all of a sudden passion suddenly

[Angeline]

The clouds are different here
set in the sky like cotton
in a jewel box or lined in light

one candle behind each puff
of wisp candled like eggs
looking for life inside fragility

I'd catch them if they fell
cup them in my palms keep
them warm I need to keep

warmth in these hands
even if they only hold clouds
of memory like eggs careful

of fumbles ever mindful
of impending cracks anything
breaks if you hold it too tight

but night falls now and moon
reassures with its permanence
of dark space intermittant light

some familiarity stays some
things don't crack or fall
to pieces even if they're stars

or clouds that I can't
even reach but still hold
in words dreaming sky

 

[Guest]

Sky high, the earth touched the sun
in one explosive moment

10,000 feet she blew her top
lest we fear she spews
ash and mud down on us

Temper, temper darling
we still know you are there

 

[annaswirls]

re-formed of salt
and volcanic ash sky smoke
blue grey eyes

itch and you cannot
touch

her
re-
form
-ation

 

[annaswirls]

coast through coast
especially in between it happens

apples happen


as doughnete
and do-nut and g
doughnuts without powdered or granulated
or glazed

bring
your
own
sweetness


to the table like something they haevf always known

it happens
like cider and thin wood slit baskets
soft splinters of autumn

as predicted
it comes

 

[annaswirls]

they are finished
for purpose of life that goes forward

they are finished

these goldfinch pecked
squirell stolen seed
some have fallen
for the spring


they are finished for the purpose of life that goes forward

yet

I cannot pull the rotting stems
rough hairs itch hands

brown leaves rustle like a monastry
morning

for all intensive purposes
they are finished

a few green leaves hang tight to summer
these leaves you watched edge their way


with a plan
for more


they grew straight
up

we knew

but they are finished their job here
yet I cannot take them down
view is not spoiled

let me see the green
let me see your green
disappear
as beautiful
as it appeared





I cannot
even
finish off
this
poem



hold



















on

 

[annaswirls]

and I know you would have loved me still
did they leave the back pack never went anywhere
without the backpack filled with
opjects of capture
and cash

this is your house
i will not leave
willingly

 

[annaswirls]

patthatwasanamazingpoem

vanity

vanity
ego

or

modesty
humility

something

must do it

must make you hide
your naked words
imperfection

eyelash thick and painted
filling in the blank spots


white out on the moniter eraser crumbles fall stumblesx down the stairs of intentionality

 

[Maria2394]

K 4

K 4, she has such tiny feet
sharpened stilettos, always wears
a smile as she stomps me
senseless, into the floor
making me vomit, then begging
or wishing, no begging
for more, for more

her smile is skin deep
buried below the surface just for
a minute, a minute
her morphine drip smile can comfort
or kill, and I know this
as she's stomping me, into the floor
I can't take much more

but when she's gone, I crave her
stiletto heels and all, the way
she knows just what I need,
she makes me bleed, but still
I love her, wanting more
and wanting more

wait a week, and she will be
back, more lovely than ever
more soothing, than ever before

 

[annaswirls]

is it okay I tell you these things
how
I want all parts of my body
on all parts of your body
invited
expected
surprised yet




welcome

is it okay I tell you these tihings

that I want all parts of my

body
on all parts of

your
body

uninvited

where you are I will be
take
me take me take me
there

leave string tied to trees

handging lowwdown

when
i arrive the oriels will build us a nest

wrap me in your w
down
and
cotton picked along the way

build me a nest and we can make our


reintroductions
remember me when

is it okay I say these things

to you now

 

[Guest]

Execution on Stitch Street

This past spring the power
went on and off like lame game
of flipping the switch.

But it was rainstorms
that made heavy pine branches
whip and crack against lines.

The tree was four-stories high
with a trunk so big it pushed
buttons on Stitch Street.

(Who in turn, jumped tail on
Puget Sound Power & Light Co.)

During the summer
the tree was decorated
with a Day-Glo mark.

