One a Day in May: Spring Cleaning

[annaswirls]

vacation!

Is everyone on vacation?I hope so...I felt badly because I was gone several days and came back to the sound of (poetic) cricket chirps

I hope my bible comment did not offend somehow.

Hope y'all are okay and come back for the home stretch.....

 

[annaswirls]

May #23

.......

 

[annaswirls]

May #24

........

 

[Angeline]

Is everyone on vacation?I hope so...I felt badly because I was gone several days and came back to the sound of (poetic) cricket chirps

I hope my bible comment did not offend somehow.

Hope y'all are okay and come back for the home stretch.....

I'm not sweety, just working madly on an editing job that's sucking all the poetry out of my soul. I'll try. It's a great thread (and one that'll stick around, I know) and more deserving of time than I've been able to give it. Sorwy.

 

[Angeline]

I rewote this one a thousand times, with the help of 1201 mostly and the usual suspects. I just want to make sure it is ready

Metaphors are nothing like Venice

I pull the red wagon down back alleys
to hunt the elusive metaphor
as if hidden in the bricks,
requiring a twisted wire for extraction.

I beg for parcels of Europe
in the back yards of Baltimore townhouses.
Striped umbrellas become a gondolier's shirt
wrought iron table and chairs
become an outdoor cafe
with chocolate spread on toast
and coffee to die for.

It almost becomes Venice,

as does sump pump water
that runs down the middle of this V sloped alley.
It washes colored glass pieces
fallen from Friday's recycling truck,
green and amber triangles pressed smooth
into a summer soft tar mosaic.

But this counts for nothing.
No clever literary trickery.
No sleeveless magic.

Tonight metaphor has become calculus
requiring differential equations
and greek symbols.

We recite elementary patterns
loves me
loves me
loves me not
upping the odds
on the daisy wheel of probability
while counting cliches
that disappear down the back alley canal.

Just like Venice.

More than ready. It's gorgeous, a beautiful piece of writing. If you want me to be totally anal and nitpicky, I'd say put a hyphen in "V-sloped" and "backyards" is spelled solid. Don't change anything else; just publish it!

 

[champagne1982]

Is everyone on vacation?I hope so...I felt badly because I was gone several days and came back to the sound of (poetic) cricket chirps

I hope my bible comment did not offend somehow.

Hope y'all are okay and come back for the home stretch.....

I'm just bein' busy bein' busy... I don't know where the energy went... but it did. I'll be baaaaack.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Is everyone on vacation?I hope so...I felt badly because I was gone several days and came back to the sound of (poetic) cricket chirps

I hope my bible comment did not offend somehow.

Hope y'all are okay and come back for the home stretch.....

O no, I hardly think that was offensive, and to answer the original question, I suspect Mark himself may have elaborated a bit in certain aspects so how could he possibly mind if you do the same?

Call it "poetic license" and you can get away with just about anything.

I've been camping, myself, and just got back. I've got much to catch up on and will begin to do so today...

bj

 

[unpredictablebijou]

May #21

When you're 25, he said

you'll understand so much more. You'll be a whole
different person. At 18, I believed him;
his studio apartment was full of his work. God,
what an artist, I thought, such
powerful statements
in the toy planes glued to a thick-slapped
canvas about War, and mannequin parts
strewn artfully around the checkered floor.

He worked as a waiter at an artsy coffee house.
I'd sit and admire him while he painted.
I let him read my poetry. Candy-ass, he said.
Life is not all about sex and love.
There are wars and betrayals all around you.
The people you love are the ones who are dying.
He said I needed to read Sam Shepard
and get serious. Eventually,
he let me fuck him.
Then he invited me over more often,
but I was busy with darker poetry
and worried that happiness might
affect my work.

One night
up on his roof, with his mouth
working my neck and his fingers
squeezing my nipples too hard,
I turned and threw my beer bottle
over the side of the building.
It shattered on the street.
It surprised him
so it must have been art.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

May #22

Cartography

This is the border between spaces on the map of the flesh.
These are the routes and exchanges of open trade.
This is the surge of current moving along the power lines.
These are the trails of rivers in curves,
This is the place where they open and fit, these are their mouths
This is a road, a line of knotted points like a spine,
These are the rhythmic fences of roads for the fingers
This is a stream within wicked banks,
This is a fork lined with lush grasses.
This is the horizon of the shoulder and the elevation of the neck
These are the hills, the ranges of savannah,
This is the prairie, rolling across to this rocky plain.
This is a section of uncharted territory,
These are the states, bounded by wide rivers,
and the delta, opening like a hand.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

