all of a sudden passion suddenly

[WickedEve]

Calcite can take gypsum, any day
and talc is a passive bystander.
No one picks a fight with diamond-
but beryl lives with knowing that she
may not be as hard as corundum
but she is emerald, topaz
aquamarine- she wins solidly
when paired with calcite, apatite
or flourine. But I prefer feldspar or
the simple quartz, readily found
washed down the mountain
in a rainbow of smoke,opaque
or rose.


( for BJ)

What a lovely mineral poem. If you have to write a poem about minerals, then why not go for the gold!

 

[vampiredust]

I really don't know what I was thinking/ A crow must have occupied my mind

O God
O God
O God

The city moans, arching
its back against the sky's
grey shoulder.

O God
O God
O God

Cars running along their Hot Wheels
circuit freeze and listen to it shudder.
Cathedrals of newspaper lining
the pavements swing their black
and white arms like a priest releasing
incense in celebration.

O God

Lovers crawl into one another,
tired of the noise.

 

[normal jean]

..........)

 

[vampiredust]

Dismantling the Photo

Should I separate the cloud
linked like paper dolls?
Should I break the water tower's
knees? Should I pull back the oak
tree's fingers and make it weep?
Should I thresh the wheat
and wake the baby sleeping
underneath?
Should I dive with the Heron
about to feed and be unable to breathe?
Or should I simply remove you
and wander amongst the photograph's
unfathomed white?

 

[vampiredust]

My little sister found out she was dyslexic


They threw her favourite doll
into a patch of nettles.

It crawled back to her
years later,

bruised.

 

[vampiredust]

Missed

The trees stopped hallucinating
after the storm,
their upturned roots
nerve endings unplugged
from the oxygen-starved sky
cut off the daily dreams
of Zorro fantasies and Liberace
extravagance. Gone
were the valentine-heart pools
and maids with exotic names
like Saigon or Okinawa.
They saw only the cold metal
faces of passengers
on buses and in cars,
the childish fumblings of loose
skin a reminder of what electricity
charged their roots, their children.

 

[WickedEve]

The things I understand…
well, it isn’t German,
though the movie was lovely.
And it isn’t her name

in your mouth
while lips shape
”Margaret”
against mine.
She slips inside,

tastes like almond –
bitter dose. My head spins,
same as voodoo Margaret’s
little, rag noggin
will twist –

once I have a thread,
a lash, or her brickle hair
and root.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Calcite can take gypsum, any day
and talc is a passive bystander.
No one picks a fight with diamond-
but beryl lives with knowing that she
may not be as hard as corundum
but she is emerald, topaz
aquamarine- she wins solidly
when paired with calcite, apatite
or flourine. But I prefer feldspar or
the simple quartz, readily found
washed down the mountain
in a rainbow of smoke,opaque
or rose.


( for BJ)

Gorgeous! I missed this last week cause I was all wrapped up in the camping trip, and am only now getting caught up. Thank you! Yum!

bj

 

[WickedEve]

“Beautiful things can still
hurt you,” at least
that’s how he interpreted the song.
And was I the beautiful thing
or what we once had?
Then he tells me that maybe

I was just a prick. Yeah,
every rose has its thorn.

 

[vampiredust]

Excess

He reaches in the top hat
of the poem and yanks
out several piranha,
not the cliched white

rabbit. They suckle
the flesh of his fingers,
exposing nerve endings
crackling in the air.

He reaches back in
and pulls out his dying
father. His face is cold
like a church

and all he can see
swirling in the gaps
where blood is flowing
are pointless similes,

sticking out
like spent arrowheads.

 

[sassynyc]

Descent

An acrobatic amble on tight rope
Head to the sky, possibility of faux pas
underfoot. Overwhelming, is my yen to desist
Outwardly I smile to the heavens
My third eye spies imminent wreckage
below. Above I stage the performance
of a lifetime. My life in the balance
of this balancing act. Losing traction
slowly. Quickly searching for softness
to break my fall. Rise to the occasion
and play the cards dealt, though this
hand feels more like two left feet.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Three girls standing at a bus stop,
hips popped, low lash the slow
train of boys passing (that boy--
his granny a crack head) they confer
about the one with the lazy wide smile,
confirming what their bodies know--
that trouble is a chain that twines
a triple helix around nature's two.

One pulls a chemistry book to her chest
as she confesses, he cute though.
The other two slap her arms and laugh,
clucking, sucking teeth and sighing
their understanding at how the body leads
our fated dances to destruction.

