all of a sudden passion suddenly

[vampiredust]

We Were Children Once

The dead constellations
we buried in the backyard
under the view of the full
moon opened up like silver

flowers with a downpour.
They once outshone stars
more recognisable to the
eye. But their light boiled

too quickly and they fell
like noiseless meteorites
on our lawn. We let them
settle, releasing deposits

of steam. Astronauts
emerged from their husks,
faces obscured in darkness.
We were them once, I think.

 

[vampiredust]

The Shibboleth of Children

We watched them keep warm
by burning their own clothes.
The irony was not lost on Jones
who concealed his smirk

in a feather boa of a moustache.
It was like cutting off a limb
just to get a pint of a blood.
That doesn't matter to the cold.

Unbuttoned, each garment
was thrown into the fire,
the fabric of jeans, shirts, tartan
boxers forming technicolour clouds.

After they disappeared, running
into the padding of the bog, we did
the same. Returning to our empty
houses that night, we bathed

in our nakedness. We wanted
to be men for one night
before we were shaved, cleaned
and clothed.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Heat Transfer

* * * * *

 

[vampiredust]

Never rely on astronomy to help your relationship

The museum of stars
lodged in her mouth
showed me nothing
new. Its light worked

through a spectrum
of all known colours
and elements, trying
to find something

I might like. Impatience
orbited her body
like Sputnik, my leaking
desire causing it

to crash land in her Mons
Olympus. I never sent
signals back, just took
photos of a newly-found
rocky landscape.

 

[vampiredust]

Kafka's Guide To Lovin'

The pale blue fur
of the photographed
surf hitting a shoreline's
hip cut out the detail

of me & you undressing
locked away in the grey
safe of my brain. O frau
why did you disengage

my thoughts attached
to an Io Moth's back?
Its brown fern antennae
relayed our every word

to a moon caught off
the Bay of Biscay. Deep
inside its stomach
was an origami butterfly

still tethered to unsaid
words

 

[vampiredust]

Contours

Rain enjambs over pavement,
interlocking with slabs of grey.
Inside an apartment, a man
is tracing the outline of his lover

with his index finger. A lightbox
of moonlight makes it easier
for him to identify her shallow
edges, avoid sudden drops.

Catching his breath above
a peak of spine, he watches
a mole's seal-head surface
from under the bay of skin.

A key turns in a lock. Quickly
leaving his mark on her back,
he never notices the seal
diving to deeper waters,

only feeling the cliff edging
closer to the water.

 

[4degrees]

dilute and dilate
water down a thick lifeline
then expand inside
for maximum sufferage
merely roughage
keeping things regular
angel rides forever
on my shoulder
i can turn and kiss him now
closed eyes and carnal angst
paint elaborate impressions
of dreamy beauty
in a flat gray mind.

 

[4degrees]

mouth sweating
black beads of agression expressed
through salivary glands
foamy spit, bubbly like tasteless
caviar might be
i keep drinking but
thirst goes on like a desert
and i drown again
all the while
learn to swim
learn to swim
long enough to breathe again,
i'm let onto a lifeboat
its a mirage
when my hair begins to
blow damp dry in the wind
the miracle raft vanishes
into heat waves above this
sea of iniquity

 

[vampiredust]

Seaside

Tourists' rolled-up trouser
ends, gulls hanging from puppet-strings,
penny telescopes black and white
nostalgia. I know none of this.

Television's daily circus brought me
war fought with Hollywood men scrambling
over beaches we would never visit,
let alone watch a distant sun retreat.

Our piers have been sunk, set alight.
The returning surf brings back childhood
trapped in nets of broken glass, smells
of vinegar and candy floss now locked

underneath the seabed. We will never
understand one another my feet say
to the freezing sea. A conger eel snaps
at harbour walls moving back to the land.

 

[Angeline]

Seaside

Tourists' rolled-up trouser
ends, gulls hanging from puppet-strings,
penny telescopes black and white
nostalgia. I know none of this.

Television's daily circus brought me
war fought with Hollywood men scrambling
over beaches we would never visit,
let alone watch a distant sun retreat.

Our piers have been sunk, set alight.
The returning surf brings back childhood
trapped in nets of broken glass, smells
of vinegar and candy floss now locked

underneath the seabed. We will never
understand one another my feet say
to the freezing sea. A conger eel snaps
at harbour walls moving back to the land.

This is really, really good Chris.

 

[vampiredust]

And he was gone


The answering machine clucks
to the rhythm of her tapping foot,
its red light shining into the photo
album of her mind, snatching a scene:

Her standing in front of a cottage,
hanging out a line of washing. A son,
inside, playing with his childhood.

The tick of a clock drags her back.
A sheriff explains in words bland
like snow the situation. Tapping
her watch on the table doesn’t make

him reappear. Tapping her wedding
ring makes a dog come running.
But it lost his scent a long time ago
and wanders around, hungry for meat.

 

[vampiredust]

Shibboleth

1.

Of freeze, of buzz-cut
clouds preening their feathers
in puddles of blue. Of

men cutting the forest
into photographs. Of
feet marching to hillsides

to knock on its front door,
demanding warmth. Of
fire, song and stars.

2.

Starting over: nailed a crow
to an oak (Mistah Kurtz
thought it was good luck)

Shaved in moonlight, danced
with the boys 'round a gin
fueled fire, marched up a hill

in the morning where we cut
their palms' developing film,
sewing their eyes shut before

plastering them to the forest's
damp pavement. A yelling shot
told us to go but I wanted to

stay and look at my reflection
bleat like a goat before
the morning's first sacrifice.

