all of a sudden passion suddenly

[eagleyez]

riverfog goes from
colorless to deep blue and then
to lavender-

crabapple groves heavy with
their yearly ornaments,
lower their heads as if to pay homage.

what prayers they must utter
as the dew falls like silent tears
splashed on the deepest of roots,
the ancient persistence, this circle living.

 

[Angeline]

The drift of fog
drapes the distant hill
like a shawl, curling
the Earth is womangrace--
warm underneath
the clip of reserve.

She waits for the Sun
is her lover, light
slipping its hands
over skin of copse,
and valley awakening
in dew- shaken petals,
brush of grass, sleepy
fresh pebbly smiles
and the coffee sluice
warming of day.

 

[WickedEve]

tall girls look goofy when they trip


there are patches of cobbled street
just before and slightly past the livery stable
those horses are new in old town
shoed and strong for tourists

steady gait unlike mine
I clog steeply down the steps
(my heels shouldn't be free)
distracted by deep thoughts
that thong their way between my cheeks

 

[Liar]

leaning on the parapet
with a black cup
and a purple thought

a plop dissappearing
a drop diluting
and another one
spread in my palm

if it looks like rain
and it feels like rain
but it tastes like
not
rain

it might be the tears
of the girl
on the balcony above

she didn't drink coffee
but took her tea
with two spoons of sugar
and three spoons of milk

and four hours later
she still loved him
but knew
she wouldn't crumble
wouldn't leak her defeat
from balconies
no more

her cinnamon muffins
can pull tears
from grown men

and she drops one
now and then
to my morning cup
like rain

 

[WickedEve]

You understood naked laughter,
the afterwards joy. No goodbyes--
laundry can be pitched into the rain.

His blue gaze button-down is sauced
and must be tossed into the gentle swirl,
even before my last sigh,
before laughter undresses.

 

[Liar]

all of a sudden we were ashes
atoms glued to one another
by blood and rebellious ideas
of automotion
this revelation
rocked and roped
our rock solid hope
of deliverance
to dreams
again

all of an assumption we were alien
askew signals in the white noise ether
the oddity in a comformed sprite garden
where everything resonated
between solid walls
except this wailing siren
our solitude
ringing

all of a subculture in the meta pattern
a wormhole in the machinery
so smooth and kelvin neutralized
now pressured by our presence
so precious
so perfectly
precious

and all of a sudden we are
and there is difference
irrational infection
and everything
everything
is given purpose
after all

 

[Angeline]

Someday I will be
a constellation, star
to star stretched
through dark hours,

always there,
fixed finally. Somewhere
permanence. My stellar
eyes will be near
and farsighted

I will look down
to the inside
of my elbow. It will
shine just at that point
but beneath is space,
spinning, even that blue
in the distance.

Earth blues will ever
be mine. My fingers
will glow incandescence,
and reach far enough
for a child to look up
and see me.

 

[WickedEve]

dressed in yellow,
making wheels turn,

from downstream to france,
ofika waits to fly--

dead men hang in trees
and peddle bikes.

you smudged beneath my eyes
with charcoal fingers.
for thirteen days I dreamt.

you spin past,
and there are steps between pause
and post office doors.

 

[WickedEve]

9:05

I called at nine,
because nine is when I take off my panties
for you and part the silence,
that necessary quiet down the hall,
but back here in the dark
at nine and bare
there can be more than hush.

I called at nine and my name was Leon.
You gave me that name
and said it aloud
so friends could hear.
Your friends. Her friends.

I said I'd call tomorrow night
at nine.

I put my panties back on
and wrote this poem.

 

[Vampiric_Mirage]

Writing meaningless words
over & over again.
Erasing them,
knowing they are not worthy,
they are not acceptable.
They do not rape my emotions,
they do not reveal me to you,
they are weak illusions of something that doesn't exist.

My thoughts, my dreams,
my overwhelming agonies,
are forever bottled inside me,
hiding in my own private hell.

They are trapped in the words that freeze in my throat,
the poetry & stories I can't put into words.
They are trapped in the darkness of my bedroom,
where I cry myself to sleep each night.

I sit here and type
nothing
hoping it will help me achieve release,
knowing my attempts are futile.

