Challenge: Five Poems in Five Days.

[PandoraGlitters]

9-3 A Small Gift

when a man asks
particularly a big man
it breaks one's heart to tell him no
to roll out the empty pockets

and so I flutter
to his palm and place my beak
in the center
on the line
the point
pressing down

so he knows where to look later
for the seed



___________________________________________


I know there should be more. Trust me, I looked all night
for it, under the mattress and in all my old coats, in my
panty drawer, but it wasn't there. It was here waiting for me
and smaller than you'd expect. It was like finding a plum
in place of a melon. Which is fine, if you're in the mood
for plums.

 

[champagne1982]

1-3

Sword of Truth

When we forge that bond that lovers do and shape it with the hammer of emotion, I know this truth needs temper. Can I find the font of faith that the sword sinks into, to quench the searing doubts we share and harden them to trust? Will the baptism cleanse or shatter the unproven blade? A keen edge of perception, which can only be sharpened on the stone of clarity, awaits the touch of judgement. Am I worthy of honing?

 

[PandoraGlitters]

9-4 Accessory

Why is it always after
midnight when they knock? No,
pound, kick down
the door? They ask me
for hours "Where is he?"
feeding me cups
of coffee to make me need
to pee. I only blink. They took
my bracelet, but they won't find
nothing.

It wasn't the same one. I gave
the real diamonds to Mother.
The sweaty one sits close, stinking
of righteousness.

He spits at my shoe. Lover won't
you swing low on this lamp and pick
me up in your fast car?

There are more places than maps
you used to tell me, letting me whisper
names foreign and familiar
until you picked,
your voice holding mine, bigger,
speaking the name as if you owned
it, as if you'd lived there
all your life.

I cannot see the sun but I know
somewhere morning shines
on the long hood
of the car you drive
to Matamoros. Even if
they split my lip again
I won't talk except
to whisper your secret name
as I dream of tequila.

 

[champagne1982]

1-4

Above The Trocadero

Explore your bride as the Sienne;
drift through the heart of her
and wash against stone pillars;
fingers running through your hair.
Be her lover and explore cobbled
streets. Your footsteps tease
her rolling landscape; love's
fingers tap Martillo rhythms
to echo the thrum of sexual beats
as they drift up Mont Marte
out of Quartier de Pigalle.

Desire burning to flame
this skin; to flush crimson
need across these breasts
their peaks teased; arousal
wafting through the air.
In the bedchamber, honey-filled
kisses cloy our senses and slow
lust until your hand rests there.

My scorpion, my mate, my love
You have captivated me,
held me close in anticipation.
Together, our blessed union
floods the land, plumps grapes
so wine will wash the streets
clean and Paris will bloom,
in springtime, with lovers.
We two stroll intoxicated streets
and in the evening we'll tap
the Martillo beat and quicken
lovers to join in the night.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

9-5 Cave Paintings

In this place there were no lights like we have now.
There were no street lamps nor flashlights, only
darkness murked with dusk. Only cold walls
that whispered opposing syllables: dry
or wet. So one can understand

how every sound how every rustled skirt hem
every scatter of pebbles every creaking shoe
became palpable as clay in hands

eager to work. She might have been too
sure she knew, yes I imagine
she reached into that darkness with both hands
to pet a cat and found its fangs instead

to name a man who was a woman in pants. Yes
she stumbled, but who could do better? Only
a fish born in the deepest cave
a fish born eyeless or sightless

could navigate such a place without mishap.
And even fish such as these can be netted:
They are found commonly in artificial
habitats, lit with black light.
And that's for our benefit because they
don't need it at all.

 

[champagne1982]

1-5

Poem Fight

I struggle with it
the loathing that comes
from writing about
not writing.

This isn't a poem!

It's like some sort
of gibberish in poemish
spoken by poemy natives
on the island of poem.

Might as well be pig latin.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

10-1

Valentine

I love the way you speak, want to string
all your sentences out in fields
lined neatly like crystals catching sunlight,
reflecting the chill of the earth back up
to the sky.

Each day I embrace that labor, string by string
carried in my arms like fresh harvest
laid lovingly down until I can hear
your voice. I pour over each stone,
let them take root in my mouth as I respeak
them. I feel your words growing in me
until the tap
root stalactite splits me.

