all of a sudden passion suddenly

[normal jean]

I crossed a desert
of my own making
and came across
a lizard, dying
in the sun.

this changed
nothing

 

[normal jean]

cosmic surfer

balanced upon
dazzling upon
a pair of perfectly
proportioned
laser beams

he grows old
yet nimble, awaiting
his gravity wave

more than likely
he'll have come
and gone

before there's a blip
on anyone's screen

 

[vampiredust]

Doors

The rear view mirror
misinterprets taunts
smeared like too
much lipstick,

shrinking the scene
until everything is in focus,
getting a decent view
of the ripples emerging

from the cracking glass
and bone; little doors
opening space and time.

 

[ElmerGlew]

.....

 

[vampiredust]

Rehearsal

April feels closer to winter
than spring. The ballet
of snow interrupted
by ice cracking like elderly

bones a reminder
of the impulsiveness
of some distant god,
the thrum of water cycling

in stuttering heating
a voice that seems displaced;
its chatter a reminder
of times we'd rather not have.

 

[vampiredust]

The Drum

"...a black oil drum empty, glistening
at the exact center of the modern world."

Philip Levine

*
Early morning. Men sit outside
Leo's Tool & Die, waiting for it
to open. Boots large and ugly
as a grouper's lopped off head
scuff the pine planks in the yard.

The oil drum watches them swish
their invisible tails as the door
slowly opens. They run towards
the vista of middle America, eager
for the draft. Light bouncing off

hammers and screwdrivers forms
new patterns, distracting them
from the drum's roughened face.
They sit outside at lunchtime,
gossiping with their cigarette

smoke about Lucille Ball and vinyl
sex. The gun-metal sky watches
Bobeck, the boss's nephew,
take the drum to some distant place.
Falling rain offers its prayers.

Night falls and the scents of mint,
apples and asters distracts
the men driving along the empty
Michigan highway. The drum lies
in a ditch, slowly spinning.

Their bones move closer, attracted
to its magnetism.

 

[4degrees]

jonnii darling.

some kind of silent
intimacy, some unrehearsed
proclaimation of
passion
suddenly
unexpected and twisting
through me, a ghost
of hope expands
filling my soul
every last corner is
a true to life and time
metaphor of love
its cosmic, baby
reconnection of frayed
wires surging again with
force, adrenyline needle
straight into a heart
its a jump start
and i begin to live
and love again.

 

[tungtied2u]

In a moment I was born anew
not them, not you, not
I,
gone from others
was the expected, the routine

breakfast at dinner, dinner at dawn
terms dictated by inner urgings
simple suggestions of psyche

I shed the skin of ego
see without within,
taste 1 time only
touch
each time initially
immerse in scent

repeats are not allowed
in the now,
all is new
never before known
in exactly the same way

 

[vampiredust]

The butterfly still carried part of its chrysalis around

Glammed up like Princess
Grace, the lecturer on the bus
ignored the passengers
trying to squeeze past,
thinking they were fickle
like butterflies. Lost in Rebecca,
she never bothered
to look at the changing landscape;
the absolution of Roehampton's
leafy streets turning into the unforgiving
inner city, cold and grey like her eyes.

 

[vampiredust]

Reboot?

Reboot? Y/N
Dozens of essential
utilities. Windows
needs restarting.
'man leaping
off second tower 9/11' .jpeg
is incompatible
with the software
you have installed.
'Palestinian
woman weeping
into the TV camera's
pebble mouth' .jpeg
could not be downloaded.
Reboot? Y/N
'donkeys laughing
in Texas oilfields' .jpeg
has been corrupted.
Windows will be restarting
in the next 30 seconds...

 

[vampiredust]

.22 Fuck

The last fuck I had with her
was dry and painful
like the Mojave. Cactus hair
got caught in my mouth
and I struggled to breathe.
Choking made me remember
how she dragged me there,
a snake eager to test
how a lizard grows a new tail.

 

[champagne1982]

Metallic Salts

Fireworks are the rainbow factory
everyone knows
that the eerie green of copper
and strontium's red glow
simply mix together and reflect
the brilliant white
flare of magnesium releasing
oxygen from its ties
to hydrogen and nitrogen granting
the freedom to burn.

 

[vampiredust]

Pine Cones

The pine cones tossed
into the backyard
are played with by the wind's
childish fingers. The jetski
and a covered up ski boat
watch a pair of visiting crows
laugh at it fumbling with their
grenade skin, trying to eek
out the seeds. Neither realises
that it's the visitor taunting
them at night.

 

[WickedEve]

We climb below the cliffs
to look for sharks' teeth
and horseshoe crabs --
"Meine Oma called them saucepans."

