Challenge: Five Poems in Five Days.

[TheRainMan]

- 4

.....

 

[Tzara]

n:2

.....

 

[Eluard]

Undress

Late afternoon light splashes in a pool
through the window.
This rhomboid is your door — step
through and undress
here as my breath insists to you
your immortal worth.

It is a form of remembering
this becoming naked,
a stepping back into your
elemental self.
You have entered again
into the world where I am a man
and you a woman
and the starlight joins us
because we sail together
in its silent, untorn ship —
that silence you cannot get beneath.

Feel the light undo you.
Feel it raise you to my eyes.
Feel the ancient pulse in
your belly
as my words search between
your legs.

We are sworn to exchange
only immortal words,
only immortal gestures.
We swore these things without
saying a word.



.

 

[TheRainMan]

- 5

.....

 

[Eluard]

Raphael poses as a U-Boat Commander


Late at night,
the hiss and crack of power lines burning rain.
Messages that leak through
the extinguished radio of the abstract
for the one that is standing here,
awaiting instructions.
I would plough your face under the earth
but that one always brings it back
faithful as the golem.
Brings back also all else that is buried,
the whole city submerged like the hunting
wolf-packs in the North Sea,
but now avoiding light and its implied stigmata,
its renewing immersion
on the other side of death’s rocking water line.
The lights of the city:
drum tattoo, tattoo on a sailors arm —
a name you can almost read.
An angel moves into the cross hairs.



.

 

[Tzara]

n:3

.....

 

[sassynyc]

1-5

the plunge

sitting with this idea, as i pray it will hatch
i've hovered over the concept protectively
now warming to the thought
it begins to take root
and slowly, it molds itself to
the interior of my mentality
for the first time
in the languorous stretch of my forever
commitment has a face
his features are yet unclear to me
but i can make out his form
he understands my idiosyncrasies
and assuages my unfounded fears
he knows all about my love affair with the pen
not the slightest bit threatened
he knows this, i need
and encourages my indulgence
he doesn't concern himself with propriety,
nor does he think me promiscuous
for hopping from thread to thread
he knows me as a free spirit that wears no reigns
so he keeps in his pocket
the 30 karat ring
one day maybe.....
but until then
he gifts me with flowers
that live for 5 days

 

[Eluard]

x-4

Red Riding Hood

Your dress is torn
and your perfume fills my blood

like de Quincey's opium
rushing as summer through

winter's rooms. Chase me
from obloquy!

Sunlight peels the world
into a fresher surface

and your dress is torn
in your haste

to be the thing
you're not.

I press you
against the wall of the forest

against the mirror
of the poisoned apple

and with the fingernail
of a daytime moon

pencilled in the sky
with 6H fineness,

I tear open your red dress
until it floats on the river

of the wind, signing it
with the smell of your skin.

But still not open enough
still there are veils

still there are obscurities.
Your body drifts

against a process screen
of briars and thorns and

pale blown grass and
alien thinking flowers.

The helpless sighs are
dubbed in

your lips don't move
your eyes are

closed with seeing.
I wield the sickle

once more
slice open the waistband

of the final thing that
separates me from you.

White skin like cloud
like paper.

Sunlight bites at your skin,
teeth measured in

h bar —
be open now

the sunlight between
your legs

unfolds you.
Don't open your eyes!

You will see
this wolf's blue eyes

above you!
You will see him

astride you.
Just unfold, unfold —

at every window
the dawn and the dusk

look in at you
astonished

the paths in the path-
less forest

need you
to kiss them awake

but don't kiss them.
Just

spread yourself in the
light.

The lips that are not
human

bear the Human now.






.

 

[Tzara]

n:4

.....

 

[sassynyc]

2-5

Supernova

If indeed every star
Has it’s time to shine
How do I find my light?

Drilling in a desert
Only parched earth in sight
On an expedition
In search of me

There are days
When I feel oh so close……
Vibrations of miracle water
Trickle just underfoot

Never quite reaches the surface
Of this barren land
Even the weeds have withered

A pin point in the distance
Of darkest night
A dot in the midst of
A thousand points of light

I am a flicker
In the stratosphere
There must be more
That I am meant to be

A halogen glow
In the presence of the sun
Brilliant…. but has yet
To shine on its own

 

[Tzara]

n:5

.....

 

[Eluard]

x-5

. . .Archaeology of a life

Somehow or other I must remember myself —
how to do that final trick? I cannot
even think the syllables of an overflowing summer,
cannot pronounce the hope that guided me
through so much chaos not my own. Yet nothing
can be lost, I tell myself over and over,
knowing with certainty that it is false.

The oar that dips in the future unearths the past.
My dreams are a fountain of death overflowing
but the words too far back mist the mirror
and nothing else — not repairing the
church of uncorrodable birds, who have no sky.



.

