all of a sudden passion suddenly

[annaswirls]

this is what happens this is what happens this is what happpens when you write in code all day
measuring

leaving crumbs

 

[4degrees]

its so perfect
in my one good eye
it went
unnoticed
for too too long
the words
arranged
like a black
bouquet
smelling
faintly
of must
i must
see it all
i have a new one
a lovely mess
and i will put you
on my non existant list.

 

[Guest]

And I tasted ashes
couldn't swallow
with a scorched throat
couldn't spit them out
with blistered lips

The sun is as hot
in the shade as it is out

Tomorrow, yes tomorrow
if there is one
I'll wear sunblock
imbibe it down like southern-style
Long Island Iced Tea

Maybe it will coat and soothe
the insides as it does the skin.
make everything perfectly safe
in 212 degree weather

Or maybe it won't
Everyone reaches a boiling point

 

[4degrees]

insipid
inspired
by the hot flash
the broken glass
the dirt
under your nails
the filth
i wish to suck away
suck away
and fuck myself
i can't make out
the instruction page
your fancy beat
was all the rage
shameless
as you shoot
your load
on my
misanthropic
bleeding
heart.

 

[Syndra Lynn]

feast of flesh

The sign says,
“No sexual behavior
in or around the pools.”

At this point, breathing
is a sexual behavior for me!

This is a feast,
an eat-it-up, soak-it-in,
give-thanks-to-God,
orgy for the eyes and mind,
imagination race.

My nipples bloom
as in my mind, my fingers trace
her hip, his thigh,
biceps firm and nameless face.
Fantasy orgies dance, reminiscent
of Greek mythology
where rampant lust was slaked
at will
for God’s and nymphs alike.

Gods and nymphs
move gracefully
through warm and healing waters,
stately up the stairs,
revealing nudity, unashamedly,
glistening in the sunlight,
and later in the candles’ glow,
these wanton bodies show.

The lust!
My gods, the lust that plays
upon my skin and wheels
my mind: a furnace feels
as cold as stone compared
with where my mind doth go.

Serenity this place bequests,
on the off chance libido rests.
But by magick of a woman’s grace
I glide about with tranquil face,
erotic itch quite well concealed,
unlike the men who must reveal
as soon they step from mineral pool
their lurid turgid lustful tool.



(ha ha ha ha ha ha) I have no idea where this came from, but I think I love it!

Syn

 

[4degrees]

tool
to mis
use
damaging supple
tis
sues
with a fevered
frenzy of
strokology
the psychology
of mastering
giving my all
to me
and...
to me.

 

[4degrees]

tries to accept your praise with grace.....
oops i fucked it up. damnit.
thanks so much.

 

[Man Ray]

Wanting...

Wanting to make love to you,
every minute
every hour
every day,
is like breathing,
something I hope,
I never stop doing...

 

[Angeline]

The difference between houses
is greater than space or wallpaper.
My small space is big with words,
so how can I miss a coffee mug
or a vintage mixing bowl when here
the yard-sale pots cook up ideas
mixed with rainbow food,
green beans and butternut squash
spiced subtly with honey, coriander,
but swallowed in bold gulps
of deliberation: Charles Dickens'
social conscience or reconnaisance
missions along the Russian River
where you once took an unconcious
bike ride before you counted the steps
back to safety and grandfather's couch.

The house in the heart is where words
fall like rain in springtime. What can you do
but lift up your face to catch every cool drop
because you can, because the sky is open.

If I stand on the deck and look up,
I can connect the stars into meaning,
and when I come inside ask for coffee
kisses and strawberry ice cream,
which is just a different way of asking
for another serving of yes
and then tasting it all on your mouth.

 

[annaswirls]

never came to the conclusion

why is it your one eye
always seems a little sadder than the other

like mine I suppose
how now to make them match

it is not just a mistake
or dissolved into memory of geographical friendship

wrapped into paper

moved into files
ordered and again


invitations no longer wired
wondering if you miss them

and why I stopped

out of range
out of words
out of tolerance for the weight


couldnt see it in your mirror but I read you
first glance
with one eye always a little sadder than the oher

a remnant from childhood
or a forshadowing
a warning
tread lightly one is already
mourning on its own

 

[4degrees]

affectation
no reason to
try to appear
sincere
my dear
pristine and so
near
close enough
to pierce into
your
iron house mind
with my
pointy forked tongue
and
laplaplap
at your
oilskin core.

 

[4degrees]

the way you talk shit
sends me over
right over
the rainbow
your words
drip
with simplistic
pearls of
f u c k


i never need you
to be profound
simple fuck words
arranged
in a pretty way
suffice
and it
never
matters
how many times
i hear you
watch you
let that shit
d r i p
from your
big soft lips

it gets me off
hard, every single
time.