May #23

The Naming

Thread this through your heart, this knotted cord
that binds not only bones and skin but souls
the name I speak for you is like a hand
that holds but doesn't grasp. Cupped to contain

as vessel must be shaped to what it holds
and liquid is commanded by the cup
but flows in perfect freedom round itself
So shaped by one another let us bind

this name, and in it this new name for me
since One who speaks a name is named as well
as Voice, as Namer, as the lips and teeth,
a shape, a sound that drives the tongue to move.

so in this bright beginning is a word
made flesh, and yours, and mine, with cup and cord.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

May #24

Music of the Spheres

*it is as if*
no belly but ocean, you (or what-was-defined-till-now-as)
become mist from the navel out.
The color is purple-except-bright
pristine mist, smooth, and the sound
unsound that finds itself (yourself) singing
is (lion silence, you remember)
more song than song, a bone sound,
light, and light
which rhymes (rimes) with purple
and with the sound and your unfingers
you turn the axes and graphs and
dimensions round, shifting a link here
delicately, precise
(the beads dropping into place)

*it is as if*
the goddess (of course, Her hands, after all
or it is the Moon and Sun or ancestors or angels
yes
who do it of course yourself and God working together
remembering that the two of you can trade places
that you can be, are one another
and you remember)
you (god) fall upwards
and you remember
a tunnel, and a wedding
that is taking place
one thing joins with another
and the words now all mean
the same thing:
hearn, kernel and corn
the tunnel, the horn
the spiral road you travel
all made from circles, angles and lines

*it is as if*
their mirror images manifest themselves
and they perform
the ritual of the opening of the mouth
the woman bends over the lion
gently, unlocks
with the instrument, the key (cleito)
the key (an octave, a chord, an interval)
you unlock a door (as if a door)
with music, a series of angles and patterns
it is a cave entrance, a tunnel, a border
or an opening (you climb upward
and out through the hole in the roof of the world)
this is the boat of time
the choir of chords and angles,
the key, the code
that opens the gate. Sung, it opens the mouth
which turns itself (you) inside out
with a roar
sah-hung: I Am That
unfolding: sah-hung: sung.

*it is as if*
a drumbeat were thunder, and a
word: DA
the clap of thunder that is
the beginning of the world
the roar of the lion
seven cones, umbrellas, colors
nested and towering
nine worlds of wealth and
ten of pentacles' points
all circles, wheels within wheels
singing
DA
and the universe opens
like a fan
like a chord
like a rose.

 

[loststar]

Is everyone on vacation?I hope so...I felt badly because I was gone several days and came back to the sound of (poetic) cricket chirps

I hope my bible comment did not offend somehow.

Hope y'all are okay and come back for the home stretch.....

yes I was on vacation of sorts, but I am here swinging for the fence so here goes...

 

[loststar]

day 20

seeds of words

words slip in words slip out
around and around they spin about
my crystalline heart reflects snipits of light
caught in the beauty of the world
existing for only a moment before they are gone
inspiration flares
and slowly succeeds into beautiful vibes
that resonate within
coloring my life

 

[loststar]

day21

a piece of my heart found in the road today
flesh squished flat
hope and blood leaving its stain
but it shall be baked away by the sun
the sun whose happiness I can not shut out
it will burn away my skin
and I shall be glad for it
until the cancer of denial appears
after years and years of hiding in the drug of happiness

 

[loststar]

day 22

my youth is clumsy
but my feet are quick
to recover
redirect

passion bubbles
tired of being ignored
it overwhelms

I have not the polish of years
yet I have a charm of my own
I will not apologize for my absence of lines

 

[loststar]

day 23

I have that innocent experienced good girl smile
that can fool them every time they want me to
I don't lie
so they don't ask
I smile
and they take what they want

you choose the face that you see
I'm just out of practice at being me
what may appear random
is really not
but you know that already
just as you know the me you see
is just a piece of what I can be

 

[loststar]

day 24

You tie me up in your words
not even giving me the satisfaction of the rope burns
You beat down my spirit
with out leaving a single mark
You rape my dreams
with out even touching me

You that used to wrap me in love
filling me with hope as we
counted on our dreams
the memories of such fading fast
and with out them I do not know
how long I shall last

Every pleasure seems to have been stripped away
warmth been pulled out of the day
taste gone from the wine
The jokes lost
ambitions a far way gone

The fire is fading from my eyes
as I scramble to replace my significance
I search and I search
the novelty of life a stop gap
That keeps me here one more day

The moment I wait for is not what it used to be
You have changed and so have I
I escape into my mind
but from your words I can not hide

 

[annaswirls]

yeah! welcome back!!! no apologies, just poetry it is good to see you..... we are in the home stretch!

 

[annaswirls]

More than ready. It's gorgeous, a beautiful piece of writing. If you want me to be totally anal and nitpicky, I'd say put a hyphen in "V-sloped" and "backyards" is spelled solid. Don't change anything else; just publish it!