Every stormless day
I saw the big orange X,
but thought nothing of it

until this fall
when the tree was executed;
cut into fireplace fuel,

Sure, at the front door
the lake is a perfect view.

(Uh-huh, look-out,
property taxes are going up.)

This winter, frozen rain
won't have tall branches to hang
or giant ice sculptures to make.

 

[Angeline]

Harbor sparkle. 100
little boats are jagged teeth
in the mouth of the bay.
A finger of land blooms
a mountain firred over,
but flashing the first red shock
of maple, the first icy silver
of birch. It's all overtaken
by the ocean though,
which spreads to enough
infinity for me.

The tourist town is a joke
that doesn't know it's laughing.
Its pretension is stuffed in chinos,
sprouts from Polo shirts,
strolling resolute
to $5.00 tshirt specials,
and later destined for bibs,
butter spatter, shell rubble.

The little harbor town
is an improvement.
Smaller inlet, no yachts,
a pier meant for lobstermen,
dusty beach dotted with buoys,
rusted iron, rope--
the perfect place for sitting
on a rock, chilly-fingered,
feeling the wind blow
my hair back, listening
to our low talk, watching
our lazy smiles, but my eyes
turn back to the ocean,
preoccupied, thinking
about who I am.

 

[Guest]

bored animation

The white on white
vast wall of nothingness
means there is no where to go.

But it's still a million miles
away from where I should be.
Is it all turned the wrong way?

Or is it just me?

The heat of eyes fall heavy,
everyone stares at my back
without saying a word.

There is no direction
only existence in a blasé, ho-hum life.

This is bored animation.

Thinking there's got to be
more than this—
excuse my while I yawn.

 

[Guest]

id wants

Since this day and before
id has had enough of everything,
as sustenance was maintained
by the sweetest air.

All desires should be sated,
but they are not.

Instinctual drives
the source of psychic energy;
forces beyond the physical world.

It is all dominated by
the pleasure principle,
to secure gratification
through irrational wishing.

Never is it satisfied;
id knows one thing—it always wants.

 

[Guest]

...

What is this that's twisting in my gut?
that sick sense
of dawning
that maybe cosmic karma
is again
whipping my ass?

Oh, but I've been there
done that
done that
done that to death

Kismet dear, lest we not forget
abortions
crashing planes
suicides
SIDS
and flash backs.

Let whatever it is, rest
be quiet and still
do what you've always
done in the past
put it on me when I least expect it

 

[Maria2394]

Thor's darkness


while Thor, in his naked majesty, waited
and looked upon, his ravens pulled tomorrow
from his musky closet, filled with layers
of starlight wrapped, in bundles of purple

and they took the glittering blankets and covered
the earth with night and blindness,
as the soil was burnt from the glare
of his tempestuous gaze

and Thor sat upon his throne of strength
and daylight absconded, with his one good eye,
and he was left alone in the darkness, with voices
he could no longer identify

 

[Angeline]

Mother my footprint
next to yours in the garden.
We're peas and carrots,
Jersey tomatos, green beans
from the seed sale are spindly
but climb well enough

to warrant muddy knees
and fingers digging down
to check carrots still too short,
babied back to their own
warm mama loam

All seriousness is aside
at six. Minutes race, called
by the Sun to tumble
through the flap of sheets
and fall to onion weeds,
nets of Queen Anne's Lace,
then blur drying dusky
in and out the lilac breeze
dripping along the fence.

Families. Genus and Species.
Growth in numbers and clumps.
Footsteps danced through changing.

Seasons of fruit dropped
from the cherry trees.
Some forgotten, some
of the primroses crushed,
and everywhere leaves blown,
pods burst in another yard
landing apart and together
in the evolution of roots
necessary and joyous
and terrifying.

