Challenge: Five Poems in Five Days.

[Tzara]

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[Anschul]

1-1

Here we go again...


in dreams

In dreams,
The sea carries me far
Across miles and miles
To places and faces never seen
In waking hours.

In dreams,
The sailboat carries me
To uncharted places
Yet to be discovered,
To unknown people
Yet to be understood
Never to be encountered
In waking hours.

In dreams,
The road before me disappears
Over a distant hill,
Into a beautiful valley
Of narcissus, tulips, and poppies,
As far as the eye can see,
With a fragrance so intense
As to never be perceived
In waking hours.

In dreams,
The woman before me smiles
Takes my hand in hers
Wipes away my tears,
Scatters away my fears,
Brings me back to life
But even then not like the one
In waking hours.

 

[TheRainMan]

- 4

. . . .

 

[Tzara]

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[Tzara]

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[TheRainMan]

- 5

. . . .

 

[PandoraGlitters]

13 truths and one supposition

i.
truth is a tango of known integers
curled into strands and lit for holiday
he can sort them like tetris blocks
I feel them line up and clear
sparking a path to nirvana

ii.
crush of spearmint and basil
loam in the fingers
braid of light through the trees
tea with lemon


iii.
yes is what they whisper
Crowley's cards turned
hierophant ready
to tell his story
lights his lamp


iv.
vertigo demands appeasement
at the memory of wingbeat
in my ear
yes I blame the vertigo
when I panic
there is a bird in my house


v.
we stand on each other's feet
lay hip to hip

remembering this I curl
my toes into the grass hoping he feels them

I don't know but I believe
he slips bribes to the sandman

 

[Eluard]

a+bi/ i

In the Ivy Forest


Moon of cartiledge
moon of bone

moon of dust
and tin

unstopper yourself
from the night sky

and let it
pour down

on the forest
where she lies

sleeping.
She is paper

for your unending
psalm-writing

she is
fiction to your

inability
to read anything

but braille
tide.

So watch her
toss and writhe

on the moss floor
of the forest

watch her
quarreling with

sleep
using only

the tundra of her
skin.

None of this
is able

to save her
to help her.

The ivy stretches
out like

quick shadows
from its

dark hood
stretches like

lava spilling
along

lightning's lost
name —

until it circles
her wrists

and binds them
pulls them

home to itself
until she is

spreadeagled
in dreams

pulled
into a star-sacrifice

on the moss
floor.

Even in sleep
her legs try to

close but cannot.
Her dreams turn

into seasons
and then birds

and then
chains

as the ivy
spin-weaves

up her arms
and her legs

binds her tighter
unmoving

to this
forest.

Open now
open to this

syllable
from the dark's

closed word
open to this

gesture
of silk

open to this
heart-hammer

this black
wolf

covered in stars
this gold making

hour-glass
that forces you

and forces you
to word-blood

feeling.​

. . .

 

[Eluard]

a+bi/ ii

Faith


After years of seeing no reason
I have finally found one.
This is the answer to the
enigma in the order of things
exactly as said by the wise,
just souls of the past.
Thus I now believe in God
and Jesus, and the whole saintly
assemblage; I believe in Mary
and something called the Holy
Ghost — and it does not matter
that I do not know what that is.
I believe in all this for no other reason
than that there will then be
a Heaven and a Hell.
Why does this matter, you ask,
and I see you trying to suppress a smile,
as you often do when you think
that I have been hurt.
I want this for no other reason than
that the place will then exist —

so that you can burn in Hell forever
for what you have done.





. .​

 

[PandoraGlitters]

The Arrangement

The bruises on mother's skin make her seem
more watercolor than woman,
gold stipples wildflower patina under pale
frail from the hot house with cool floors
and pastel walls because white
is out of fashion

even in hospitals. She wears death beautifully
as a stamen, her neck long and throat open, resigned
but not ready. Thick hair spills over
the pillow, gray twined with russet. I paint her nails
champagne. Her brief time awake is suffering
yet she will not push the button for relief

as long as she counts hours
with family who sit in shifts
to witness her death:
the son, the daughter,
the sister, the mother,

first husband who comes in the last hours
when she can no longer answer him,
eyeing the pillow-- how it would quiet
those eyes for good.
He leaves crying, bellowing
I don't smoke at the woman
who asks for a light for her cigarette

but he wants one. She looks old
to him. All the women here look old.
He doesn't dare
turn on the radio because every song
has played on honkey tonk's jukebox
where he danced with women
not his own.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

if you pull slowly

when you pull your hands apart slowly enough
feel the resistance of the unseen taffy between them
particles of me pulling further apart across the small span

that is me holding your hand
coating you in starshine
can you feel the tingle

you are sharp enough to cut me open
layer by layer but it will last longer
if instead you dance with me and rub
me open if instead you

let me submit to your casual wear and tear
thinning the membrane, shaping me
like a suit

that can preserve you in 0 gravity
and low oxygen

 

[Eluard]

a+bi/ iii

Risen

And an eternity rises through
the gales of ash and wind
and has its own light
and its own way of kissing
your lips from a great distance
since, for it, nothing
can be that far.

I see it in the red of sunsets
wiping the blood from the world
the always blind blood of
the singers of pain
as they fall through the net
that doesn't hold.

I will fold this paper into a second
eternity, since it is
lonely to be so large with a
meaning that
cannot be understood all
at once
but takes a life to grasp a
single syllable in a star
at the moment the dark says never.

​

 

[Tzara]

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[Tzara]

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[unpredictablebijou]

*sigh* - 1

Anomie

I would love to tell you that I have the answer
because, to an extent, I may. But the instructions
for the machine are in sanskrit, and the interface
is frustrating, counter-intuitive.
Believe in nothing, I whisper, but
this also is in sanskrit
and does not mean what you think it does.

