Archival Review

[LeBroz]

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I don't know about how dark this is, but asking to be bitch slapped?


Dark
by smithpeter©


Would you pull the shade
Remove the light
Blur our imperfection

Kick me
Bitch slap my butch notion
Our infatuation

Around you I hang
On every space
Between your delicate words
Our mortality, this is
Pleasing

Between your deleted words
Our morality, is this
Pleasing

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[LeBroz]

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Now this is dark!


Dark
by pointless©


Low down and lying in the dirt,
Covered in shit waist deep.
Laughing about something,
But it lodges in my throat.
I guess it wasn’t that funny.

Maybe it’s just me.
Bloody wrist goes drip-drip
Over the sink, into the basin.
Look at the blood flowing through the water,
Just look at it. Isn’t it pretty?

Maybe it’s just me.
Maybe this is all my fault.
God damn it, that stings.
Feels so good to feel some pain
After being so numb for so long.

I shouldn’t have punched the window.
It was already too cold in here.
Now it’s even colder.
Too cold.
Too damned cold.

I used to like the cold.

I guess I’ve changed.
Most likely for the worse…

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[LeBroz]

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Found some interesting pieces today, respondents to a 'Dark Feel' challenge, perhaps. What follows are the four pieces still posted; the last, an erotic piece. This first has a bit of humor to it you're sure to enjoy in this clash of lifestyles.


Dark Feel in Pink Chiffon
by darkmaas©


Full metal Goth
Dark celtic rose
With raven hair and moody eyes
A look that brooks no compromise
You take your lovers hard and fast
Strut dark and hope the night will last.


But today
You glower among sunny smiles
In plum chiffon
Bridesmaid at a sister’s wedding.

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[LeBroz]

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Here darkmaas offers up a darker 2nd piece with a bit more to think about.


Dark Feel in Wormwood
by darkmaas©


Pale green
Cloys sweet to mask
Wormwood bitter
Paris opalescent

***

I came upon old Oscar
Fat and droll and fey
In studied languor, posing
By dark eyed Salomé.

That dancing levantine
With her baptist on a tray
She brushed his lips, “Iokanaan,
Ta bouche, je l’ai baissé.”

Green fog enshrouded Oscar
Rose and sailed away
Leaving just the three of us
With little left to say.

We left John the baptist lolling
Bleeding on his silver tray
And once he was not looking
We caught the night train to Calais.

***

Left hand city
Bittersweet mask
Wormwood soul
Why must you ask?

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[Angeline]

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Here darkmaas offers up a darker 2nd piece with a bit more to think about.


Dark Feel in Wormwood
by darkmaas©


Pale green
Cloys sweet to mask
Wormwood bitter
Paris opalescent

***

I came upon old Oscar
Fat and droll and fey
In studied languor, posing
By dark eyed Salomé.

That dancing levantine
With her baptist on a tray
She brushed his lips, “Iokanaan,
Ta bouche, je l’ai baissé.”

Green fog enshrouded Oscar
Rose and sailed away
Leaving just the three of us
With little left to say.

We left John the baptist lolling
Bleeding on his silver tray
And once he was not looking
We caught the night train to Calais.

***

Left hand city
Bittersweet mask
Wormwood soul
Why must you ask?

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One of my favorite d-maas poems. He's such a wonderful poet, He wouldn't agree, but he is.

 

[LeBroz]

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Here's the 3rd of the 'Dark Feel' poems; this one gives an Asian perspective.


Dark Feel in Yellow Skin
by Cordelia©


being neither white nor male
as artform

raise my gaze
my arms
peel labels from my back

wincing
at imagined mailorderbrideclothes
wiping
footprints off my forehead
and sitting
UP

I carry my lack of accent
in my purse
next to social security

in case anyone asks

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[LeBroz]

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Here's the 4th of the 'Dark Feel' poems, an erotic piece on kitchen happenings. Hungry anyone?


