Challenge: Five Poems in Five Days.

[ElmerGlew]

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[PandoraGlitters]

6-1

The day's deeds burn
on the torn fringe of blueblack sky
pierced by steeples, propped up

by telephone poles, wires, and the scaffold
to which a hundred men
will report again in twelve hours.

He opens the door and waits
for the slide of my belt before he swings
it closed and crosses behind, the usher

with his hand barely guiding
the small of my back, proud as a father
when he says, "This is my city."

It isn't really a city, but it does
smell like money.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

6-2

High heel attitude struts
down the stretch of bar, the long plank
accented with brass, some of it hers

and if you ask for a Margarita, she won't
ask if you want it frozen. If you tell her
you do she'll try to look sorry
as she lies, "The blender's broken,"
but there's a smirk in that apostrophe
and everyone knows it.

This is her show: she pours fingers
without moving her lips to count.
She's neat, no missed drops. Tosses
only sarcasm and hair
over her shoulder, bouncing off her hip
right into your lap. She doesn't
do house calls, but she'll help you figure
out the tip with a tap
of her frosted fingernail.

She knows you want to give her that $10.
She's agreeable enough to help you out
by poking it down into her shiny glass jar.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

6-3 The Gray

Cats rustle fallen leaves
under the hedges of our love
tuning a timpani of unease,
too wet to rise, too thin
to cling on yet green grass.

My gaze is wide to the corners
looking for the rip of storm
in the belly of sky, for the entrance
of disaster because that disaster music
is playing, laced with the grind one hears
just before ignition.

Mist sulks in the trees
on the backs of squatting birds who ruffle
as though they'd like to swoop
but they don't.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

6-4

You are the shine on my cheek so I always look
to you, show you my good side. I can feel
you glow my jawline when I let you
love me. My chin angles up like a sigh
proffered to cloudless sky. We can make

steam or fog depending on how high I stoke you.
My palms call your hips home, whisper
your body as their current address
for purposes sentimental and documentary.
I know you believe

that you picked me but I arranged it.
Got born right and plumped up just enough
to dangle in front of your eyes
shivering and bare in spring breeze
until your mouth watered and fingers twitched

me plucked, impulse guiding impulse and in turn
guided. This is how
we carry each other in pockets.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

6-5 Go On

Don't stare too long
at your shadow, or you'll see it curdle.
It's more durable but not more enduring
than the frail foot you wrap
from glass and whimsy.

Let the sun kiss your eyelids. Go on
believing that endings are swept under
the gray that mocks your definition.

Let your skin drink the little warmth
God gives. You can always retrace
your steps in sleep.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

7-1

Not all glass is transparent like this. I remember
your opacity when I stand with you in the sun
holding my elbows to frame
everything I can't hide. It's easy
to catch the glint there, where I'm most
fragile. It's not on purpose,
that shine, just the reflection
of a distant flame.

You don't remember what breaking is
because that only happens later
when your car has pulled away
leaving your tracks in oil
on the asphalt.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

7-2 Counting Rings

In the morning I am free
as waking on a park bench
as the left penny paper
as your last
good intention. I give
everything, all asked
answered all comers
satisfied, for No is too short
a word to live in
so long as there is gold
in the sky and I have fingers
to pluck it.

In the evening I am dear
as the miser's combination
as the mother superior's foundation
garments, hidden between towels
carried high on the heads
of women who've been scarred
too often over too little.
I give nothing for Yes is too wet
a world to live in
so long as there are knives
flung casually as cigarette ash
among the starving classes.

Some bright noon you will ask me.
I pray you will come with your brown bag
so that you won't go hungry in case
our shadows are already long.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

7-3 Waiting

Waiting by the road I am just another
nightgowned nymph standing vigil barefoot
and cold for the glow of lights,
for the sound of tires on a gravel road,
whispering home, come home.

I am good at it. I stand by the mail
box and you'd never know the difference,
so ready to receive
am I, so ready to open like a mouth
proud of her red tongue
which signals a present for you, a message
inside when you come

home. I stand by the light post
and you'd notice the similarity
so straight am I, so ardent
of wrist, lamp glowing
like the wet on my eyes.

