all of a sudden passion suddenly

[vampiredust]

Industry

Clocking in, she tinkers
with diskettes of make
up and plastic mirrors.
Coils of sunlit dust float.

They are not part of her
working conditions.
Industry pays her to forget.
Tourist fold up paperback

cities, passing her window
to stare at the lady
manufacturing vanity.
The figures have become

reflections on a window
that will soon not exist.
Blinking is her anesthetic,
I use it all the time.

 

[sellthecookie]

? were you born of fire, that
you can coax smoke into a
neat obelisk,
a wandering spear,
a shooting star,
an afterthought. i may
just be bitter. or my own
fume curls wayward,
like mist rendered amnesiac. long
ago i have forbidden
you your volcano
tactics, but you only gave
me a rampant smile.

 

[vampiredust]

Salt Harvest

They mine the sea
with hands, shovels,
pickaxes. Dug out
crystals dry in sunlight

before men transmute
it into currency. Camels
wait to take the glass
bullion across the Sahara.

Traders wait, kneeling
before the sea. Allah
has spoken in its waters.
Each crystal takes them
closer to him.

 

[annaswirls]

toe pressed and steeple shy we climb
air to skin to this mist
you breathe
of course
you breathe
my language
invent our own
press down the grapes of the circle march
we crawl and babble
we put everything in our mouths
wait for the smile yes
wait for the scolding finger
it never comes

 

[sellthecookie]

Home Improvements

Before:
Without sound, a cardboard house blows up at night.
Then elves come and prettify the wreck
rearrange fate and decree taste.

In the meantime:
Chauffeured to a zoo, the lucky family finds distraction
in housed animals and caged flights.
(The family that waits together stays in shape.)

After:
Upon return, their dream castle is in place.
They shriek and cry tears of fully-furnished joy.
In the brand-new, spotless living
room, a 65-inch television waits. Filled with news
of less luckier, high-definition ruins and displacements.

Much. Much. Earlier:
They simply put up a wall. High & long.
So that the pope-mobile can pass by in peace.

 

[vampiredust]

Doubt

You want to recite
how much love

(or whatever emotion
is currently in you)

to the hills and pairs
of small houses

facing the elms
on the other side

of the lake. Stones
are never meant

to be thrown here.
Keep them safe

in case you need
to remember memories

not love.

 

[vampiredust]

The Long, Slow, Burn

I watch you from the other side
of the platform, emptying
your pockets. Each trinket
thrown away makes no sound

hitting the bottom of the bin:
old negatives of us together,
a key fob from a brewery trip
we took once, a poncho

from when we went to Niagara
Falls. There is no smell
from any of the materials,
nothing to cause an impact.

I keep a box of matches in a
tightly clenched fist. Your blinking
eyelids wait for the signal, my lips
the starting gun.

 

[annaswirls]

he said
one of the suns came out today
he said
I wil kiss your wounds
find a non-toxic solution
build a better battery
teach the rays to find your mane
you my beauty
breath, shared
new
my ifngers cut through the water
our fingers count by ten
did I tell you lover
she answered my letter
someone brought the trolley back into town
was it you?
of course
it wsa you

 

[annaswirls]

I think of you as I walk down on Guadalupe...
and kiss the breeze
imagine I find your eyelash on the sidewalk
blow it from my fingertip
without need to wish

 

[vampiredust]

Oh How We Marched

Men check their hearts
for the time; women
bite their nails, taking
in blue cirrus smoke.

Children trail behind,
emptying their pockets.
Paper crickets, cigarette
cards of WW2 heroes,

a teddy with a bullet
for a heart fall on the road.
Nothing can interrupt
the march. Not today.

 

[vampiredust]

O Melon

Let me scoop out the flesh
from between your thighs,
pick out every seed I find
and replace the full moon
with a cantaloupe skin.

It tastes sweeter.

 

[vampiredust]

Destination

Pomegranate hearts
burst. Little girls
pick up the pieces
to sell at market.

Donkey policemen
sleep under a piñata
sun. Housewives
throw damp kisses

to wake them.
I close the brochure,
holding a pomegranate
seed in my palm.

It will grow soon.

 

[champagne1982]

I can't help but wonder what the rivers intend
to do with all this snow. The melt will flow
into the gutters, sailing ice rafts against curbs
and down into the storm sewers; until the water
spills into the depression between the hills
to find the creek. Gravity will rule supreme
as it tugs the current along, down into steep
gullies, there to struggle before the liquid
confluence yeilds to physics and rests
in the basin to form a lake. Yes, deep snow
pack has given us this, more water for rivers
to overflow their banks and to drown crops.

 

[4degrees]

fuck me so i can write a poem.
turn my head, looking back over
my right shoulder, knowing you'll not
hear my voice but perhaps intense
telepathic transmissions will
deliver my message.
the scent of ashes on sheets
you'll never notice, for my need
is strong like gasoline
lust fills nostrils leaving no room
for another smell, except the fake
sugar on my lips
but that's more flavor
than anything else
hit the spot, on the spot
an endorphine induced elavulation
no, reaffirmation of how you struck
the gold in me again
it stays buried deep but
you know where to dig...
triple x marks are all along
my spine, from where you kissed
last night, stating 'you are mine'
the power of choice vanished
long ago, with any lingering notion
of whether or not
you were anything less
than an angel sent to save me.

