The Gymnasium

[Tathagata]

On Why, When Spelled, Addiction Comes Out N-E-E-D

It is not her bones I gnaw. I do not
hunger for her marrow, however red and soft.
An other nourishment is what I want.

My fingertips are lustful, my nails claws.
I want to carve initials in her flesh, because
because, because. Because I am weak enough

to want it, to simply, only want her love
however oddly made. How differently she moves
throughout my life—here taxingly, here smooth

and here so separate, that when I crush
her will, that mouse's skeleton, I must then must
restrain from drinking it too much. I am a lush.






Tag. You're It.

In that moment
when want becomes need
lies the destruction of love
and fighting the urge
to claim what makes me feel most alive
is the monster I battle
is the monster I become

 

[Tathagata]

burned in an August pyre
and perhaps that is the only thing he regretted

(or was attracted to); this heat of her

that he couldn’t control or douse. He roused
himself once, twice, thrice
into her arms

and onto her marriage shrine

but left less a man each time. It’s not
like she wanted fixing. It wasn’t
the cooking or the babies
or her vacuous staring at Eliot with her

mouth parted ever so slightly, making her
(not wanton) moronic, flaccid.
The birthday letters were regrettably
the best she ever gave,
the best she ever took
back
with her
to read
later.

I read them before I burned them
there wasnt as much there as I remembered
maybe looking at them with
tired pain watered eyes
what was between the lines was too faint
or perhaps
it was lemon juice after all

smoke carried our foolishness
out and over the city
i pictured it traveling around the globe
and wafting in window
stopping your spoon
midway to your mouth
and you being uncertain
why.

but you aren't the woman who wrote them anymore
and I am no longer the man for whom they were intended

still, i didnt forget to thank you
for everything
including the lessons
i didnt want to learn

 

[clutching_calliope]

In that moment
when want becomes need
lies the destruction of love
and fighting the urge
to claim what makes me feel most alive
is the monster I battle
is the monster I become

This sounds like a rock song!

 

[Tathagata]

This sounds like a rock song!

Me and Lou Reed
Rock and Roll animals

 

[vampiredust]

The Significance of Letters

8.30 a.m. Postman lifts the lip
of the letterbox
and another of your maps
falls to the floor.

Opening it reveals
nothing I don't already
know: you are gone
and are taking everything

with you; each word
another place, another dot
marking the way to an X
where I will discover

your silver is the ashes
of everything burnt,
cradling a moth accidentally
drawn to its flames,
thinking they were light.

 

[clutching_calliope]

.....

 

[clutching_calliope]

.....

 

[vampiredust]

Myth

A mannequin's knuckle
preserved in vinegar
is accidentally shipped
to a trader of artifacts

in Egypt, who tosses
it out of his window,
where it is picked up
by a wandering camel

and ends up in its cave
of a stomach. Spat out
halfway across the Sahara,
a swarm of sand begins

its final metamorphosis.
All through the night
you can hear flowers
blooming, coming alive.

 

[Tathagata]

Each year he feels the calling
smells pollen and hears the bees
humming instructions
one note till his mind becomes a lock step response
that day when they straighten and face the sun
he decapitates them
imagining cutting the heads
from gilded Russian icons
all gold and brainy seeds
his heart and penis throb
with the audacity of the act.

Each year she awakens
to slaughter on her doorstep
her sunflowers
yellow carnage
sagging in that which gave them life
now sucking moisture
and leaves them as mummies
gasping
in disbelief at Ra

she wonders if the world is going mad
fear returns
along with a sense of her age
understanding is sepia
a reality she can no longer grasp in color

the move to a retirement home
will come once again
she is ready to leave everything
there is no way to protect it anymore
it is time to let go
of it all

 

[clutching_calliope]

......

 

[vampiredust]

Blackberry

"...black language of blackberry
eating in late September"

Kinnell

I felt the squelch of blackberries
being crushed in Kinnell's mouth
when I was only two weeks old,
screaming not for milk,

but for respite of the plucked
berries. I spoke my mass as I lay
in my crib, offering prayers
for the fallen and their survivors.

They were my brothers in many
ways, having been snatched
from the safety of thorns - not
yet matured. Years later, when

words started to develop, father's
face became pale when the sharp
blackberry black words fell out,
accompanied by their seeds,

harbored in the spaces between
my teeth.

 

[Tzara]

Accident

It was her last letter, how its fine edge
sliced right through that softer skin
stretched over wrists. His more callous parts—
the head, the heart—would not have bled,
or not so much. After all, it was a paper cut
and they're not often dangerous, although
they smart. This one was oddly fatal, though.

 

[Tzara]

Balance

There is no weight
that can weigh us, together. I see
you smile, but it is true:
there is no weight to tare
my heart, my so open heart.
My heart is open, weightless,
and, without weight, I offer it,
as insubstantial, to you.

