all of a sudden passion suddenly

[normal jean]

shrapnel

the last grenade was a dud
we hoped
the pin was pulled, the green egg
tossed and it landed
sputtered? spewed? exploded
iimploded, no, nothing
until we turned our backs
it let us have it

words, no not just words
there were verbs
Write, teach, run, learn
Grow, know, love

nouns. adverbs. adjectives

slang was slung
stinging poets' eyes
but they wrote on

some of the spectators
were horrified, they turned and ran
as fast as they ever ran
but some of them stayed
as the shrapnel stuck
they stayed and
nary a poet strayed

they are afterall, gluttons
for pain and punsihment
but especially
pain

 

[vampiredust]

Wind Child

Because it brought us beach balls, pebbles,
seashells, sea urchins, a glass crown, old
paper cups and a colony of ants
there is no need for us to use the rain's
gifts: a couple of watery pillows glazed
with its translucent sheen.
Let us watch them freeze and harden
until they break. We can scatter them
across the waves, saying nothing as we
hear it calling our names.

 

[vampiredust]

Mudskipper

I don't understand why this creature
exists. The rain fell long ago, filling
up the earthenware bowl. Seeds
were dropped in, creating species.
It was passed around the table
until everyone had their fill. But the
water was still there when everything
had been taken out. So why does it
need to hold it in its skin?

 

[vampiredust]

Duster

Because you are not here
doesn't mean I can't touch your things:
rearrange those things I thought
belonged to each other, dusting
the shelves in ways you will never notice,
hoping you will smile when I am not there.

 

[Liar]

suddenly it seems
we've lost control of the fifth dimension
and slid quietly along the axis
to a right here and right now
but not right how

where fat cherubs park their Segways
outside the Starbucks arcade halls
and txt mssg gods and monsters
about the latest MySpace chatter
nine million friends and counting
and not a smidgeon of Spam
on the horizon

where did we take the wrong turn?
still not certain if it's the curves
of the road or my hands
pulling the steering wheel
that directs direction
or what ungodly fuel
that propels us onward

oil is up another dollar
but the extraction protocol
is all but done, and soon
we will harvest clear red energy
out of forum flamewars
and charge the turbines
by blog storm

 

[vampiredust]

The Crows

Grandfather used soldiers
for scarecrows on his farm.
He thought the helmet,
a rusted tortoise shell,
and old muzzle nosed rifle

would scare away the crows
pecking at the seeds and corn.
He never noticed them creeping
from under his bed, slipping
into his bones. I imagine he

probably saw them only in his
dreams, sitting on the arms
of an old general. That would
be him in the starring role,
he always loved to be there.

And then when it was his turn
to leave, they would offer
a ten gun salute before nose
-diving into whatever was left
of his corpse. I still haven't got
rid of them to this day.

 

[vampiredust]

A Domestic Juxtaposition

The full moon slouches
on the acetate sofa

slowly rising out of
the domestic Atlantic

The image is developed
before being pasteurised

and rediscovered
as the face of a kidnapped

girl thought to have been
lost in a man's basement

 

[vampiredust]

Dentistry For Beginners

Her mouth offers me
a ten gun salute

after we've finished
doing it. I prefer

to renegotiate our
treaty with a scalpel.

 

[vampiredust]

I swallowed the cow
jumping over the moon

It was causing a domestic
disturbance, you see.

Too many people were at
their windows, affecting

the country's productivity.
It could have been worse

if it had been Bush jumping
over the moon...

 

[vampiredust]

Capitalised

Everything looks capitalised
today, even the trees near
my house resemble giant T's.

Perhaps it's because the voice
trapped in my throat feels
like SHOUTING

and the voice trapped in my
head feels like WHISPERING.
There needs to be a balance

between the two sometimes.

 

[vampiredust]

The Trout And The Milk

"Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when
you find a trout in the milk"

Thoreau

You found it flapping in the pail
of milk when you had finished
your latest hypothesis, a moon
white accidental tourist waiting

for you to swing an axe or hang
it in a ready-made noose. But you
stood there, thinking how this fish
might be relevant to your line

of thinking. So you swapped lives
for a few minutes, imitating how
it swan, how it breathed, before
releasing it in a lake. It still lives

on in your bones, taking your life
full circle. It brought the natural
and unnatural together when you
found it, as it had always done.

 

[clutching_calliope]

Late Night Burials

My better nature
wishes you away. Each witching hour
finds you deeper in the dirt. Call it

a passive, shovelling up to agressive
type of personality. I call it
burying the bones

so the pussy stays home, instead
of yoewling about the remains
at high noon
on the caterwauling fence.

You may say I'm simply
the plumber, trying to turn the hose
on the shit-caked walls
and hoping the dogs
will stop fucking already.

Maybe
I'm the quack doctor
seeing the scarred, the waxed ears, the hands,
shouting enough already, stop!
and all i have is a bit of tampon
to stop up the flow of hate
without enough string to hang
anyone,
even me.

 

[vampiredust]

Volpone Was My Dad

I would hide in snow covered
trenches when I was little,
waiting for the moment when
Dad would swap roles with a fox,

digging through the snow with
his claws. I wanted to see how
long he would stay being the
animal I would always see under

my bed. And when he found me,
I would never see the man he
had been before, just an empty
carcass and his jaws, snarling.