THANK YOU!!!!
I will make those changes pronto

 

[annaswirls]

O no, I hardly think that was offensive, and to answer the original question, I suspect Mark himself may have elaborated a bit in certain aspects so how could he possibly mind if you do the same?

Call it "poetic license" and you can get away with just about anything.

I've been camping, myself, and just got back. I've got much to catch up on and will begin to do so today...

bj

welcome back and thank you again!

 

[annaswirls]

May #25

Estate Sale


On every linoleum-covered table
we find unsharpened pencils
jammed into jars of rice.

Their printed advertisements
worn by time not fingertips.
Insurance companies, funeral homes
car dealerships all trying to sell my uncle something.

It is time to make a list of things that might sell,
time to jot down notes for the ceremony
on the backs of envelopes that promise
"you do not need to subscribe
to win."

We search drawers for a pencil sharpener
but find only complimentary pocket knives
several plastic-handled potato peelers
a rusted carrot-shredder
and tarnished letter opener.

Only dull edges to make a point.

Hardened erasers smear our words
with greasy red streaks
instead of deleting
all places we went wrong.

 

[annaswirls]

May #26

Riverbed Monologue

Even I could make weapons here.

Basalt and flint carefully chipped
into tools of the hunt,
pointed drills,
blades, scrapers.

This blue-black granite
already smooth and molded,
perfect for the crush and grind
of wild grain into flour.

Or maybe just to bang out new poems
for stream-still big-mouth bass
because some days evening comes too slowly
hours too long.

This mica-sparkled stone I will keep to myself
just to catch the sky in broken pieces
preparing for the time I can piece it back together

whole

as reflected off still water
where newly emerged mosquito
gather strength on sand.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

May #25

The Eight Valleys

Lute String

Just past the doorway,
not even the tip
has fully entered.
Let one tone vibrate
until she trembles.

Water-Chestnut Teeth

The edge has slipped past
and the head is now
fully within her.
You hiss through your teeth,
she answers with sighs.

Little Stream

Nearly halfway in
thrust quickly, diving
like a swallow skims
above the water
till she sounds like birds.

Black Pearl

Four fingers' width deep,
halfway to her peak,
begin the rhythm
of slowly and quickly.
The pearl will emerge.

Valley Proper

Stay here and labor
in the deep furrows
and draw her pleasure
out in many peaks
till she yields bounty


Deep Chamber

Only two fingers
width remains outside.
Enter the garden
and begin the play:
Nine shallow, one deep.

Inner Door

You batter the gate,
a conquering force.
Her limbs are weakened
and her tongue is cold;
she has surrendered.

North Star

Now at your deepest
you give direction:
offer your own force
your bolt of heaven.
Balance Sky and Earth.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

May #26

Coyote

1.
You do not know me
but I know you.
I tempt you to go
backwards. My crazy curses
wake the back of your neck
Your spine listens to me.

2.
Stand in a dark field at sunset
when the west is red
behind one black tree.
Hold a red egg in your palm
take three steps
and throw it as far
as you can.
Five of us will run
in a perfect silhouette
along the horizon.
Red. Black.
These are the only two colors.

3.
Outside the lonely islands
of the farm lights
we circle
in the sparkling black
in the whisper of corn
slick dark fish
we flash and mock
the dogs of the phosphor yellow
You shout
but we sing.

4.
Sometimes there are berries
and there are mice among them.
Slide paws forward
underneath the thorns
to pounce.
Scatter birds
and bones.

5.
We worry the Winter
with cold teeth
and mock the January Moon.
Thin,
we will come through
and run the Spring raw.

6.
When we are too hungry
to catch mice
there are fallen apples
and slow moles to dig.
It is provided.

7.
Follow my voice
round the hill nine times
and you can turn yourself
inside out, as I do.
Learn to sing
in a spiral
and you'll find me.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

May #28

Spell for Silence

Into a large jar, place these things,
dropping them carefully, listening to them when they land:

A cat's whisker
A handful of earth
A handful of salt
Static from a small transistor radio
Bark from a fallen tree
A page from a book
Ice

Fill the jar with cotton.
Paint it black, three coats.
Set it under the dark moon overnight.
Take it to a place of owls. Leave it uncovered
until you hear an owl hoot.
Then close the jar.

Whisper:
No motion or sound
within this ground.
Vibration is stilled,
with silence filled.
Like owl's flight
and velvet night,
all sound asleep
all vision deep.
As darkened moon
or August noon,
It's frozen time
that ends this Rhyme
so by my Will
let all be still.

Take it to a place
where there needs to be peace
and bury it there
saying nothing.