I am of two minds on this: I want you
and I want you now.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

10-2 West India Interest

four feet by eighteen inches
is all it takes to carry a man
with a reasonable probability
he'll make it across the ocean

the scars on the wrists never
fade--are never
covered except in sleep
only until he dreams

of fire

burn enough sugar at once
and the fire grows hot enough
to melt a child in a minute

smoke thickens
chokes his throat
with the taste of slavery
sweet as cane
warm as blood

 

[PandoraGlitters]

10-3 February

Litter the streets with paper hearts
and I'll not notice. I don't truck
with the paper salesmen nor the chocolatiers.
All I want of love is a whisper,
the slow stroke of my hair,
the gaze of eyes that can see inside
past the plain skin
past the sensible clothes
to the flower that blooms.

My valentine, you I love most because you
have brought with you the watering can
and were content with the petals I dropped
for you, plucked
from the pale carpet.

I love you most because you hold tight without
crushing and when you open your fingers they are there,
all of the fine red petals.

One is my name. One is my address. One is my birthday
and one is a poem I wrote you: I can see them still there
in your hand and I can breathe again. I can hope
for another day. Some years I am rewarded
with another morning, another night
and faith enough to leap.

 

[AChild]

2-1

Crossroads

The moon takes space
in wax or wane
suspended in the love of stars, veil
can't see the wealth in fat craters

I can drink from that bosom
milk light causes arabic blue mucus
scraping stainless steel
cursive petals that can only be read backward

which way to turn
twist my shoes in the dirt
as if deeper soil knows
the write answer

feet can only take one path
be in one moment
but my mind will dote
leave my shadow
this is where a life changed

 

[PandoraGlitters]

10-4

There is a kind of man who blames
a dancing woman when he looks
up her skirt. Perhaps it is because he wishes
he were just a passenger in his life,
his tied hands clean.

Such a fellow cautioned me "Don't be
a grab-bag" as if he knew
me as if I had asked him to look up my skirt,
and I thought aren't we past this? To satisfy
such a man would be to wrap beauty in cheesecloth,
to turn off the lights and scream into the pillow.

Our skins are not who we are.
I wanted to tell him the dirt you see on my floor
is what you brought in with you. Check your shoes.

 

[vampiredust]

7-1

The Projectionist's Daughter

The museum exhibit
in the corner of the library
is on a repeating loop,
each topic running like water:
Ben Jonson and Sejanus.
Homer. Hitler. Kids wander
from the morning sing-a-long,
eager to press its buttons.
Once I saw a man changing
its celluloid, desperate to change
the film being played:
A girl skipping, her candy-red
dress moving like a flip book.
And in the distance, a fox
and hooded crow slowly moving
closer.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

10-5

A small girl swings on a gate, singing.
Singing gate, singing girl duet.
Behind her is a square of green unmatched
by anything else around. It is not the straw
green of the field nor the dark green
of the farm house drapes.

The girl faces out, the gate swings in
and back, in
and back, singing. On the other
side of the gate is the dust blown road
underlining the horizon, leading west
to Hollywood and east to Broadway.
The girl sings in mid day
to stars she cannot see
but their shine already glows
in her patent leather Mary Janes.

The gate knows too. It sings
that the way forward begins with a pull
back to the house. First she has
to say goodbye.

 

[drippyanal]

1 of 5

I've turned straight men gay
I've turned lesbians straight
I've turned water into wine
And day into night.

So what's next?
To turn the night into day,
And conquer mountains
No man has faced?

I would rather stay here, with you.

 

[vampiredust]

8-2

Neatly Organised

Late shift. Clouds cough
like firing artillery. Rain
hits. Its stiletto-slap
nearly distracts the bar

man wiping the tables'
glass surfaces. He sees
a lot of things in their
reflections: faith, love

and even things that
cannot be explained.
Swirling the cloth clock
-wise, he wipes away

the last of the evening,
each speck of cigarette
ash performing one last
dance before falling into

his open palm. He says
a prayer under his breath,
offers penance before
taking them to a dark place.

Each one falls, burning
like a flare when it hits
the bottom. The pictures
revealed move up, afraid.

 

[vampiredust]

8-3

Patient Zero Discovers Film

You were always supposed
to be the one that set off
Hiroshimas inside patients'
chests, causing ripples that
rocked the bedside machines
like an electric carnival.

A chimp or tongue helped
they always assumed,
your body a FedEx package
waiting to be delivered
to a suitable recipient.
Sign away everything. Die.

The autopsy never delved
deep enough inside your
body. Had the scalpel's beak
cut through they might have
found the roll of 8 mm film.

And you, always somewhere
new: Vancouver. London.
Hawaii. Not this simian
lying on the table, each yellow
eye poking through the jungle
staring back. Like a flashlight.