Oh, please don't breathe too hard.

 

[Tathagata]

all her paintings are organic
that is
no blue or orange
only a symmetrical cobalt dog
on a tangerine peel rug

the colors are both savage and innocent
untamed and unlearned
like Gauguin or a child
they are pure
free from expectations and convention

I remember seeing the world this way
the fact she still can
makes her even more desirable to me
as if physical pleasure is a gift
she lacks
and only i can bestow

i should ask what color she'd paint my presumptuousness


she comes to bed in lavender moonlight
lying back
her breasts are slashed across the middle
thunderhead gray and raven wing black

in the morning i will buy one of her paintings
the crimson flower girl
with the sad look
and a basket full of dying
emerald
roses

 

[Tathagata]

Humming Instructions

She tossed the scientific explanation,
the Browning Effect, into the carburetor,
flicked the switch, hit the gas.

These noises in her ears tell her where to go,
and when she doesn’t listen
they turn up the feedback
until she has to grip the chair-back
and shift her feet.

It’s not like they’re people,
really,
but they’re never wrong,
surprisingly (…ringly, ringly, she hears
as echoes).

he repeats the same
two or three syllables
he pictures a tape loop playing in his chest
feels them vibrate there, when he has to go into town
not wanting to speak them out loud
always the magic words
changing him
into light from within
and one day
he will jut dissolve into
everything

in india he would be called a saint

in america, a madman

 

[vampiredust]

Poem

"When the mirror is broken open..."

Helder Macedo

When the mirror
is broken up I see the two
sides of your river

veering away from one
another, the tide caught
between them fighting

to decide which to
to enter, never knowing
whether that would pull

or push the trapped
water away.

 

[RhymeFairy]

all her paintings are organic
that is
no blue or orange
only a symmetrical cobalt dog
on a tangerine peel rug

the colors are both savage and innocent
untamed and unlearned
like Gauguin or a child
they are pure
free from expectations and convention

I remember seeing the world this way
the fact she still can
makes her even more desirable to me
as if physical pleasure is a gift
she lacks
and only i can bestow

i should ask what color she'd paint my presumptuousness


she comes to bed in lavender moonlight
lying back
her breasts are slashed across the middle
thunderhead gray and raven wing black

in the morning i will buy one of her paintings
the crimson flower girl
with the sad look
and a basket full of dying
emerald
roses

Seems this is the day for awesome writes. I love this Tath ... I would also love to see that painting. So artistic ... you. Growl ~

 

[Tzara]

Remodel. Flip.

I am not an electrician,
but I still want you to know
how I'd like to twist your wires—
What are they, copper?—so as to twine
with my 70's aluminum. OK, I'm old
and I may be dangerous, start fires
inside of walls, burn down relationships
or houses. I don't know. I just want
us now to be safe and follow code.

Oh, but we'll both look good when finished.
Trust me. I'm professional. I know.

 

[Tathagata]

Seems this is the day for awesome writes. I love this Tath ... I would also love to see that painting. So artistic ... you. Growl ~

thank you

I'm glad you liked it

 

[vampiredust]

Found poem in Tristan Tzara's small town in siberia

A medicine bottle
shudders with every hour
skipping on the clock face,

collapsing silence. I hold
your hand and together
we watch herring roof

houses brave the tide,
never feeling the medicine
bottle falling into the cabinet
of my heart.

 

[clutching_calliope]

between the pane

......

 

[champagne1982]

basement window
two by maybe three. too
small to
crawl out of
but a home for spider.
we see the snow fall
on the ground two
feet above both our
heads.

Be careful, Missy. I'll be writing a creepy spider poem again.

 

[clutching_calliope]

.....

 

[vampiredust]

The Translucence of My Uncle

My uncle's discovery of being able
to be in two places at once
was the highlight of his short life.
One minute he'd be in his bedroom

organising a shipment of stamps,
whilst simultaneously smoking
in my grandparents' balcony.
Mama explained this away

as a result of an operation
he had on his eyes, the nerves
being interrupted. How this
affected space-time, I'm not sure.

Sometimes it wouldn't work
and one body would be trapped
in a wall, becoming transparent,
a slide that we would project
on ourselves and see the real him.

 

[RhymeFairy]

The Translucence of My Uncle

My uncle's discovery of being able
to be in two places at once
was the highlight of his short life.
One minute he'd be in his bedroom

organising a shipment of stamps,
whilst simultaneously smoking
in my grandparents' balcony.
Mama explained this away

as a result of an operation
he had on his eyes, the nerves
being interrupted. How this
affected space-time, I'm not sure.

Sometimes it wouldn't work
and one body would be trapped
in a wall, becoming transparent,
a slide that we would project
on ourselves and see the real him.

excellent wording and imagery.