I can not write what I refuse to admit to myself -
I can not say how reality is crushing my dreams,
my identity, my essence.
I can not say how love,
the only thing I have ever truly believed in,
has made a mockery of my life.

I can not say any of these things,
for fear of shattering my precarious grasp on reality,
so why do I even bother to type these meaningless words?
...

 

[Angeline]

poetry
redemption from words
that cursed,
escapism that heals
brokeness.

poetry
reveals the heart
keeps no secrets
sheds truthful light

Squiggles. Prosaic symbols.
Dashes of sound
molded to words,
conjoined with meaning,
assembled into phrases.

Emotion is held in check
with a green shade of remove,
poet-accountant
toting up phrases,
consultant
of dictionarii, thesaurii,
and memory. Imagination
swimming in endless seas,
shape shifting, catching
glints of thought like rainbows,
reeling them in like fifth-dimension
fish, their essence strained
to the logic of marks on a page,
then massaged with meter,
stanza, punctuation.

Somewhere else someone
cracks the symbol code,
and sees a woman
fishing from a rowboat,
her legs dangling,
toes playing in the water.

Someone feels Sun
on knees, the cool wet tug
of something caught.

 

[OT]

October

the bark of rattled branches
over the din of tumbled leaves
warn of biting wind at dusk

 

[annaswirls]

sleeping with one eye open
I watch sheets rise
fall
rise in rhythm with this breath

toes seek warm partners to tuck between

cold cotton discoveries push through this metronome of
tick tick tick
counting back up from the zero that brought me here

slip tied and feeling floyd sneaking back in this delerium
of too much sugar
too few spikes of reality, truth, absolution to hang my
hat

too many
fingers pointing
here here hang it



here


one eye open I sleep
they point to toes
that breathe in the frequency of red
glow
numbers made of _ and l_l

and this metronome digital
it does not click of metal

pressing air
to my ear drum

tick
glow hummmmmmmmmm

a window filled with the molds of distorted feet
welcoming shoes that

fit

just


right

 

[annaswirls]

caught on splintered not for the sake or of a poem
just
splintered undeneath bare feet
caught there top step
never felt anything under feet with you in hand making me weight------less----


and forgetting all else

you must have slipped from something
like existance when I called you Kelly
promising to call again
telling her I missed her
Kelly
lauighing like Kelly and I always do

wanting a hundred more steps
a thousand
ten no a hundred thousand steps

right to you
calling your name a hundered thousand times
to erase
that laugh and promise made
to Kelly

denying you your name
we both denied
many
names of things and
okay sorry and that
there
are
benefits

but
it hurt me too

and the having to wash dishes continue to laugh
wishing you really could somehow become Kelly

and I could go over sometime
for fingernail polish
and diet something carbonated and caffienated
and whisper secrets and giggle like we used to
sleep over in babydolls together comb and braid your hair
we could practice kissing
and talk about breasts
compare
nipple areola and general boob size
over sour cream and onion chips
catchinhg maybe raisenettes I could make a contest

and let you win
again
and
again



calling you
Kelly
then
forget the pretend


well damn, I bet that would have been a good time then


just like cat stevens
only

dumb like forgetting to stop a poem at its end

 

[Guest]

What are you afraid of?

Shock and awe?
Oppressed by
power overpowering
all things small
larger than you and life

Or penetrating thoughts
probing your core
where secret self
hides from manipulation
imagined or not

Maybe both are equal
as every one of us
are still really children
when we face our fears

 

[tungtied2u]

Safe harbor

Foolishly, I fell
hook, line and sinker
for the silly fable
of everlasting happiness
and one true love,
but would never allow the possibility
it could happen to me

Always in the back of my mind
I saw failure looming,
the boat capsized and sinking,
until that day I saw you
at water’s edge standing in the sand

As the river flowed into the lake
so you replenished me
surged into me, fed me,
stirred my stagnant spirit

You stood, soul beaming like a lighthouse beacon,
welcoming me home to familiar shores
lit up my horizons
became my destination
my final resting place

 

[tungtied2u]

Eulogy

Here I sit
embracing my dear friend
once proud and vibrant
now lying limp and lifeless
his death was premature
came upon him quickly
I think it was a stroke
that finished him off
but I’ll always remember
he died happy