Tonight I am a glass waiting
for the bottle to be opened,
waiting for you to pour.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

7-4 Picked

An apple shows its best side, waxed full
on top of the bowl, posed with the grapes
while various pruning plums, bananas and peaches
fill in the gaps, hold up
the stars like supporting cast. My apple,
I knew you'd be demanding.

Notice me! Shine me on your shirt.
Haven't you dreamt of my red in your palm?
Painted by my gold light all of the VIPs
in your mythology?

As ever you were compelling,
but what I didn't guess is how your monologue
would taste so tart, the seeds of it
so round and hard
under my tongue.

 

[RhymeFairy]

freewrite ~

1-1


I cannot take the cold. Clear skies
scurry in under the shadow of ice.
Itching to dig under my skin, settle in
and condemn my chilled heart
into a long hibernation.


....

in/to? chilled?
questions, questions grrrr

 

[Eluard]

Umpteenth.1

What was the sea monster’s name?

The place where the words went from
Opens up its hands
As in an old magic trick
And shows — look! — that it is empty.
Jason searched through soft cloud
And blue distances
But the wordless world no longer
Spoke to him except with shores he
Could not touch
And would not touch forever.

Everything was fatal to him.
The sun poisoned his eyes
With black spears;
The giant colours of evening
Fished in his mouth.
Prism to all things that he was
He staggered from the shapes
That he cast onto the sky,
Knowing them his own story.
How could the stars know his fate
Unless he was the stars?
He blew gold with his mouth.

The rain softly drops around him
Like pomegranate arils;
The breezes tie him with ropes
To distant storms he knows nothing of.
That face that terrorizes his sleep
Looms at him from night cloud.
She will put out her arms
Like a tree,
Like a great, mad, winter tree
Like a tree that is starved for children
And hang his child from one of them
Indifferent to everything
But the emptiness that is
Clawing at her brain.



-------------------

 

[PandoraGlitters]

7-5

Fear was a lover she'd become old enough to ignore,
visible only in the lines of her daughter's face
upside down now, as her axis tilted. Blink.

That quick and Fear's costume darkened. The face
was the same but it was her mother
there now. Her mother, dead in 1952,
yet unwavering, watching the blood shift
in her like silt in a prospector's pail. Blink.

Shuffling into the room in pairs, holding
candles, they have come for her. Blink.

Ready says the first
and from the blind side
the second spikes her with cold shock.
Mother? Daughter? Static rips
through both
and one.

Now says the second
and the first presses
down on the syringe,
biting her with its venom
until it is Daughter she sees.
All she can think

is my eyes will burst like grapefruits. The pain
screams in waves over her ears
and shoulders. She clenches

holding on like arms around
a baby, fingers pressing into his belly,
begging not to be taken--
still breathing, still breathing, still

until the battle is past.

I was so scared says her daughter.

I know. I know.

 

[Eluard]

Umpteenth.2

Colour of rain and iron

You once said: death, silence, solitude;
like love and life. Words
of our provisional images.
And the wind rises light every morning
and time, the color of rain and iron,
is passed on stones,
and on the stifled hum of the damned.
Still the truth is far from us.
But say, man broken on the cross,
you with the large hands full of blood,
just how will I answer those who ask?
Hour, hour: before that other hush
enters the eyes, before that other wind
rises and that other rust blooms.


(Poem by Salvatore Quasimodo — translated by moi.)

 

[RhymeFairy]

playing with words ...

1-2



hunched back, gnarled knuckles
greasy hair, knotted knees.
darkness has fallen, as he searches
in hidden alleyways, alone. scavenging
bottlenecks, busted and overflowing
into gritty garbage can caverns.

hot steaming rain pelts from lightening
above, hitting his heinous hide. too many
nights spent, looking. his treasure, taken.
his gentle genie, she had appeared

from the lamp, testing his honor
taking his love, giving all that she was.
to find her, recapture her sweetness,
and have her once more meant,

everything. hunched back, gnarled
knuckles, greasy hair, and knotted knees
darkness has fallen, as he searches.


...

 

[PandoraGlitters]

8-1

Each morning the tree in the courtyard
seen through shutters is squared
like a piece of the calendar. I puzzle
it together, day break and remembering
if you are here or not. Or if it is just
the cat.