Dark Feel on the Kitchen Table
by Lauren Hynde©


From the black silence of landscape
it came, leaving a blood-spattered tear,
her face
that of a siren
that of a tigress rolling on the floor
the metallic wails of love
in the shape of a haze at the edge of sight.

Wounded, two mouths kissed
blood-spattered on the kitchen table
where she sits, virtuous and confident,
stirring the soup with her smile.

After having shattered
respectable sets of dishes and shackles,
like nothing had happened at all.

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[LeBroz]

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Plays so well with words. Don't know which is more fun, "audacity, stalacticity," or "be bopbop celestial."


dark kitchen
by 2rivers©


a 5/8 moon so brilliant
as to cast an eared shadow
of my hand
into stainless steel sink

occasional drips and calcium
build up to greet me
the nerve of minerals
their audacity, stalacticity

warm blood flows for needles
not a drop spilled to the down
side imitation, imitation marble
fit for drawing room

skidding the smooth, my main job
pushing water uphill, laughing
pulling onto my lap
the heat of bunny love

oh my stars, my Luna
my all in a row planet pals
a choir of cool chords
ooooo be bopbop celestial

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[LeBroz]

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A little natural eroticism goes a long way.


Darwinian
by Tzara©


It is how the genome speaks to self—
unfairly, all
below the belt. That your firm swell
of breast, of hip signals fecund youth
my loins do not know.
They merely reach for you,
compelled to join, to bind.

Where they lead, the mind must trail.
Yet it is also selfish.

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[LeBroz]

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Maybe the two-legged kind will roll over for sexist language, but watch what you say in front of the four-legged female.


Daisy's Critique of Sexist Language
by ishtat©


Daisy's Critique of Sexist Language in Shakespeare

Quotation from King Lear Act 4 Scene 6.


Father taught us Hamlet in the cowshed,
we suspect he taught the cows when we weren't there.
Milking cows prefer the tragics,
scotch play, the Moor, the magic
of any line of Mr Shakespeare
can soothe the bovine ruminator,
but we found they drew the line at mad King Lear.


"Down from the waist they are centaurs,
Though women all above;
To the girdle do the gods inherit,
Beneath is all the fiends;
There's hell there's darkness there's the sulphurous pit"-

Father's cryptic declamation just confused us,
young-teenage boys, we didn't understand.
"Never mind" he said, "don't bother
and best not tell your mother,
for females don't appreciate the critics of their kind".


Daisy turned her head reproachful towards Father,
lashed out swiftly, kicked him hard in his behind.
She then took a lowed applause from her sisters in the stalls.
This dramatic femme bos taurus
with one kick had just restored us
to correct appreciation of the females and their kine.

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[LeBroz]

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A love poem, after all the taking. Mother was too late — now what's left?


Dastagh
by Lord Wolf©


Late last night the dog was speaking of you;
The snipe was speaking of you in her marsh.
You are the lonely bird throughout the woods;
You live without mate until you find me.

You promised me and yet you lied to me,
You would still be there where the sheep are flocked.
I whistled and I gave three hundred cries;
And I found nothing there but fleeting lamb.

You promised me things that were hard for you,
A ship of gold under a silver mast;
Twelve towns and a market in all of them,
A fine white court by the side of the sea.

And you promised me things not possible;
You would give me gloves the skin of a fish;
You would give me shoes the skin of a bird,
A suit of the dearest silk in Damasq.

Your mother told you not to talk with me,
Not today, tomorrow or on Sunday.
She chose a bad time for telling you that,
She shut the door after the house was robbed...

You have taken the east away from me,
You have taken the west away from me,
Taken what is before and behind me;
You have taken the moon, taken the sun,
And my fear is great you have taken God.

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[LeBroz]

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Here's the perfect combo for this time of year — date night at Hooters during football season.


Date night: Hooters
by SeattleRain©


Kristin sat down and slid in
on slick orange polyester short shorts
across the booth, close

You know what you want?
she asks in that cartoon cute voice
smooth with innuendo.
Leans over me to peek over my menu
her tight lifted breast brushes my arm,
then rests on my bicep.

