling through honey
into a spun sweet net

 

[vampiredust]

Momentum

This poem is a particle gathering momentum
as it increases in speed. I am not sure where
exactly it will end, what it will collide with
or if it will explode. Perhaps it will turn two

dimensional and end up as a pack of cards.
Or if its feeling creative, a parrot. It could
flap paper wings and nosedive as they catch
alight. But that would be no fun.

Wouldn't it be great if for a second, inertia
would leave and it could be alone, watching
life paused. There is everything it needs
in that glimpse of the life beyond.

 

[vampiredust]

Future (v2.0)

For Najwa
​

The first time he said I divorce you,
skies turner blacker than a hajib.
Somebody, somewhere interpreted
this as a sign. A dampening of your aura.

The second time, it started raining.
But all the gypsies were busy dealing
with immigration and had no time
to see you crying at the bottom

of a tea cup. Nobody cast your cards
that day. Even astrologers ignored
your sign, giving you a seven.
And then, on the third time, it changed.

Voodoo stopped working. Pins fell
out of dolls, poison turned neutral
and astrologers couldn't actually predict
your future. Cards never fell.

And you were there, watching an eclipse
holding the words I divorce you, I divorce you,
I divorce you, close to your chest.
The gods smiled that day, but only you could see.

 

[Guest]

This isn't a poem, blather really
but it's still in my head, bothering.
Got to dump it to get rid of it.

It's an aching sore,
an infected hangnail on every return.

I can't leave it alone
pull on it, remembering
when this place use to be fun.

Angeline use to write jazz here,
about old guys I've never heard of
but wanted to know.

I'd watch Lauren slip on ultra violet naughty
after a time in white crisp cotton
and year end sexy santa suit.

Sexy legs, boots kicked up high.
God. I always wanted a peek-a-boo peep
under Seattle's skirt
Anna, I still write poems 4 you.

What I remember, what I wish:

Icingsugar and his Linbido
Cordelia seething. Judo. Tristesse.
Mythos Poets, Thank You
I read your stuff. freehawk. darkmaas

Banter, teasing monkeys. Tara.
About flyguy. vampiredust
champange 19 eight two. Boo.
Four degrees of 2 hot, perks panties.
RhymMmmme Fairy. Charley.

Zero rule Tzara, The Fool's cigars
wished we all could b Liars
Belegon and Imp. Remec.
Maria number's and her frogs
clutching calliope. bluerains.

Wooden OT, eagle yezzzz
karmadog and Deep Asleep and saldne
Rybka's Butterfly }{ Boots
LeBroz. tt2u. The Mutt and his Miss Oatlash

Wild you're a sweet one.
Pat Carrington and his Rain Man.
Eve's dildos and a tit fuck
Mr 4 hour hardon.
arienett and Miss Jett

smithpeter, YDD you have peace
jim : ) Guru ji 1201
tail, tale, trail find zen

Dumped. That's it.
Now my finger bleeds.

 

[champagne1982]

A Note To Casanova

I'd spend all my night times in Starbucks
throwing paper napkins your way
to keep you hot and sweet
and nude under that cafe au lait
exterior you show to the rest
of the groupies who wait to read
whatever you stir up.

 

[Tzara]

A Note To Casanova

I'd spend all my night times in Starbucks
throwing paper napkins your way
to keep you hot and sweet
and nude under that cafe au lait
exterior you show to the rest
of the groupies who wait to read
whatever you stir up.

Some Guy in Starbucks

Hey. Who is that girl,
er, woman, in the corner
with the laptop and
the grande latte? She
seems messy, tossing
napkins, but, uh, maybe
she's (I hope I'm right),
sending me a signal. I
think I'll sidle over
kinda, maybe, her way and
see if she's receptive—
see if she wants to talk
with, oh, and maybe to, me.

Hi! I hope that it's OK. . .

 

[Guest]

Thank you.

A Note To Casanova

I'd spend all my night times in Starbucks
throwing paper napkins your way
to keep you hot and sweet
and nude under that cafe au lait
exterior you show to the rest
of the groupies who wait to read
whatever you stir up.

That put me in a better mood.

 

[annaswirls]

This isn't a poem, blather really
but it's still in my head, bothering.
Got to dump it to get rid of it.