 

[sassynyc]

3-5

Dawn of Night

The midnight sky is strewn with pixie dust
Magically suspended in infinity
Slung low and close enough to taste as our tongues play
Connect the dots across time and space
Though they are always too far away
To reach out and touch, and tie up in ribbon
If I could believe the night was velvet
And the stars were precious jewels
I could finally give you half of what you’ve given me
But I stand empty handed and full hearted
All I can give you is me
As Dawn slices through Midnight’s throat
Bleeding sunshine onto the horizon
We are what happens to this brand new day

 

[sassynyc]

4-5

Stormy Weather

Diamond-hoofed dancers descend
From cotton candy clouds
Assuming a delicate stance
They dazzle the earth that lies below

Their movement fluid, passionate flourishes
Pirouettes propelled by whipping wind
At once gentle and brute
The elements dance in tandem

No rehearsals, just improvisation...the moment
Lightning dances the rumba
To boom-bastic claps of thunder
Played in surround sound

Winding down, a hush befalls the air
Leaves settle, like bumble bee kisses, on flowers
Golden rays clear a path through the crowd
The closing number is a rainbow

 

[sassynyc]

5-5

Brother Ray

He left the world in darkness
When he walked into that light
Final curtain call
And with his swan song
He bade us goodnight

When that darkness fell
We had a glimpse into his world
A world without color or light

Yet he painted pictures most vivid
Not with a brush, but with keys
Each note had color, hue
Awakened the senses
Melodic aroma therapy

He made us see what he saw
When he sculpted rhythm
Into shapely creatures
That came to life in song
Rhythm and blues Pygmalion

In that final moment
Hammer and chord did not meet
Feeling his absence
Stark and still with defeat

Missing their old friend
And longing his touch
To tickle their ivories
And make them laugh once more

The crème de la crème
Gather to mourn
Keeping players at bay
Steinway and Yamaha leading the pack
Grand and baby, upright, yes even the sax

Fallen somber,
In homage they pray
Left to grieve the loss
Of their Brother Ray

 

[PandoraGlitters]

X-1 Elevated

Rumbling over ground on stilted rails
I'm sure the quake will tremble the earth
as it has me, extending in two directions
like a number line

defying argument. Even a child knows
that east and west extend and extend
but in practice those arrowheads stretch
their necks until they bump
tips

colliding and overlapping in a union of opposites
that are also the same
creature
end to end.

I anchor my feet and sturdy sea legs
for the shock
for when we have run
out of track

unwilling to admit out loud
that I hope we don't.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

x-2 All Spheres are Promises

hidden among the Rhodophyta
bluewhite eggs gleam with the moon's longing
calling the traveller up coast
(so far from home and all he knows)
to fulfill the cycle
spilling life on beads of possibility

this is how promises are made
not by duty or surrender
but by the call of the reed
on the spine
reassuring all right
the night closes around us
taking half in its mouth
breathing into us lullabies for faith
that the universe contains reason after all

this is how promises are broken
not by carelessness or decision
but by the curl of self against star scream
soaking night's lullaby in the universe's inscrutable hiss
withering moon song to a film
that dulls the eardrum

until the head turns to find it again
and a new direction becomes forward

 

[PandoraGlitters]

x-3 Silence

Don't finish that open mouthed utterance
excusing why you didn't call why you
didn't come to my rescue
when the walls were breached.

Just open your hand and let go
the way I have let go of my fantasy
that you can mortar the spaces between
the bricks I have squeezed with these
tired hands. I tell myself skylight
is not so bad and the rain
washes dust away; I quit reading
resumes.

Instead, come to me in silence.
Open your hand and release
the moth that eats our threads
until cloth tears
when I rip your shirt.

I don't necessarily
want you for
ever but
now will do
nicely.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

X-4

The long walk sunny day dance
of hips over sidewalk
swivels in mimicry
of eternity -- the well laid eight--
feather stepping past possible futures
mirrored in jewelry store windows
which glimmer ritual mysteries
trying to entice me to slow
if not stop, empty these pockets and shop
but this is a long dance
with a 40-minute intro, the star
just now emerging from her puffery curtain
calling down to her fans from the five story walk-up
for us to move everything not just shuffling feet
but shoulders and hips and breasts
with pleasure that praises,
gliding like lovers in gravity's embrace.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

x-5 Forever Flashes of Dreaming Goldfish

(Sorry a little late, but I wanted to finish the run and didn't have computer access last night.)

Always I hold my breath when you begin
skittering syllables in casual introduction
as if your audience were across the dinner table
and then the pause in which the space
between you and us billows.
We wait for the launch of words, look already
to the field in which they will hang.

When they come, I breathe them in
taking their color flashes into my lungs
absorbing the small torn photographs washed
in melancholy. I squeeze myself to sit quietly
to not spring up to kiss that round vowel mouth
to keep my hands under my hips and not
press your head to my quick-beating breast.

My eyes welcome the bright pigments draped
against your dark suit and the golden fish that leap
from your wished happinesses. I cup
them, rapt with their twists
against my bare palm.
Fingers protectively tighten
holding them sound until I can press
them inside our close dancing bellies.

 

[TheRainMan]

. . . .

 

[Tzara]

.

.....

 

[TheRainMan]

- 2

. . . .

 

[Tzara]

.

.....

 

[TheRainMan]

- 3

. . . .