Each morning the tree is similar
to yesterday's tree, but it is not the same.
It is a new tree. I need only count
the leaves to confirm. Each morning we
are new, too. You are a new man
with new ambitions to pursue

and I make a new pot of coffee.
The only constants are the shutters
for even the cup cycles
hot and cool.

 

[Eluard]

Umpteenth.3

The Silence of Night

The clock kisses you, surprised.
It is welcome.
Dreams have not yet begun to float upward
darkening in the developing tray, like a mystery.
That always comes later, at four in the morning,
when everything is grasped at once
along with the fear.


A black space breathes on the stars, kindles them
into a kind of life.
The ghosts gather around you, invite you
to blow them out.
'Make a wish', they say. I can do nothing but.
The silence of night…

… is broken only by one animal killing another.


----------------

 

[unpredictablebijou]

x-1

Winged object
drowning in roses, you, saint
widen me in pressed descant

Bound with petals in our
two-fleshed heartbeat
we chant petitions
to the bone of moon
over the blue fields

Serpent, singular cry
our tones helix to silver
blessing the hungry core
stuttering with wings

dark trembles a fingertip
against the parting, draws
a taste from the waves

our treading hands
thunder and divide
and we find bright tones
under each other's tongues

 

[PandoraGlitters]

8-2 Nyasha's Song

Nyoka, you are welcome here
on the land of Mufaro and his daughters
for your lime twine and limber flicker.
Twist a rhythm into the song
of the yam and the millet. My foot
reaches over you, careful of your smooth
back. So sleek and bright
you are against the earth, protecting
its riches. Balance drums
blessings on this garden, more
to share. Open your hand so I may fill it.
Prepare your pockets. Nyoka
when your skin is loose and old,
when you are small and hungry,
when you are sovereign, it is the same.
I have made you a basket
without a lid. Tell me how to fill it
or I will tip it empty
for you to fill, yourself.

 

[Eluard]

Umpteenth.4

Needless to say

Anna Karina in Pierrot le Fou
Looks directly at the ocean
And it blushes the infinite.

The island is like the moon
It has a bite taken from its future
And is pencilled-grey onto the past,

The one that is so easy to forget
Because it is sick with its
Own hurt words.

It matters that we are here.
Anna climbs the stairs
But is not free. The palm trees

file the world down
To the blue beneath craziness.
Shivering there, they don’t sing —

They just remember singing
. . . . . to the end.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

x-2

Our chant rocks and comes undone
between voices of fathoms
plainsong reddens my throat
your solid tone shivers itself forward
you are a hum, working into depth
all awake and our unison
cross and pitch draws me open
I come undone round your hand
and our bones roll clear
tail to mouth, four wings
feathered with the dark harsh moan
Our salt window and standing stone
turn circles and you
are a new drum and I
am a sugar descant
within this bright task
red song blossoms and you
arrow through and draw me open

 

[TheRainMan]

?-1

. . .

 

[PandoraGlitters]

8-3 Box

it isn't just a hinge you know
first you must assemble
specific elements

the spinster's cedar for the hope that gives it mass
baby's first tooth for inlay of hunger

the alcoholic's elbow for the habit of returning
to spite a chaotic universe

the suicide's emptiness
in which the pleasures of others may be harbored

yet it is not done

a box is noteworthy only
to otherwise flat surfaces or full pockets or eyes
bigger than our stomachs which long
for more room
or more loot

there can only be one answer
though there might be more
than one question

 

[Eluard]

Umpteenth.5

The Salt Voyage

For my son

The salt of a voyage is the most important part
Though no one yet has thought to say it.
Life does not want your skin to grow too thick,
It wants you always to feel, to feel its sting particularly,
And what better way than to scourge with
Salt-furious winds and rub same into the wound.
That is life’s way — it values your suffering,
Has placed a straw to you and sips you through the day
That crazy fizz of existence you have,
Those eyes that see.
It likes those who hone something, anything —
In its blindness it feels only sharp points, its brail.

The obsidian egg is still waiting for the
Obsidian bird to return.
Flecked with snow-flakes it sits beyond the wind
Beyond memory and memoriam.
Life has yet to find it — it is hidden under the veil of my love.


------------------

 

[TheRainMan]

?-2

. . .