Dumped. That's it.
Now my finger bleeds.

bloodlust or something else
paint my lips
let me taste the sharp sting of exposure
I lose words
down the darkness of eyes closed a single drop of blood
and everything falls except my desire
to suck the poison from your stream
feel your pulse between teeth

 

[vampiredust]

Paintballing

I've never been paintballing,
but have always been offered

it in the street. It sounds too
painful, a million sharpened

skulls thrown against your
skin. The woods laughing

as you and your buddies
re-enact Vietnam for ego.

 

[4degrees]

project passion
rewrite my prescription
and fill it
fill my head
with names that click but
not
magna-monster with a loss
for words, a lost limb,
learning to swim again
that 4 is for something
long forgotten

tar heel boot fuck
scuffed licked and roughed up
entwined twist of mister perserverance
fucking in the face of anti-interference
anti-me, put your bets away
trudge the road of poemless
nameless
listless gift giving long distance
reflection
ever infected
rejected, liver swells and
rivers of me run
dry.

 

[clutching_calliope]

Ambition

......

 

[vampiredust]

Ceramic Zoo

You are the pots
I refill my metaphors from,
a terracotta tortoise and a ceramic
gecko bought from flea markets

in places I can't pronounce anymore,
sitting on a shelf filled with animals
I'm not sure what to do with:
a glass crystal seal, a silver starfish.

Perhaps I will wrap them in a newspaper
burial shroud and bury them. But then
I would still hear their voices calling,
muffled under the weight.

I could give them away, put a sign
in my front yard. But only the children
would come and laugh at them.
I will cremate my animals instead,

offering a hymn to the thick soup
of stars watching over us. Nobody
will sing or weep. That won't be needed
here. We will fall down together tonight.

 

[vampiredust]

Wasps make good subjects

Bus jaws whine under heat,
letting out steam in the traffic
jam. We are all passengers
today, the tapping of feet

our common language. Children
peer out of windows, watching
commuters dodge and dance
amongst each other.

There are pigeons and dogs
somewhere in the picture,
but we ignore their patois
and start staring at one another,

shooting boredom in our veins.
Some, the lucky ones, get off.
Others lie back and sleep - life
never resetting in the background.

 

[Liar]

it's been eleventeen days
and the lifetime of a tse tse fly
since last i put pen to paper
and folded my brains
around a single point
in three dimensions
but rushing in the fouth

if only i could dump this parchute
and slip streamlined through duration
to the other side of minefields
trip trigger desicions and
razor wire dialouge

i take the long route
through abstract grass
clutching a dictionary
to my chest

the real thing
would no doubt burst
and shrapnel sentences
tear my face

 

[vampiredust]

This is just a picture

The house is mirroring her frown,
rafters bent into humps, tiles
forming coolie hats. Staring
at the camera, she can't see

it imitating her - a pretender
that will live longer than her bones.
Another frown follows and paint
starts wrinkling, falling like pale

leaves. Photographer and model
leave. It doesn't bend back into
shape, everything has already
been set, slowly hardening.

 

[Liar]

chewing gum

pretty soon
your jaws will ache

but as long as there's a
smidgeon of spearmint
to mask the rot
in your exhale,

can you afford to spit?

 

[clutching_calliope]

newsroom sex

.....

 

[vampiredust]

She called him Desert

I see you dressed in your desertskin
with a rattlesnake for a cock
and think I'm so lucky to be sleeping
amongst cactuses so green and prickly.

And then when stars singing around
the campfire we have made in our sheets,
I hold myself close to your metaphors,
feeling them burn my skin.

Perhaps when you are gone
I will have all the devils you leave behind,
each one dancing on my tongue -
every step another sin broken, another mile
crossed on your desert.

 

[vampiredust]

Planetarium

We sit and watch a bedouin
made out of steel and stars
cross the ceiling,

every backdrop changing
as she fires an arrow
to the places she goes next.

This is not science or magic,
but a mythology locked away
in places we are not meant to find.

 

[vampiredust]

Brake Fluid

I found you on page 33 of a Haynes
car manual, squashed between a pair
of wire thumbs and a turkey necked

gearstick. I never understood what you
were supposed to be for, a lubricant
for something I could never comprehend.

Perhaps you were a drink for the dried
out, a plastic camel storing water
for intoxicated components. I am not

sure what you could have been in a former
life: a barman, a fire man or perhaps
just a well - a plumb line reaching down

into the driest place of all, the mind.