 

[vampiredust]

Bound And Gagged

I want to edit this image
trapped underneath soil
covered in your permafrost:
you bound and gagged,
me, holding tonight's instruments -

a sword, a skull, a whip.
You had an obsession with Shakespeare,
quoting him through clenched
jaws as I gave what you prayed for.

Ten lashes, cutting through skin
to the elements underneath.
I could never look at the marks
afterward, they were still visible

on my skin.

 

[vampiredust]

Seaweed Burning

I watch groups of old men scour
the beach for the sea's washed
up skeletons, dumping the piles
onto bonfires burning traitors.

You can hear them whispering
the prayers in the flames,
hoping for some relief from this
final moment, even though none

will ever come. They will be reborn
when they are gone, filling our
stomachs with their stink, colouring
us with their mark that cannot
be washed off.

 

[Angeline]

I've seen that painting, not
the Susquehanna but the boat
brown and light cracked against
the crazed gold horizon. I've seen
the painting, stood on the marble
floors of that museum, run my fingers
over dusty burgundy rope. Velvet
feels like comfort and nothing
comforts me today, not knowing
the painting hangs, the museum
stands, the poem published still
read and the road leads north
to webs of streets one of which was
mine once. Those children mine once,
but they've grown up and I older
find no peace but tremble in the solitude
I once desired, a thin old teacup
fragile painted the rim of a smile
and all these years rolling tanks
in a square of soldiers that put up
no fight just mist away as ghosts.

I've seen the painting no not that
one, the other on his wall late
of the garage no longer mine I know
your hair is dusty, but not silver shot
like mine. I could blow the gray off
see auburn eternal and blue eyes
eternal and the cryptic smile that must
have been the artist's imagination
because you never smiled that way
in life which calls me saying "Almost
Christmas, damnit. Almost the boy's
birthday. Send cards. Make cookies.
Rise above the crawling sadness
that lingers in the bedsheets."

Even if I had that painting I couldn't
touch the cold frame I couldn't wipe
the dust from your eyes. Have I mentioned
it's snowing here? Have I mentioned
how much I hate December fourth?

 

[vampiredust]

Icicles

I discovered foot long icicles
in the freezer after a long summer,
each of the elongated molars
had sprouted smaller icicles
and it resembled a mutated christmas
tree, cryogenically frozen

for the benefit for my imagination
which had settled in front
of the fire, rather than taking
the risk of having its brain frozen
for the sake of trying to discover
what, if anything, was in there.

The icicles never could be defrosted
or melted, and my imagination,
like the rest of my disassembled self
never put itself back together.

 

[champagne1982]

Outside The Law

I wish I could take that singular
moment and multiply it to a life-
time of awe. You know the one
I mean? When your heart flew
free of your chest and gravity
could not make you obey
the law, at least, not the way
physics wants it followed.

We are apart from the realm
and Sir Isaac holds no sway,
not on us, not on our hearts
wings carrying us beyond
man's puny influence, outside
the fragile bounds of self-
control where we become more
than the sum of our equation
and write a new law
of singular momentous lives.

 

[Liar]

Handover from a busted GSM node

I walked for miles for clearer reception,
watched a solitary red blip blink
on LCD kept shaded
to preserve precious amps,
talked soothingly for winds to halt, for rain to wait,
anything to solidify the signal.

And when I conquered the hilltop,
and red spiked into a proud staple of green,
network detected, roaming, connecting,
fingers frantically tapped the digits,
and I pressed my hopes to my ear in triumph,

was greeted with a cheerful "Hey!",
an echo was the only word
I could say.

I walked for miles for clearer reception,
I walked back for a clearer mind.

 

[normal jean]

vacant eyes

No vacancy,
read the motel sign
no drunks allowed, hollow man
with your bottle of wine

the welcome mat was out
you stepped over and beyond
didnt ring the doorbell
didnt read the sign

oh hollow man,
with your bottle of wine

write a poem, tell a tale
that you didnt retrieve
from the bottom of your bottle
your bottle of wine

 

[vampiredust]

Winter Vigil

Winter held a vigil for your grandfather
when he was ill, freezing the landscape
around you to get your attention.
But you were on a boat trying to catch
the last of the season's trout,
unaware of the glass jaw clamping
the world around you.
You were like the fish you never caught
that day, still perceiving the stillness
as something designed only for you.

 

[Tzara]

Nor Even Singing Sword

I am now dull,
as an iron blade becomes with age
and use. I can no longer cut.

I am not steel,
which in spite of wear will hold an edge,
and disembowel. Gut.

 

[vampiredust]

The Grimoire Concerto

The orchestral skull
lies in its grave
performing one last
concerto for night

You can never see
it conducting, only
feeling the notes
vibrating in spaces

visible on electron
microscopes, radio
telescopes and x-ray
machines humming

its pulsating beat.
Its noise resonates
in bone and dna,
a song for the ferry
-man without a coin.

 

[vampiredust]

Poem

We won't write our stories
on wet sand, they won't last.
Let us write them on wet
cement instead, so they

will be remembered.
The rain will soak its surface,
washing away the dirt
on the makeshift topsoil,
but they will remain sheltered

underneath, waiting for a
sledgehammer to crack open
the shell, giving them air
to circulate and exist.

 

[annaswirls]

wet washcloth
soak searching for the spinter that damn it
is causing this misery but gentle
there is nothing there
except my own flesh
exposed