One a Day in May: Spring Cleaning

[loststar]

day 16

My deeper eyes came back
today
seeing color
after all these
shades of grey

details forming out of the mundane
textures iching to to be touched
explored

the film was lifted off the world
my sight unhindered
my desires unbridled
my inhabitions unhinged

my oh my I could get into trouble
living this way

 

[unpredictablebijou]

May #16

Fall

I had one thought with which you disagreed.
That's all. It was a question, not rebellion.
My only sin was wondering what right
set you in the Highest, made you so
much more worthy than myself or those
I might love more.

For this I was cast down,
cast out. You said that it would hurt you more
than it hurt me, but I was wrong to see
myself as something that was Self alone,
no part of You. I've done this to myself
thrown myself these miles down and lost
your love, by naming Me.

The word is blade:
it separates by naming. I did not know
just what I chose; I tasted it and felt,
suddenly, Myself. I felt a Distance.
It hurt, but then I could not take it back.
And as I fell - and not till then, I swear -
I raised my fist.

But now, until time ends,
it will stay raised. My name is now my curse:
the word I took made Many out of One
and stands as education to the damned.

I am enslaved
to your agenda here:
that they unlearn their names, remember yours
and find themselves in you, communed and whole
encompassed by the only Name there is.
I serve you still, as Adversary,
tempting each of them with rebel will
to name their pain and clutch it to the heart,
to cut themselves apart with their own words.

You would have bound me if you could, and you
do penance just as hellish as my own.
I was your favorite son, so who sinned first?

But I know something that you cannot see:
the day will come, and not so long from now
when I won't need to measure out my self
outside Your context.
Then I'll lay it down
with no regrets and not a thought, that name
that's kept me from you, Lover, all these years.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

May #17

Someone Else's Party

I bite
my lips
for luck.

My grail
is a plastic
wineglass.
My hands
land like birds.

No one
is staring
at me.

My smile
is a cloud of ink.
By the time
it diffuses
I have escaped.

 

[annaswirls]

Past the half way mark!!!

champ
loststar
bijou

you are past the half way mark!

angel
rainy
evie
NJ

still time to get there by June......


Much enjoying all of this!

 

[champagne1982]

A Day In May #15

those
April 2004

those days we find ourselves so close
that we know it's impossible to breathe
a single moment of life's pulse
without our lover's touch.

those times that we feel the disturbance
of not knowing why you and I are
so essential to life's passage,
whether we are here or apart.

those are the moments that I cherish,
the ones that fill the echoes
between sighs and heartbeats,
when we are together.
_________________________________________

this heartbeat V2
2008

On days we find ourselves so close
we know it's impossible to breathe
a single moment of life's pulse
without our lover's touch;

times when we feel the disturbance
of not knowing why you and I are
essential to life's passage,
whether we are here or apart;

those are moments I cherish;
the ones that fill the echoes
between sighs and heartbeats,
when we are together.

 

[champagne1982]

A Day In May #16

Why Mormons don't dance.
August 2003

He moves beside me
Churning his hips in the
Ritual dance.
Rhythms throbbing through
My bones.

With his wooden drumsticks
He pounds a staccato
Jazz beat out.
My cymbals quiver as they await
His brush.

Membranes tautly stretched
Across a framework of life
And tissue.
We watch the pulse vibrating
My wrists.

In a sweating flurry of arms
Hard driving bodies thirsting for
Wet tastings.
It's over too soon to learn all
The steps.
_____________________________________

Why Mormons don't dance. V2.1
2008

He moves beside me
churns his hips
in the ritual dance.

Rhythms throb
through my bones.

He pounds out a staccato
jazz beat with wood
drumsticks, cymbals
quiver as they wait.

Membranes tautly stretched
across a framework of life.
We watch the pulse vibrate
my wrists.

In a sweaty flurry of arms,
driving bodies thirsty
for wet tastings --

it's over too soon
to learn all the steps.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

May #18

Correspondence

Not knowing
is more important than skin.
I will not break the seal
or risk the story
not even to be able
to know how your fingers feel
or the shape of your shoulders.

I give you your
electric perfection
and let the red body
go hungry
for the sake of words.

But I wish
you could kick through the latch
and come through
tangible. You'll find
I meant every word.