 

[vampiredust]

7-4

Gorilla

The first time it happens
is always a shock. Mid-teens,
a simple push into the deep
end of the swimming pool.
Knowing he couldn't swim.

Looking underwater
and realising where you are
is like being stuck in a cage
with a gorilla. Nobody

is sure what move to make,
who will go first. Years
later he was pulled out
by his father when he fell
into a lake.

He stared into the animal's
yellow eyes and bloodied fur
and knew who had always
made the first move.

 

[vampiredust]

8-5

Letters

Letters written in my mind
never make any sound
when each syllable hits
the skull's blacked-out
bottom. There is always
a jolt instead - the 'Dear
Jessica, I've never forgotten
what you did' releasing
its current, for instance.
And my fist, always crumpled
at the end. Like a rose
hiding its thorns.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Z-1

this dance is subtle--a tango of twitches
now I am the bound shadow
of a wooden chair, mimicking its L bend, its spread

legs this is a dance that jumps only on the surface
of the skin breathing now the rhythm of boots

twin click slaps eyes strain to see
past the bandana create spinning lights of anticipation
bursting in twin ignitions when he stops
right in front dragging the thin leather over the tops
of my thighs I cannot close

against the rope that holds his place
against the tongue between
hemp caressed lips

begging silently for the incubus calling him
Master and meaning it in this poverty of touch
waiting for his wealth to slap to sting
to tug to take
this waiting wanton this string
wrapped gift

 

[Guest]

...........

 

[PandoraGlitters]

z-2

The men stroll from Zona Rio
to the comforts of Las Torres,
the burn of tequila on their talking lips.

They brag with loose ties
about what they would do
with these cups, how they would burn
freedom from the air, punish the indolent
with stings of a furious god and replenish
the Tijuana River.

They can't hear her dry throat cry,
her veins blocked with garbage
and if they could hear, they wouldn't
roll their sleeves enough to lift it
out of the canals, the water stagnant
and stinking. This city is a wheel
rolled west now stopped,
waiting for a driver.

 

[Eluard]

Umpteenth+1: 1

Lament for the South

The red moon, the wind, your
woman of the North complexion, the one snow reaches...
My heart is by now upon those meadows,
upon those waters shadowed with fog.
I have forgotten the sea, the gravure note
Sounded on the conch shell of the Sicilian shepherd,
the cantilenas of the wagons along the paths,
where the carob tree shivers in the smoke of stubble fields;
I have forgotten the passing of heron and crane
in the air high over the green plateaus
heading for the land and rivers of Lombardy.
But man will ever cry out the fate of his native land.
More, no one will convey to me of the South.

Oh, the South is tired from dragging its dead
along rivers to the malarial swamps,
is tired from solitude, tired from chains,
is tired from the blasphemies
in its mouth of all the races
that have shouted death within the echo of its wells,
that they also have drunk the blood of its heart.
For this its children will return to the mountains,
force their horses under cover of stars,
eat acacia flowers along the red tracks,
still red, red even now.
More, no one will convey to me of the South.

But this evening, freighted with winter,
is ours still, and here I repeat to you
my absurd counterpoint
of sweetness and of fury,
my lamenting a love without love.



(Poem by Salvatore Quasimodo — translation by me.)

 

[Guest]

.........

 

[PandoraGlitters]

z-3 Gloved Palmistry

She courts response,
listening for the changes of his breath,
her skin warming from his flex,
rising from his struggle.
By the time he begs
she will have already heard
and decided their course. Her chest
is full of the bright and dark
emblems of fantasy but she will choose
only the crucial element.

Is it leather's sting or metal's chill? The shame
of red lipstick? The scented thrill
of her personal silk?
What secret uncages the bird
in his house? Makes him wild to contain
its wingbeats? She peers
past the whites of his eyes
watching the tea leaves fluster
when she crosses his threshold. Better
if he thinks she always knew but just prolonged
his wait. She grows taller than her legs
account for, laughing
low as a prowl. Her leather gloved
hand on his neck pushes down.

 

[Eluard]

U+1; 2

Book of Hours

1.
The yellow flames
Of half-wilted flowers
On the table.
Trembling slightly
As my pulse becomes
A small wind —
My arm resting
On the table-spread.

2.
It will not compare
To the soul’s
Journey
As a tiger
To the yellow feathers
Of light on
The dark embankment.
It stands
Empty or unborn —
Like a human love
Alone
In the deserts of belief.