 

[Maria2394]

gave him a finger, he wanted a toe

across lips pouting, finger pulls,
resisting subtle taste
of my cherry lipstick
streaked on compliant, ivory skin

index finger, pointed quest
sojourn through rivers
of kisses and sins,
blended with tears,
sugared yet slipping,
like honey, like dewdrops
in the cleft, of his quivering chin

~~~~


for flyguy

 

[Maria2394]

a cajun burrito

this ones for neo, yes dammit, I am hungry, somone send me a pizza


from three thousand miles, I watch him
this fact, Im sure he knows.
Ive spent the past month, grinding corn
and lime, for my lucious, cajun burrito

and one day soon, I'll hop a plane
and be seattle bound, my luggage
filled with delicacies,
spices I have found

cayenne for neo's little toes
working up, working out
habarnero for that place I want
to put my soft tongue
and wiggle it around

then when he's finally sweatin'
some cajun I'll be gettin
cause in my sweet tortilla,
he'll be rollling,
round and round

 

[Maria2394]

aisle 86 armageddon

that dream, I remember small details
about aisle 86, walmart style
carpenter needed to fix the stairs
and the floor feel from beneath
my feet as I ran towards tomorrow
with the fury of demons
gnawing at my feet, and then there was
boxcar angie, ( no not angeline)
living amidst the strains of shankar
andthe lights were dim, but I could see
the rest of yesterdaywas glowing,
in flames
and smoke boiled up, and thick, around
my ankles as I ranm from the heat
and the bombs fell, laughing
at my now severed feet, what does that mean?
and the roads were now rivers, streams
of fishes and blood
and the smoke just kept
coming as I turned to mud
and teh demons from deep inside of my soul
were free, and awake and eager
to roam and then I woke up
before I could save, the world from
all of the pain I unleashed

 

[Maria2394]

pinched nerve

he calls me carpel tunnel
says I keep him awake, annoying
blatant and raw, and he'd like to sever
me from all of his thoughts,
but you see we are connected,
and that unnerving nerve of his
just cant understand, that feeling
that lives down inside of his heart
will always be there,
like the back of his hand

 

[Maria2394]

to damn the broken dam

did you ever stop to think
that I couldnt handle the flood,
the flood of you that i have kept hidden
behind cement and stone and clay

like garnets glowing, from unnatural gray
I waited and waded through rivers
and prayed, that some day maybe
I would write again and then the dam broke
and you came flooding in

and the memories attached
like leeches on balls
and they sucked me dry,
lke you nearly did and now that dam
is broken, dissolved
and my rivers are cloudy,
but at least they're absolved

 

[Angeline]

If you sleep
with three hairs
under your pillow
your dreams still
don't come true

even if
they really are Ringo's
hair, which Daddy claims
really they are really

a lady on the 4 o'clock
out of Penn Station
gave them to him
he brought them to me
with a delighted smile

they weren't his hair
what was left of it then
was black and silver
they were Ringo hair color
and long so they could
have been though cruel
to think that someone
ripped hairs from the man
I want to marry except
he already is
and when you're young
you think that means
you can't be, ever

and why would I want
cruelty done to someone
I love but when you're young
you think that means
you can't be, ever

but it doesn't matter
if they weren't his
or even if my dreams
didn't come true
because Daddy gave them
to me, and he called George
Charley. Every time even
though we said Daddy!
It's George! And late
at school night when we
kissed every Beatle
in every poster on the wall
goodnight, he'd yell
"Stop kissing Beatles!"
up the stairs
and then
we'd hear him laugh.

 

[Angeline]

At Christmastime
Daddy brought home
boxes of toys
for the union Christmas party

we are good
Socialist union members
so we wrap them,
four Jews in a sea
of cheap paper
printed with teddy bears
and fir trees, scotch tape,
green and red bows.

Barbies and Matchbox cars,
Tonka trucks, checker sets,
paint boxes, coloring books.

It's just a small house
on Hobart Avenue .
We are pretty poor,
I know that now.
We were. Mama says
we can each pick one toy,
but not "the best one."

Mama? Why
couldn't we ever pick
the best one?

 

[OT]

top shelf girl

stumble
mumble
then smile
over
books
and priorities
delightfully
rearranged