 

[loststar]

day17

the pain of the evening
is fading with the night
the ecstasy of morning
bridging a gap
somewhere in my psyche
music, poetry, art
remind me
of greatness yet to be achieved
dreams still hold me
for one more day

I need to believe
to hold on to
to cling to
hope

for it might be the only control
I have in this night
in a sea
of my self induced sorrows

 

[loststar]

day 18

its easy to seduce you

the fast car
the loud music
the reckless night

the easy smile
the locked eyes
desire bleeding through breath

I laugh
wear the jeans you like
I tease, light then sharp

I spoil you
let you choose the movie
cater to your menu

I let my body get in your way
let your hands find me
your lips tease me

I push back

let you seduce me

 

[loststar]

day 19

pull me under
dragging me by the hair
hold me there with your teeth
burn me
let it sting
send the shivers through my thieghs
let the line between pleasure and pain
be razor sharp
that I might cut
these bonds upon it
let me please you
let my body tremble in anticipation
let thedeisre build and boil
engulf me

and
then

let me do it to you

 

[loststar]

bj I absoulutly adore this one, it left me awe struck, and I in good concsiece could not let it go by unpraised

Fall

I had one thought with which you disagreed.
That's all. It was a question, not rebellion.
My only sin was wondering what right
set you in the Highest, made you so
much more worthy than myself or those
I might love more.

For this I was cast down,
cast out. You said that it would hurt you more
than it hurt me, but I was wrong to see
myself as something that was Self alone,
no part of You. I've done this to myself
thrown myself these miles down and lost
your love, by naming Me.

The word is blade:
it separates by naming. I did not know
just what I chose; I tasted it and felt,
suddenly, Myself. I felt a Distance.
It hurt, but then I could not take it back.
And as I fell - and not till then, I swear -
I raised my fist.

But now, until time ends,
it will stay raised. My name is now my curse:
the word I took made Many out of One
and stands as education to the damned.

I am enslaved
to your agenda here:
that they unlearn their names, remember yours
and find themselves in you, communed and whole
encompassed by the only Name there is.
I serve you still, as Adversary,
tempting each of them with rebel will
to name their pain and clutch it to the heart,
to cut themselves apart with their own words.

You would have bound me if you could, and you
do penance just as hellish as my own.
I was your favorite son, so who sinned first?

But I know something that you cannot see:
the day will come, and not so long from now
when I won't need to measure out my self
outside Your context.
Then I'll lay it down
with no regrets and not a thought, that name
that's kept me from you, Lover, all these years.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

May #19

Thank you, shiny thing. It ain't Milton, but it's something.

I'm going to get a bit ahead, since I'll be gone a lot this weekend. And since I happen to actually have the old draft of this, I'll include it in this case. It's a good example of why I don't bother to include old versions for this challenge; most of them are almost completely different poems from first draft to edited version.



NEW DRAFT

Elixir

Hot salt fountain and shout
and I have caught
you gleefully, drawing back at the last
surge, like spilled sunlight
on my upturned face
bright and hot across my neck
filling the hollow
of my collarbone.

Now this lava cools and tickles
over my lips and chin. I draw
one stretched lace of juice
to smooth my nipple,
circles in pearl,
Maori tattoos on my breasts
and cheeks, erasing
the lines, drinking god
through the skin.

****

OLD DRAFT

Spilled Erotic Measure

Pints, he says, it must have been, and
now it cools and tickles
over my lips and chin. I draw
one stretched lace of juice
to smooth my nipple.

how it bewilders him that I do this
so gleefully, drawing back at the last
surge to catch the dragon's juice
like fresh water on my face
or bright
and hot across my neck
or filling the hollow
of my collarbone. I draw

circles in pearl
Maori tattoos on my breasts
and cheeks, erasing
the lines from my forehead
with this elixir.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

May #20

Scene

The shocking thing's the ease with which it comes
when it finally comes, that fall from war
with mind and legislation, how it seems
to drop away, like taking off a shirt.

Just trust, and let it go, and there you are,
in unapologetic ecstasy
without the boundaries that have held you down
without the rules that lame your godly heart

and all it takes is theater and stage,
putting on the masks of cruelty
and so exaggerating backwards power
that it becomes a clown, a whore, a toy

and dancing in these costumes we become
powerless, powerful, ourselves with hearts.

 

[annaswirls]

May #16

it is hard to edit some of these, the topic felt so important at the time... but I am so over it-- hard to separate my lack of caring for the subject anymore from the judgement is it any good as poetry?

Temporal Tether


Like helium balloons,
I tie sex to my sleeves
until I am almost light enough
to stand free.

But this chest-crushing lead
pulls muscle from tendon
ligament from bone
and all I can do
is curl into
smaller target.

Your gaze jumps its vector
over my head, through the window
and follows another feather
as she blows in the door.

You tell me she designs shoes.

I stare at this Stoli soaked napkin,
only my fingers remember shredding
the fibers into a pile.

I should have
taken out the flowers
before fragrance became stench
at the bottom of the glass.