What about the moment, I say
the color of that flower, the gratitude
for red wheelbarrows?
Whatever. Of course, a poet's mind
is full of daisies and seascapes
and the universal significance
of brushing one another's arms
accidentally, during the movie.
It's too simplistic,
like me,
to keep you busy, really.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Diminutives

Shrugging it off like a vestigal
tail, that ee has nonetheless remained
and when I hear it tacked on
to the end of my name I want to scream

I am not I am not I am not a little
girl. I am not the cookie thieving
garden wrecking daughter
called indoors for a scolding.

Even as I cringe I know it is ridiculous,
only a phoneme, a brief sound
that nonetheless picks me up
by the scruff and throws me in
to the wash
screaming as I feel myself shrinking
down small.

 

[Eluard]

a+bi/ iv

Sanctus


Face of edges
true storm
. . . .the
whirlwind
takes me up
to a new
. . ..mouth

that speaks gold
washes gold
chimes
the hour
. . . .of
secret skin
against bone
that has
bitten
its way out
of us.

when I am
dry
of myself
and
singing in rivers

you
you are a cup
I drink
myself
. . . .from.

. .​

 

[unpredictablebijou]

y-2

Pieta

afterward
after the pain, the hanging
How deep it is, the way I love you
how perfect to lay you down
across my lap and whisper
over your wounds
blessed
you have saved me again
again tonight.
For my petty angers
you have offered your flesh
treasure of god, hound
and son and gift of god, your
head falls weakly, ragged
and you hang, till I take
you broken down
and give you water, the breast
the soft winding cloth
and the redemption
poor body, broken for my sake
in black sweet blindness
gentle snapped gift, One I love
more than life at this moment
more
more than life.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Grapevine

The alchemy of fertility
demands and he gives
to her, burying the old
dry leaves, breathing out
intoxications of words,
a loam of tender beauties
coaxing open earth's belly.

He takes care as he feeds
her so that the seed
will not burn. So that the furrow
will accept his gifts and give better back,
more, and more. This is not a day affair.

The viticulturist remains in dark night,
master of waters. Calls down the stream,
marking its secret journey,
pulling open its delicate mouth
for the vines to tendril out.

And again, he returns, constant
of ardor, weaving the trellis,
branching psalms into arbors that cradle
earth's young against the wrath
of Heaven. He has built

a rhythm of leading the wild earth into dance,
has pulled down its hungry deer and stripped
her clean. He will fill her fuller
than she could fill herself.

He warms her slowly and pours in more
to ferment. She will not crack from new wine
but will stretch
to hold the fragrant potency of his gifts.

 

[Eluard]

The Strong Man


How did such a one
. . . as you
become something that I became
. . . lost in?. . . Certain

moments drift like snow
. . . and it is dark
always returning. . . with a single
. . . face, a drop of blood,

and a candle —
. . . as though
these were strange prizes that I
. . . had won

in some dreamlike circus.
. . . And I am
standing now with the devil’s
. . . lights . . . behind me

and the carnival of sounds too
. . . far away
in a moment . . . of silence
. . . where everything

gathers and feels the weight
. . . of itself
and the world is a distant
. . . uncrossable field.

I cradle in my arms those things
. . . that I have made away with
a single face, a drop of blood, and a
. . . candle.

The circus Strong Man bends an iron bar
. . . and brings
the two distant ends together
. . . slowly. . . so that

who could now pull them apart?

I offer a prize.. . . Winter.

​

. . .

 

[unpredictablebijou]

g-3

AirFireWaterEarth

Arched in repose,
flight, in regal ease
we are two evenly ruled,
every art ready to heal.

And in rare
flowers I recline, evening
willow and tender edelweiss rising
everywhere, a ripe tender heart.

all is ripe
for its revelation. Everything
wild awaits the ecstasy's ruling
Each action rides the heat

anchored in rage,
fierce in repose, evolving
we arch to excesses, repeat
each action, rough, tasting holiness.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Simon

He shoulders the beam
again
when he leaves
but here
he sets it down
and for a while
this thin savior
can feast
can rest

The wine
from this cup
gives strength

I expect nothing.
It is not my journey
and lifting
his weight
is its own reward.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

g-5

Curie

The wine
glowed in your hands
that night
Your face was
a fierce moon, a storm cloud
dangerous with lightning

power, you said
I could be so close
I could be holding it
I can already feel it
You stretched out your hand
the moon in your palm
meant death, and something
brighter: the meteor
the fall of a bright comet.

Your hair behind you
stretched across the pillow
a dwindling tail, black
and white

I watch you sleep
like watching the moon
through a telescope
shifting, so close
untouchable

round like a dial
you and I mark time.
how can light
be the same as death
how can the blue glow
of your hip, moon lit
and curved under my hand
be the face of a watch
which will stop
soon

Prove how love cures the whispered cancer
prove how your own heartbeat can now
redefine the flesh
prove how light can kill or heal
Open the curtain to the glowing face
bone-white, sleep-velveted
I reach to the radium
of your dangerous waking.

 

[dahlias_sorrow]

observations of my lover after his bath

The lamp by the side of the bed
is lit and I am waiting for you
to lay your glistening body
alongside mine.

Before the tender assault
of terrycloth upon your suntanned skin,
droplets of eucalyptus scented
water adhered and adorned you

and its delicate oils became tiny mirrors
that reflected more than mortal love
by capturing my soul and I hope
that somehow it returned to you

the joy that makes me whole.

 

[Tzara]

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