 

[sassynyc]

beauty is...

the essence of beauty
is the imperfection of life
recorded in real time
a live session among
living works of art
the freedom to paint
your canvas
as only you can
your brush strokes
duplicated by none
individuality is
your finger print
on the world

 

[vampiredust]

Barstow, California

Crows hold onto the top
of a fast food restaurant,
their vice-clamp claws
slowly unwinding. SUV's

are picked up and dropped
like toy cars. Palms press
their hands into the soil
and cover bedouin faces.

Everything latches onto the
blooming night to hold
onto the earth again;
its magnetism making stars

bend their light in praise
of what was once deemed
ordinary.

 

[sassynyc]

Prez

Hatched in Mississippi
Migrated to New Orleans
A quaint songbird spread his wings
Took flight, head cocked at 45 degrees
Vibrant plumage of eccentricity
His lips sing a bluesy refrain to the reed
Sleepy eyed mellow stare
More floats behind it
Than lyrical tones pushed
Through pipes on air
Quiet and gentle in his way
Chirped his own vernacular
Deciphered only by birds
Fellow to his flock

 

[tungtied2u]

Jesus had it easy
he was not responsible
but misunderstood, he was feared
and punished, crucified and prodded
with spears, hung out to dry
he cried out for Mercy upon their souls

I need no help in heaping pain
upon myself. Any excuse will do
a sunny day, a good job, a long lost friend
just reminders they too will pass
and leave me hanging, friendless and hungry
in the dark. It's just a matter of time.

 

[sassynyc]

they reunited amidst a sterling screen
girls at heart, telling tales of womanhood
~happiness and woe intertwined~
to the backbeat of suicidal heels clicking
against the concrete jungle floor

 

[normal jean]

It escapes me, now, poetry of course
I can read and be read to, but the tragedy
is that my heart is failing, I have lost
that spark that led me into verse
then away, but always possessing
a piece of something new.

a feeling, a wish, a fact, something new
that revelation that love is just for fools
who have not learned to control
their hormones and synapses.

I am now in control. My heart does not
beat wildly when I think of him
nor does adrenaline and its sisters
wreak havoc when attempting control
of what's going on inside my brain.

I can be aloof and cold, I do not need love.
I have the sun and the moon and they
are honest, they are strong and never waiver
upon them I can depend and now
I know, I do not need love
nor do I need you.

 

[normal jean]

...................

 

[vampiredust]

Poem

The roadkill shirt
I used to wear
was like her love:

Rotting, with a fox
wet stench
of where she'd
burrowed

and given birth
to cubs blind
like her pity.

 

[WickedEve]

I want it knocked down,
felled like ripe apples (before the worm bites)
the lofty ones, brought down
in summer
by sweeping handle.
I want him to swat,

to smack, simply
because it is ugly.
Undulating bit of ooze,

you dangle from a slick thread --
til the bristles hit.
In his grip,
the broom is a pain flogger
for leggy creeps,
stoop spiders.

beat me
beat me
beat me

fifty falls
one hundred falls
the leather
the wood
the abrasive side
the crop
more

Thin red wrist line
is ugly --
inflammation of relief.

Though,
beautiful,
unlike the knock-them-downs.

 

[tungtied2u]

She understands my appetite
how the hunger comes sweeping
like an avalanche, burying reason

the desperation of being shut off
suffocating with only one avenue
of escape. Crooked finger calls forth

this way boy, I will save you
bend double, head bowed, proceed
prayerful and with perseverance

I tunnel forth, seeking salvation
where she sits arms open, legs akimbo
Mother Mary meets marquis de Sade

Calling me to prayer, she offers salvation
but at a price, ego is the first casualty
self worth the second, purpose the last

I am the beginning and the end
The Alpha and the Omega, she says
and this time I listen

 

[vampiredust]

Pale Ink

Protein and vitamins and zinc
and minerals are meant
to be good for me someone
says somewhere. But I

want to be the child playing
on the swings when the sun
has been unscrewed
and put back in the cupboard.

Lead, nickel and cadmium
are bad metals someone
has written somewhere,
the effects of their words

are clear. Walk past faces
in the supermarket
and you see strands of hair
falling, the last of the ink

scuppering off to a dark
corner to concoct some more
dye to cover what is already dark.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

medicine

in the dusty remains of evening
strewn like slippers by the bed
susurrous as the dreams to come
I draw your name
from my throat like psalms from a well
gleaming mercury

I hold my breath
and swallow it back

 

[vampiredust]

Skip onto the next question

The man in the television set
refused to look me in the eye
with a straight face
when I asked him if politicians
sleep with wolves

and present the cubs
to sheep as deformed lambs.
He just put on his eye patch
and started bleating
before crawling back in a box

marked 'return to sender'