Temporal Tether


I tie your sex to my sleeves
like helium balloons
until I am almost light enough
to stand free

but this chest crushing lead pulls
muscle from tendon
ligament from bone

and all I can do
is curl into
smaller target.

someone made
some serious
miscalculations!

from knives and needles and
scratched vinyl skipping
hair mis-parted,
buoyant force, defeated?

your gaze jumps its vector
right over my head,
falls to the sidewalk
and follows another feather
as she blows in the door.

You tell me she designs shoes.

I stare at this Stoli soaked napkin,
only my fingers remember shredding
the fibers into a pile.

I should have
taken out the flowers
before fragrance
became stench
at the bottom of the glass.

 

[annaswirls]

May #17

.....

 

[annaswirls]

May #18

........

 

[annaswirls]

May #19

........

 

[champagne1982]

A Day In May #17

Wallace Stevens challenge poem

Nine Pianos
March 2008

I
A red-tinted woodfleshed piano
Narrow and richly carved;
Shaped with plane
And turned on lathe.

II
Keys move up a ladder
Of progression. White black
White white black --
The unsteady footsteps
Of drunken musicians on
Uneven thresholds.

III
Piano melodies
Heard in a birdsong
Or water's rill;
Casual cascades of noise,
Muted tonality blue
On chartreuse or even
Pomegranate; music.

IV
Baby grand with sensual
Curves seducing
Johann, Ludwig, Amadeus
And virgins playing
In the parlor washing scales
From infant eyes.

V
The overture to the opus
Always heard
Background to lyrics
Of your creation.

VI
Piano notations, such
Softness stammered
Through velvet hammer
On metal strings
Flesh on tooth or ebony
Grained fingers stroked
In C Major riffles.

VII
Borne on the backs
Of Hindi castes, native
Birch bark to Fort Simpson;
Civilization played on piano.

VIII
Marches, requiem,
Sonatas serenade the moon
Prayers to heaven for man
Piano whispers to God.

IX
A repetoire of religion
Depressed and held, legato
Pinched and plucked, staccato
Arpeggio on eighty-eight keys.
________________________________

Nine Pianos v2 (or 22)

I
A red-tinted woodfleshed piano
Narrow and richly carved;
Shaped with plane
And turned on lathe.

II
Steps on a ladder
Of seven four cadence. White
Black white white black --
The unsteady footsteps
Of jazz musicians on
Uneven thresholds.

III
Piano melodies
Heard in birdsong
Or fountain rill;
Casual cascades of noise,
Muted tonality blue
On chartreuse or even
Pomegranate; music.

IV
Baby grand with sensual
Curves seducing
Johann, Ludwig, Amadeus
And virgins playing
In the parlor washing scales
From infant eyes.

V
Refrain of tears, draped in flags
A new requiem composed too often
For funerals of the young. Black
Black unremitting black --
The dirge of mourners' piano
soft footsteps march behind.

VI
Piano notations, such
Softness stammered
Through velvet hammer
On metal strings
Flesh on tooth or ebon-
Grained; fingers stroked
In C Major riffles.

VII
Borne on the backs
Of Hindi castes, native
Birchbark canoe to Fort Gary;
Civilization played on piano.

VIII
Sonatas serenade Claire de Lune
Prayers to heaven for man
Piano whispers to God.

IX
A repetoire of religion
Depressed and held, legato
Pinched and plucked, staccato
Arpeggio on eighty-eight keys.

 

[annaswirls]

May #18

........

 

[annaswirls]

May #19

.......

 

[annaswirls]

......

 

[annaswirls]

May #21

.......

 

[annaswirls]

May #22 Finally caught up!!!

.......

 

[unpredictablebijou]

QUESTION:

Did the cock crow three times for Judas or Thomas?????


It is rusted I am blind

The cock crowed three times
for Judas but only silence crosses
between us.

He spins feathers
to the wind, never admitting
betrayal comes
on pussy feet of promise.

I hear a gurgled crow,
but he only reassures himself.
I am not convinced.



it is rusted I am blind


The cock crowed three times
for Judas but only silence crosses
my side of the line.

He spins his feathers
to the wind, never admits
that betrayal comes
on the pussy feet of promise.

I think I hear a gurgled crow,
but he only reassures himself.
I am not convinced.

Neither. It was Peter. Peter claimed he would never deny Christ and Christ replied that he would do so before the cock crowed three times the next morning.

It's in the Gospel of Mark.

Still works in the piece though, as far as I can tell. This is a fine one, by the way.

bj

 

[annaswirls]

Neither. It was Peter. Peter claimed he would never deny Christ and Christ replied that he would do so before the cock crowed three times the next morning.

It's in the Gospel of Mark.

Still works in the piece though, as far as I can tell. This is a fine one, by the way.

bj

Thank you! I am rusty on my scripture....I guess there was no warning with Judas. Think Mark would mind if I mix up the cast?