 

[normal jean]

Shibboleth

1.

Of freeze, of buzz-cut
clouds preening their feathers
in puddles of blue. Of

men cutting the forest
into photographs. Of
feet marching to hillsides

to knock on its front door,
demanding warmth. Of
fire, song and stars.

2.

Starting over: nailed a crow
to an oak (Mistah Kurtz
thought it was good luck)

Shaved in moonlight, danced
with the boys 'round a gin
fueled fire, marched up a hill

in the morning where we cut
their palms' developing film,
sewing their eyes shut before

plastering them to the forest's
damp pavement. A yelling shot
told us to go but I wanted to

stay and look at my reflection
bleat like a goat before
the morning's first sacrifice.

This is powerful work, Chris, probably the best I ever read from you. Excellent excellent, please tell me when it is accepted elsewhere

 

[champagne1982]

I hear the thrum of vessels stretched full
to squeeze and push red streamers
through tight pathways and carry
my breath to where essential duty waits.

I fear the ache I imagine there inside
pressure points and muscles work
don't clog don't block don't hurt
don't. Don't make me lose the edge

I've gained on nature this way. To fall
because of wounds that lie buried
in my genes, my ATCG alphabet charging
DNA that makes me fragile, makes me scar -

ridiculous! I've won, twice, and I will
outlive this, too. Just keep the pipes clear
and keep my sticky cells from undoing
all the good work done to keep me breathing.

 

[vampiredust]

Capturing Winter

Women wash photographs
in puddles. High definition
features colour water grey:
steel cut leaves, knifelike

chestnut tree branches.
The clear and definite
remain: paragraphs of rain,
a boy wearing mud armor.

Standing in the backyard
of these stories, I tug
at the black & white sky
waiting for a downpour

of electricity. I need
that shock to scramble
my circuits, to be lost
in pictures once more.

 

[The Mutt]

Dear God
... Dear Fate
... ... Dear Karma

Dear Chance,

Don't lemme win

the lottery.

900 pounds of wine and perversion,

I fear,

would become of me.

If I didn't have sin to tempt me,

who knows just what I might see.

If I didn't sneer at redemption,

I'd have to look closer at me.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Wet Work

* * * * *

 

[vampiredust]

Sukinda

The swollen belly of an unripened
sun sits above the hungry mine
shafts, their gullets reaching deep
under India. Pylons keep watch
as the wagons run along tracks
to the smelters. Nettles cower,
grow in fear. In the nearby villages,
undeveloped moons are being
born. The rivers feel them melting
in their mothers' palms, parting
open to receive their ashes.
Typhoons wait in clouds, ready
to strike.

 

[tungtied2u]

Frostbite

Somewhere on the way to this winter
I lost what matters most
It was before I traveled from coast to coast
Before her and him, when the glass shattered
Allowing cold to steal warmth
Whisking it away under the cloak of darkness

No, it started even earlier, when life was torn
Limb from limb by lover’s trusted hands,
Once used to caress and comfort,
Suddenly brandishing a knife with maniacal intent

I see the fault now in myself, so common to all
The seed of evil, deep in darkness, gestating
Awaiting only the right ingredients to blossom
In all it’s twisted glory, the shameful side of humanity
Ready to pollinate and procreate
Multiply into madness, suffocate into submission

Blind me to the beauty I once knew existed
Spring and summer and fall by the wayside
All becomes blizzards, whited out into blackness

 

[wildsweetone]

Outside the window
a black tree bough bends,
drips away raindrops
of promises I made. One

at a time fall,
puddling yesterday
beneath wading feet;
magpies pause

in their theft of reflection
and the bruised clouds
continue to roll
across the dying sky.

 

[vampiredust]

Beach

Gulls cry & strut like tarts
along the shore waxed
by surf. A Maybelline sky
scans an incoming wave

out of boredom; Coca Cola
caps & pebbles jangle.
The beach's hairline recedes
even further. A pair of deck

chairs flex their jaunty
bodies in a visiting breeze.
Grasses gossip, laugh.

Only a footprint's sinking
outline reminds them
of their humanity.

 

[darkerdreamer]

Forklift


Johnny lifts the n-hundredth palette up,
carefully choosing the perfect slot in the racks
to serve as its home.

Standard dimensions, the home was easy to find
but still chosen with care.

Johnny wonders which slot will fit his regrets,
and what the dimensions would be.

 

[vampiredust]

I shouldn't have drunk tonight or walked miles and miles in a shoebox

Migrating verbs
pass Vonnegut lollipops.
One lick & you're dead,

mister. A cod-headed
gentleman and his wife
are playing poker. God

refuses to intervene.
St Augustine is spinning
the decks. My soles

tell me to make sense.
Burn burn burn. Plastic
makes you go pop!

 

[vampiredust]

Memory

How many times have we
rummaged through a drawer
and found something unexpected?
That piece of sky
That moon's broken smile
Once I went through my mother's
and found a chord from her
throat, each note written
in barbed wire she had forgotten
about.

 

[vampiredust]

Grandmother believed in folktales

Begging rain envelopes
the cherry blossom
in the backyard. A wreath
of sleet slowly sinks
its roots.

In a forgotten room
somewhere in the house
she is combing her hair
with a silver brush

that is shedding its wealth.
The mirror's ivory frame,
eager to return to Africa,
makes the glass lie.

She counts her babies'
eyes as if they were pennies,
feeling their surface
carefully like a remedy.