I'm not sure why. Maybe because
that's where they ended up.

They're really more like the spider
or scorpion, the transformed spirit
of a samurai. At least, that's what I've read.

I am not here to devour
nor fear.
I am here to photograph them and take home
a pocketful of sharp teeth.

 

[vampiredust]

Noises

Perhaps it was not the noise
that they felt at night, the sound
of passing cars dissolving
the landscape of pine trees

and million dollar homes
into a soundbox of elongated
vowels and alien syllables.
But surely they must have felt

the light licking the salty sweat
off their bodies, peering
at them huddled close to one

another; arms bent like dowsing
rods, desperate for another
source of energy.

 

[vampiredust]

Near O'Hare Airport at Night

Derelict land rots like slabs
of gone-off meat in the dark.
A lit McDonalds sign advertises
its wares boxed like the dolls

in Amsterdam's red light district.
Limos skimming for business
sniff their light, growling angrily
when they taste only rotting

flesh. On the horizon, a plane
is taking off. Its decomposing
cargo, buried in iPods and laptop
screens, watches the world

lurch towards another age
of bone. This is the hour
of the derelict, of the faithful.

 

[vampiredust]

Wednesday night

Birthday for a cop last night. They're
all Mormon, so no beer or cigarettes.
Sprite, BBQ flavoured crisps and cake.
We sat in the dining room listening

to them talk about the show Reaper
as if it were more important than God.
The dog whined outside last night
as the wind rearranged the pines'

pylon bodies. There might have been
some message there. I dunno.

 

[WickedEve]

Just found the critter and wrote the poem in a few minutes. Wow, this was suddenly. Suddenly can be quick and scary. Words should not be quick. They should be labored over! Okay, it's a silly bee poem.


I found a bee in the final cycle --
honey, yellow jacket,
hornet? I don't know my bees
very well.

Three segments, wings,
black and yellow,
smallish, certainly not bumble.

Despite the water and spin,
the Tide and agitation,
he remained perfect.




_

 

[vampiredust]

Invasions

Alicia complains about the waves
of recent migration in Europe. Her
peacock eyes batter against
the Vegas heat and she pouts,

the restless cleavage in her sports
bra eager for water or oil. Some
foreign touch is needed her body
language says. 2 million Ecuadorians

live in Spain, doing all the jobs
no-one else wants to do. She leans
forward and I catch a glimpse
of what she is storing down there:

Several exotic birds, each pining
for her. She dotes on them
as if they were children, unaware
of the hatching eggs they are carrying.

 

[vampiredust]

Subsidising Mexico (As told by Dali)

We flung our horses
across the border
using giant catapults.
Their grenade bodies

exploded in a sing-song
of pre-recorded neighs
and whinnys. Everything
about them was fake:

The manes, the teeth,
the meat loaf coloured
hide. It was impossible
to explain at the hearings -

everyone there was too
busy grazing to pay
attention.

 

[vampiredust]

Toy Soldiers

Cop-boy and his friends
are downstairs re-enacting
historical battles on the dining
room table. They shake
the dice and move their heroes
on the cardboard battlefield.
Victory is measured in turns
not with the sound of gunfire
and shelling mortars. I listen
to them speak of mutual friends,
music and 'good times'. Naive
like children, they are oblivious
to the game of Monopoly
being played in the outside world.

 

[vampiredust]

North Town, Las Vegas

Latinas with mushroom cloud
bellies watch passing cars
from their front yards. Palms
perform burlesque dances

for entertainment, a lure
to entice someone to stop
and watch. No-one ever
does. The boarded up gas

station with its wooden
eyelids will be condemned
soon. Homes will fall apart
and snatched by the earth.

We will taste the fallout
and it will be beautiful; manna
for people without identity
or purpose.

 

[Eluard]

The bird sings to his muse


Night live in this, the blood's shade
you have no other shelter —
that which surpasses song is cold.
The evil you can do to me
you do not do.
This is all that there is of good.

Scent of pure shapes in the creation
this world is not —
give me your sword to make
a clean line to the heart that no longer exists.
Voices on the path away from the wiry sun
are lilies, born last night on your breath.


.

 

[champagne1982]

There is a bluster burns
out of the northwind
behind the hill.

It grabs noses with pliers
that snap tight to skin;
pinched by cold

to whiten, where no blood
flows in warm rivulets
through veins

beneath cellophane skin; too thin
to keep out the icy lance
of winter wind.

 

[vampiredust]

Dog Days

The neighbour beat
his girlfriend like a man
trying to make his dog
submit.

The sound of her yelping
and trashing her feet
making two of my wife's
housemates

come over and sort him
out, finding only a puppy
cringeing in one corner
and the collar lording

over it, bowing