 

[annaswirls]

neoificould

take that gut twisting bitch
with many monograms across her sweater
take her and little friends
make them your own

owner
of the slaves

I will hold the keys while you break for
coffe
or soft sofa sleeping

I will quiet their chains banging metal to reach your slumber
coat them in cotton flannel they will stop trying

netted
caged
tamed until they lie down on the carpet
by your feet
like a sleeping dog

leg twitches
an imaginary itch
you reach down and scratch it


read the news without clench

 

[Angeline]

My faith was left outside
the temple door, downstairs
one remove from the women's
partition that peers
at the generations below
clean-cheeked boys
in bright embroidered yarmulkes
their earnest bearded fathers,
then granpas silver with dignity
straight as fine suits, silk shawls
but the old men are dusty jewels
whispering the ancient words,
tallises rumpled, bent davining
in wonder at having again
discovered what only
the youngest know,
drowsing upstairs on mamalaps.

 

[SeattleRain]

The priceless gems of evening
carry riddles in their shining,
stoppage in their leading light
that glues my shoes
to high-heeled puzzles,
prizes for the night. Stars

play hide and seek
like coy and callous girls,
crackling with beauty and raising
their skirts, flirting and blinking
and winking as they feign
their sudden fear
of thunder. I walk

beneath their legs and storms,
wonder why they play with me,
why they decorate their bodies,
why they talk and turn
and wrap their backs in shawls
of mist, and strap on clouds
to hide their thighs and eyes
when my soul moves.

With girls and stars,
sometimes, I think
I’d rather toss their sugar
into morning coffee, stirred
and sipped with the sun, but
their sweet contradictions grow
in the rain, swell in high light,
and their tastes and tortures
reappear in magic cups
when their lovely lamps go on
at dusk.

clouds tickle condensing drops drip like rain onto dry
lips and dust not hiding perhaps an invitation to
breathe down the vapors in to crystal
bowl sweetened with its own spun sugar

dissolve and drip

like the stars that melt into puddles
for splashing

come.

 

[SeattleRain]

behind wood grain pulpit she stands
small --- "forgive, forgive forgive yourselves"

they all wondered what they could have
done could have said should have been

"forgive yourselves"

shorn short hair, another sits beside me,
tears fall between me and her lover
who simply places her hand softly
upon denim coveredknee.

sobs sucked into hiccup
I saw her lover
saying

"I cannot light your darkness
but I can join you there"


the small woman from the pulpit
says

"forgive yourselves"

on sunday morning
there were maybe 5 dry eyes

no one knew this girl the minister spoke of
but
everyone
knew
someone

there was no hand upon my knee
alone

she sat between her lover
and me

my hand longed for a knee

 

[SeattleRain]

years spent finding someone
to give me what I need

now just need to find someone
need what I have to give


it spills from my fingers
woode under my feet rots

predict a falling through

 

[OT]

empty
want

 

[annaswirls]

empty
want

crystal and water
like sun dried sponge
in sand

 

[SeattleRain]

Re: drunk with shakespeare

and spin you like manhattan
and bend you over like the bronx zoo
and fuck you like the queen of queens
or like the dodgers fucked brooklyn
or like shakespeare fucked the world
by handing it a mirror

this is what we sopeak of
speak
of eyes straight ahead
back of the head
ahead of us
focused on the numbers going up up
up 3,4,5,ding befiore anyone might say something like
like shakespeare fucked the world by handing it a mirror

because god knows the numbers woukld go back down
5,4,3,2,1
five tickets to the bronx zoo



cheated always gotta confess
went back for the I's and the parent
hesis

once more
my wrists hurt

 

[Angeline]

The eyes of our fathers endure
growing ever more translucent
generations mirroing back to always
traditions woven in webs of law
and pilpul rule and observance
kashrut and Talmud and millenia
of poor scholars living on farms
arguing which way an egg should
face on Sabbath evening shawls
and phylacteries set them free
and this I never understood
because I've only ever seen god
in grass scented mornings
or autumn night my daughter's laugh
and anyone's smile but lately yours.