She has no plans of moving it and I realize why
these men pay $7.00 for a burger
sweet Kristin calling me darling
so sweet and concerned only with satisfaction,
fulfilling my desires
for another Killians.

I am not quite the only woman
in Hooters this evening,
but the others are all singing Happy Birthday
to Tony and Dave who are perched on tall chairs
standing on top of tables, making
boat rowing motions as the girls

the girls sing it right there
for them with buddies calling in another round.

I walk through to the
rarely used ladies room
and wonder if these men envy my husband
for having a wife who suggests Hooters on Date night
or pities him for my taking all the fun out of the naughtiness of it all

all the glorious innocent naughtness of short shorts,
tight tights, scoop shirts beautiful girls
without a panty line in sight.

You know you want it
she says to me
tapping the end of her pen on her teeth,
selling me on the desert for two

goddamn, it feels good
to admit it with my presence
and smile that yes goddamn it
I do want it
but this is as close as it gets.

Or maybe I can convince him
to take me to a strip club
next week.

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[LeBroz]

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After the fun of Hooters, how about something a bit more stark.


Dave
by 2rivers©


ravaged by weathered realization
his face shows the moss of north,
chill and humidity
devoid of east/west equilibrium

sun day, moon night
just like Dave insists
real world hinges on
no need for any more big words

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[LeBroz]

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Emotional prayer of thanks offered in simple style.


David
by magicalmouse©


I traced the ridges of puckered skin
with fingertips shaking, mind racing.
His body had been torn, his mind suspended
in long sleep, shielded from life,
and as he spoke, I could almost hear
the crushing of metal and the sickening
thud of skull against rock.

Here he was though, lying naked before me,
my heart, my soul and father of my children.
Breathing, living, never to leave us,
and all that remains are these scars to remind us
of the frailty of life and how precious our lives are.

Sometimes God just is not ready,
to accept another disciple,
and for that I am grateful, blessing every morning
that David who is a son, father, brother...
my lover, still walks among us.
Giving his thanks to the angel that sat on his shoulder
the night the doctors said,
no life,
no hope.

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[LeBroz]

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An interesting image — the virginal dawn.


Dawn
by The Gentle Man06©


At dawn
the untested sun
teases the desolate sky
with her warm fingers
of light

Like two virgins
fondling each other
with breathless anticipation
of what the next
few moments will bring

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[LeBroz]

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Here's one with a smooth singsong quality to it.


Dawn Song
by Linbido©


Here it is
a song for cattle
calling pine, enchanting twig and brook
and beetle's battle
waking old man eighter
when his cobweb tangles rattle

Hear it now
a prayer for wheat
with praise for earth and rain and grain
and winter's slow defeat
calling for the seedlings:
Lap the sun, collect the heat!

Join me now
in praise of dew
parading drops of sunrise silver sweat
to greet the day so new
chilling little tripping feet
that morning hunt pursue

Wake up now
and turn the ploughs
turn your voices up in praise
for every falcon, lynx and mouse
in the morning golden meadows
where we built our humble house

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[LeBroz]

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Here's a bit of word play you really can relish, so much so that you'll probably reread this just for the fun of feeling the play of the words.


Dawning
by Angeline©


Those Fates are fickle ones,
bubble bubble, rack and ruin
stand in the shadow of trouble,
and the rubble of plans drive
you something soon, but wax

wanes like night takes down
the fading Moon, puts it to bed
all hush till Eos rises radiant
relief, and raindrops pirouette
from Sun. I learned on Saturdays

across the sawdust floor, talc
tights, en pointe, en leotard,
pick a spot, focus, you spin
into something new, straight
ahead till morning's autumn hints,

of shut-down brilliance, time
for plans and gathering, a harvest
at last twilight drops a rainbow,
hung like a varigated gauze flag,
waving good night, sweet dreams.