 

[4degrees]

the thorns are on
the inside
i can't write shit
i'm not right
i dropped my pen
dropped my first name
drop everything
for a chance
with you
clear out a space
cause i'm movin' in
squeeze myself
in between
the churning gears
between your ears
you've got no
thorns in here
lucky fuck
i'm comfy now
think i'll just hang
inside your head
til its too
polluted
and you ain't the host
you could be
i'll bleed you for
all you've got
and you'll think i'm
doing
you a
favor.

 

[Liar]

I'm a poem
essence squeezed from between clenched teeth
tricked down an aching jaw
and fallen to a fever
ignited in the blink of an island perished

Augustinus, Ansgar and angst will have you this time
tie you to the conquistador's wheel
and titter in glee
as the last remaints of Europa as we knew it
pass into darkness

the heavens sing no more
ethics are laughing stock
at the end of iron tipped floggers

but I'm a poem
and I will prevail

churning my mantra relentless
until Thebes rescurrected
Acropolis elevated
tint the sky opaque once more
and the old songs echo

because all that is will remain
and all that never were will eventually not be
again, when we break free

I'm a poem
somebody
please listen
to me

 

[fawnie]

early morning hours
a tatoo whisper
vows engraved
for love is never safe

shallow breath and sea combined
reveal the truth
unable to keep still

what filled the depths
of sorrows past
and drove them far
from yesterday's tomorrow
returned to me
seven fold
restoring vows
again i break
in hopes
four letters true

i dare not ask
you prove me wrong
but if by fate
or be it chance
i learn it can be so

then my redemption gained.

but if i'm right
then god with hoax
or our free will

reveal pursuit is vain.

 

[Angeline]

one day like any other
creeps into the dawn, opens
its eyes and put its glasses on
squinting at possibility of sun

it's the same morning here
as there and everywhere
them that's got still get.
You're still bound for me to lose,

t doesn't matter if I fall
into a sea of blues, it doesn't
matter if the coming day
is welcomed by the sky or I

am beaten into nothing
by a waking rain, your window
is a mirror where you see only
yourself reflected in the pane

you cause more pain
simply by entering the day
with all your brittle principles
intact, hatching your plans
for more revenge

and children dreaming
in their beds are not at ease,
but none of that is relevant,
none of that will please the court

you've convened in your mind,
and it will rain or not and I
will struggle through another
day of exile awaiting what new
turn of plot

might bubble up to shatter hope
while you shower regret off
in the soap and brew a morning
cup and wake them up knowing
that always

you were right.

 

[eagleyez]

Manzanita and
Monkeypod,
The viola wood is the darker brown.
So who walks you down? to the greenest time of year-

It might not even be me

me or the fire that

Stills the steam that forever hisses

The glacier falls with a resounding thud, hard and yet

Perseus travels from the longest horizon

Are you of afraid that too?

 

[Liar]

you are the flame
tempting to the eye
painful to the touch
disruptor of reason

teasing, taunting
don't you dare?

and we all wag
slower and slower
closer and closer
to critical mass
in the dizzy high
confusing caress
with consumption

until we hear ourselves scream
realise that alchemy is alarm
and retreat in overdue panic
to tend to scorched scars
that will never really heal

while you
don't even flicker

 

[Angeline]

While waiting for you in the windchime afternoon
bells of suburbia are ringing this small town's song
here by the windshield and the chain-link fence,
here where cars are turning through the remains
of the day, and an American flag on a red-cedar deck
is the only sign of allegiance.

I have no allegiance. I can't pledge the country
of myself, let alone a marriage because everything
commonplace is alien. I'm a stranger here, like you
and you. I don't belong in this town, on that deck,
or even in this car, waiting, trying to scratch meaning
into rows, rationing my sensibilities in slants and loops
that might as well be cuneiform, found if I am lucky
when I am someone's ancestor, when I finally belong
to the only community that will welcome me.

Someone who'll say: She was crazy. She never could quit
vacillating between dreaming the breadth of flowers
and waking to this deception: they grow in land mines.

Someone who'll say: She could never stay put
because even as she built a shrine of hope, carried it
in her imagination, she never set it down long enough
to sprout the roots of trust or call any space
outside her own pocket a home.

Someone who'll say: She had no allegiance
to anything but lucidity and letters. And this
will be a woman, I know, the seed of some dark-eyed
daughter of Jerusalem, a luminous star gripping
the night of innocence, not a broken stem in a parking lot
no different from this one, just a place where people come
and go, unaware of coughs or crows or windchimes,
and I'd like to think that when she sits her toes turn in
or that she twists one lock of hair between her fingers
like I did once.

If I am lucky because lucky is the most allegiance
I can fashion from experience, she will read this
and think oh my great-grandmother, that crazy poet
who sat in parking lots considering the significance
of windsong has found her voice.