 

[sellthecookie]

let's make love
inside the train, let's
be behaved boys with packed lunches
and strewn guts all over, let's
forget schedules, defy
stares of people with one
-way routes, let's
kiss, let's, let's
charge into the tunnel
that swallows, admits us,
while lights flicker,
like welcome banners, let's
rub thighs, let's, let's
abandon the tracks, yes, let's
see now, we reach
far
with this derailment,
let's.

 

[vampiredust]

Steve

Exactly at 8.30 am
a dog came rushing
into my bedroom,
a small beagle
with the name Steve
on its collar.
It sat on the poem
I was writing,
digging into the soil
of its line breaks
and retrieved a bone
I had lost long ago,
leaving a trail of paw
prints on the snow
covered blanket
as it left. I still can't
get them out, even after
the snow has melted.

 

[champagne1982]

sounds move swiftly down a narrow
stair and insinuate a way into my ear
shaking the skin in a strange timpanic
back beat to the rhythm of my breath

thrum the rattling notes against my bones
again until I can't hear the words, only
a faint melody feathered across the taut
skin beneath my cheek, inside my head

scratched out in a steady synchopation
the emphasis shakes the usual and expected
down through my blood until my heart
hears the notes and joins in the harmony

sing those sighs along a narrow wire
until we both lose our certainty and slip
through the poet's verses into a puddle
of jazzy love right here at the bottom

of the stairs. Wordless, toneless, breath
stopped only for a moment until
our tune is joined again with our voices
in a passion of love songs.

 

[vampiredust]

The Sea

Walking down the street,
I empty my pockets
of the sea I was looking
after for you. Mussels
come tumbling first,
cracking open their castanet
shells on the pavement.
Acres of seaweed
and oysters follow.
Taking a deep breath,
I pour an ocean into the middle
of the road. Islands of people,
cars, bob in the newly created sea.
Somewhere amongst this
is an old trawler. You are inside,
sending signals back to a lighthouse
forgotten in a trouser pocket.

 

[sellthecookie]

winged ants swarmed the office
tonight, on the tenth floor,
of a supposedly hermetically-
sealed building, safe from
smog, and cares
of the world, but there
they were all right, beating
hard against every light
fixture, curious about
our PC screens, and
our hungry cursor, everyone
was upset, frisking
their hair and clothes, concerned about
poise, but the winged ones just flapped
well, shedding wings, and gossamer hope
for us entirely flightless. it will
rain soon.

 

[vampiredust]

Distant Galaxy

Last night, I dreamnt
I was on the roof
of the Home Office
nearby. Old friends,
Tim and Adam,
were there. I sat down
next to a girl I didn't
recognise, watching
her kiss a far off galaxy,
coating me with its particles
of light. I found specks
on my clothes in the morning,
slightly dulled.

 

[sellthecookie]

grandma said, when all
is done, she would just lie
down and sleep, accurately, no
need for needles, tubes,
invasive flowers, rationed pity.
no preliminaries, and i know
she just might pull it off after all,
because tonight
she'll get up, renounce hundred-times
bleached blankets, impertinent machine
beeps. She'll go home, ease back
into her life of wrestling
with weeds, making dinner, feeding
pigs, going to church, watching actors
lip sync in telenovelas. Grandma suiting
herself while the world
fidgets. There
she is.

 

[vampiredust]

The Unspoken

We walk around inside
each other's bodies,
picking up unwanted
litter: unspoken swarms
of words, thorns
from answerphone messages
never aired, splinters of broken
lucky charms. Clambering
out of each other's mouths,
we release this litter
into the atmosphere, watching
it scatter before it burns,
always keeping the smell
produced.

 

[vampiredust]

Vows

For months, it rained
your letters. Every
day they would part
the letterboxes veil

and every day it would
refuse. A new type
of rain has been spotted
in a nearby town,

their residents coping
with reinforced umbrellas.
I have heard traces
of it at night, feint chinks

as it hits window panes.
Several wedding rings
lie on the front lawn
in the morning, magpies

gathered round them,
waiting to see if I'll pick first.

 

[darkerdreamer]

we emoticon at each other in person,
these absurd smiley face caricatures
we express ourselves with.

you LOL (Laugh Out Loud),
while i BRB (Be Right Back)
to go SMFH (Shoot Myself in the Fucking Head).

 

[annaswirls]

remind me why down the blah blah loverly landscape
sleep comes between lines
every landscape has a moon
usually wheat or some such grain
always love
or a search
rarely this shark with felt teeth overbite
broen styrofoam
g-spot techniques he says
"it is a good idea to press down on her pubic bone"
god the "how to" guide was right
I want to pee so bad! please stop just
while I get that old shirt from the floor,
tucked under hips because I swear
I swear I am going to pee the bed and
I decide
just let it happen
just let it happen
piss if you have to on this floral landscape
always with autum leaves or butterflies
or some such thing
beautiful, bird song, street light
clean pressed lines
for sleep