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[LeBroz]

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Here's a piece many might identify with. I like to interpret it as a mother's dream of the day the children have grown and moved out and her life becomes her own again. Enjoy this one — I think I'll start tomorrow with a Senna Jawa villanelle!


Day of Freedom ~
by RhymeFairy©


One day ...
I will be away from all this
craziness. A life, home where
all is peaceful, and kind.

No more late night scares.
No more manic days, of
druggish demons, that sneak
and hide. Stalking all who
stand in his way.

A day of happiness is
on the horizon. A day
of warmth ... pleasure.

A day where no more will
command and restrain,
my existence. One day,
I shall be free, to just be me.
One day ...

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[LeBroz]

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So many poems by Senna Jawa are pictures of brevity, so imagine my surprise in coming across a villanelle penned by the very same Senna Jawa!


day to day
by Senna Jawa©

only clouds no birds race across the sky

i chase my errands in circles

go on do not stop do not ask me why?


sad songs at funerals when a man dies

are simple acknowledge no miracles --

only clouds no birds race across the sky


i chase my errands i sell and i buy

and birds? they perform in a circus

go on do not stop do not ask me: why?


my shirt's white i wear a colorful tie

my face shows a web of wrinkles:

only clouds no birds race across the sky!


you're gaping at heavens searching for a pie

but your pie only wiggles and wiggles

go on do not stop! do not ask me why?


i like my fate her humor so wry

for an ice-cream she serves me some icicles

only clouds no birds race across the sky

Go on do not stop do not ask me: why?​

wlodzimierz holsztynski ©
1993-06-27
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[LeBroz]

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It took a moment for this to sink in. After all, who would normally describe cut roses and chocolate like this? But it's even better to take the time to read it through to its conclusion and savor those final three words. Enjoy this humor and lighten your evening.


Dead Blooms & Dog Poison
by Sander Roscoe Wolff©


He bought these dead blooms and
Dog poison for his beloved.

Hands torn by thorns, bloodied.

Standing at her door,
Nervous perspiration trickles
Down his ass crack.

Visions of car crashes,
Train wrecks,
Sinking ships
Fill his sweaty brow.

The moments stretch on
Indeterminately. Seconds
Seem like minutes. Minutes
Feel like hours.

Waiting, heart palpitating,
Is misery.

Still, her door remains a barrier to
His hopes and aspirations.

Perhaps things would go better
If he knocked.

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[LeBroz]

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Bit of a darker feel here. Let's start the day with a cemetary theme.


dead Schultzes
by SeattleRain©


when I die

when I die
bury me with the other Schultzes
I always felt most at home
with all the dead Schultzes


cold
naked
stone


when I die
find the one who loved me most
dress me with purple flowers,
the stems tied up in knots

find him
he will know what to do
and listen
listen to him

leave nothing whole.


hot
naked
ash


listen to me now
while my mother’s blood
slides through my veins

when I die
take me where they know me best
they will know what to do


December 13, 2003

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[LeBroz]

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No matter how rough the day, there's something soothing in a child's joy and innocence.


Dear Christine
by Icingsugar©



Dear Christine,
my stumbleline,
so stars in clear blue
pools of curiosity,
so just like what I try to be.

So peering at the giant blue,
so giggling at a foamy wave.

"Look, bubbles!", that melodic spree.

"Yes, princess."

"Can we go there?"
How you love that sea.



Dear Christine,
your day, your scene.
The distant shaded corners
of my jaded heart can glow

by the beacon
of a tiny palm
seeking mine.
Your stage, your show.

A tug, my name, a pointing hand.

"It blows too much! He has to land."

We watch the white wings wobble,
settle, stagger, fold,
huddle in the autumn breeze.

"I told you so."
Yes, you did.

"You have no jacket. Don't you freeze?"
Yes, I do.

"No, I'm all right."
See through me, please.



Dear Christine,
my seagull queen,
and queen of me,
your freezing knight,
a heart ignited,

powered by a tiny hand
and stars in blue,
wings and foam,
a giggle,
you.