 

[fathom7]

The cast of sun dried the day too soon
Lying in the aftermath of what we wrought
Turning slower now toward the emergent star
Drying

Cloistered close among our arms
The lost and found of last eve's song
When fervid breath expelled our noise
Crying

Enrapt we were and still we are
Encased in warmth and breezy touch
Your handfalls linger at my loins
Wishing

The daybreak now has slung the spell
As we separate and move alone
Apart once more til we know not when
Parting

Your visage in my mind remains
Our tryst and tumble in the sheets
My clumsy moves to ipen you
Laughing

One last glance is cast toward you
Finding smiles and charm are flowing forth
Then off we move on different paths
Longing

 

[annaswirls]

I will close my eyes and tell you what is mine
this your beauty that I carry with me down aisles
calling for lost children, selecting the box of the reddest of the strawberries

all of these are mine

not all berries, these berries
not all children, these children
not all of you but this the part of you I hold

other lips may taste juices I see them on display,
but not these, not mine

 

[Angeline]

For the first time I feel obligated
to pay a debt. The IRS and bookies
should not get overly excited. No baby,
the alimony’s not in the mail. I used it
to rent Soapy’s garage to hide
the Lexus from the repo man. It’s
only something I owe myself,
a small item really. It’s just time,

time to empty pockets and confess,
to toss my wallet and keys on the table.
Part the leather. Under the flap,
that’s her. And that locket and ring
next to our house key? They’re not
my grandmother’s like I told you.

I admit it’s selfishness that spurs me
to clean the slate, but this poverty
of soul brings tatters I need to stitch,
a hunger that peanuts won’t solve. I
need that little girl outside, in the open.
Remember that brick house, the window
I always stared at? That’s where she was,

eyes always there in the lace curtains.
They still are, see? Yeah, yeah, I know
we’re in Jersey now, but an entire street
does not need to be the same for me
to see her skipping across the sidewalk
again with fallen maple leaves. Just

a similar frame of glass can be my lens
to her baby blues, a pig-tailed blonde
on a tricycle the wheel that spins her
face back into my life just long enough
to see her roll past on skates. Once

I popped a wheelie on a Schwinn, trying
to impress her and her training wheels.
Bleeding, hurt, I looked up at the sky
and the empty limbs of my mother’s
maple twisted together as if to warm
each other in the autumn cold. Her

face appeared and her fingers touched
mine, trying to pull me up, into her
I think now. I feel like a child again
telling you, but thought you should know
that is still that way I want it to be.
Her face, not yours, above me, white
like a cloud. And the soft rain,
wetting us. My hand and hers closed
on each other like the bare branches.
One thing, interlaced.

You had a Schwinn too?
That's funny because I didn't
really have a Schwinn at all.
It was a Raleigh, blue,
an English touring bike Daddy said,
trying to romanticize the meagre truth
that it was a used boy's bike
from Mr. Silvesti's cellar

because how can you look
into your 6-year-old's eyes
and say we don't have money
for a new pink girl's Schwinn?

It's easy to fictionalize a life.
Daddies do it all the time,
juggling cheap shoes chosen
from a bin at Atlantic Mills
and saying whichever two
don't drop are yours so you
are too busy laughing to think
about how to avoid the eyes
of other kids, who want
Buster Brown shoes too,
just once.

I saw that Raleigh plenty of times
leaning next to the coal bin
with cobwebs on the kickstand,
walked right past it on the way
to clothespins
or Mrs. Silvestri's tomato sauce.

If it ever even saw an English
country lane it was in an old
magazine, but we washed it off,
waxed it, and patched one tire.
Daddy showed me how to wrap
pink crepe paper around the spokes,

and I never once cared who saw it
parked in the playground bike stand
because when I rode away
it felt like flying.

 

[DeepAsleep]

I've been sleeping on the floor,
always the floor.
I've been pacing,
door to door to window to deck
splitting dog biscuits with the puppy
the one that runs in circles around a tree
and is always glad to eat the other half of a milk bone.

Tastes like drywall, goes with beer,
makes me feel like a damn mutt, myself.

Not my dog, makes me sick.
Outside all day, inside all night.
Never walking or catching a frisbee
or chewing on rabbits or running anywhere
except around the stupid tree
running ruts around the tree
and the dog's barely eight months old.
I think his name is Jasper
and I buy him gourmet doggy treats
rub his head and call him a monster
a fuckin' beast,
a good boy.

Not my dog, but I can split a biscuit with him.

 

[DeepAsleep]

No more sandwiches.
Weeks of sandwiches.
Salted ham, black forest ham,
smoked ham, baked ham,
honey glazed fuckin' ham.

Turkey, thin sliced and a bit oily,
the way lunchmeated turkey gets
when it sits in the fridge in its deli baggie

Tater bread, wheat bread,
wonder bread
stuck to the back of my teeth.

No more cereal
no more mac and cheese
throw the ramen out
Sell my kidneys for a steak,
thick and bloody
and juicing in the mashed potatoes.

Strings of days marked by
unsuccessful eating,
chewing on the cardboard noodle
taste of poverty, fantasizing about
irresponsible days,
paychecks blown on grilling out
with no thought for the rent.

~D.A.

 

[annaswirls]

I cannot barter fantasy for soul
of march and haunt and ethical misgivings
faded and wavering
like heat twisted air space
we merge
and burn