"Come, Christine. Let's go inside."

"You're freezing, right?"
Yes, I do.

"I told you so."
Yes you did.

You always wring, somehow,
my spirit true.

I cannot hide.

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[LeBroz]

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Here's one with a plea that seems to echo humanity's longing for someone to take care of things.


Dear God, are you there God?
by LadyCibelle©


This one is from the darkest period of my life when I didn't see any light at the end of the tunnel. I really wanted to end it all.




Dear God,
Are you there God?
Why am I asking that?
You’re always there... right?!
I went to school today.
Another fake smile and a laugh.
I’m so fat... ugly!
How can anyone stand looking at me?

Dear God,
Are you there God?
Why am I asking that?
Of course you are.
Yeah, right!
How come when I cried myself to sleep last night,
You couldn't rock me, put your arms around me,
Tell me it would be OK.
How come when my friends were too busy to listen to me,
Always complaining, too occupied with their own problems,
You couldn't lend me an ear, comfort me?
How come when my heart was breaking,
Covered in my own blood...
I didn't know if I should stop it,
Or let it flow, feel the pain.

Dear God,
I am dying.
I’m not the girl I used to be.
What am I talking about?!
I haven't been the same since the fuckin’ third grade!
I didn't know I’d cry myself to sleep every night!
I didn't know I’d be depressed, hate myself!
I DIDN'T KNOW!

Tell me God...
Do I deserve this?!
I haven't died physically yet, but me, the girl I long to be, has.
I’ve been taken away by my own tears, washed away with my own blood.
I'm so tired.
If this is what life is... I don't want it!
I don't want to deal with it!
Please, just take me... take me away, now.

Dear God,
Are you there God?
Please, hold me.

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[LeBroz]

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Cybercommunications and cyberrejection — for some the cyberpain becomes real.


Dear Jane
by ABSTRUSE©


Kinetic letters,
askew and independent,
becoming reborn in words,
settle themselves in cyberspace..

Trembling fingers press buttons
that create the vacuum,
as words inhale their first new breath
and speak to tear-filled eyes.

Innocent little assassins
cut right through her heart
and rip it from her chest.
“Look at us, you fool,”
they laugh.
“Honesty deceived you.”

They blow through the screen
as sand and sleet,
stinging her eyes.
Burning white saline rivulets
run down her face
splattering the keyboard,
as acid rain drops,

in time with her staccato breath
tapping away at the keys
until both are silent.

As death.

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[LeBroz]

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Giving flesh and bone to the infamous 'Dear John' letter that has, for generations, brought dread to the souls of young military.


Dear John
by BooMerengue©


running and ducking; mortars exploding all around
the sky lit up like day, his buddies gone
gooks everywhere; couldn’t find his unit

bullets zipping by his head
pinging off trees so close; the screams
of bodies coming apart like rag dolls

the thud of death mingled with blood
spurting and scattering. falling into a trench
sounds muted, breath returns

cigarette inhaled shielded by his helmet
pulling the letter out; his sweetest love
his only hope of keeping sane

his Birthday was yesterday
today the Day for Lovers
he smiled at their love

remembering trips for a coke, proms,
and to Scoops for ice cream
her perfume in his car; on his clothes.

the high school love
the promise to marry
and ‘goin all the way’

the tears at his call up
her vow to wait
her love strengthening him

Dear Freddy
I hate this
remember Davy?

His heart pauses...

We’re gonna marry
next weekend
I’m so sorry

he drowns in the silence, his hope gone
finishing his smoke he rages
out of the trench helmet forgotten

charges the line, M-1 heating up the night
bodies falling right and left, three, seven dead
his unit stands in awe as the earth spits at his feet

sounds around him drowned in his screams
her whispered ‘I love you, Bobby’ all he hears
as he runs out of ammo and stands; hands raised

Dedicated to SGT Robert Elia, born 12 Feb, 1947
Killed in Action So Vietnam 13 Feb, 1968

Happy Valentines Day, Bobby!

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