writing live

[Lyricalli]

I keep writing poems in my head
lying in a bed that's difficult to leave
and the only warm place in the house
right now I wonder where you are
and if you read what I write
and if I should press send
on any of it
their meaning in your eyes
both comfort and terrifying
I look to the ceiling for answers
but it just looms in the black
and cold
I'll just fall asleep again
wondering what the right thing is
occasionally distracted that I can't feel
my nose

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

A Waste of Resources

It is always a
disappointment to me if,
when I check in,
there is no evidence
of your presence.

I can’t tell if you are
watching from the shadows.
Then I remind myself
that you have a life
away from mine.

But that doesn’t stop
the anticipation,
the strange attraction,
or the irrational feeling
of need. that can never
be satisfied.

 

[Lyricalli]

There are hundreds of lines in my head
that keep floating through
all trying to write a letter to you
or seventeen
or a thousand and two
so you can see how they all get confused
and feel disjointed
when I try to make them assimilate
into something that masquerades
as poetry
just so I can pretend
you might read it someday

 

[goddessofglee]

I didn't read the rules...
Just came around here...
and started to pour a verse!

I started off to be close
I thought I'm verbose,
just talking as it arose
my feel a broken rose
i lie outside their door
crumpled, I don't know,
I'm yearning to be more,

my spontaneous rhyme
try to sound like sunrise!
but am becoming in to be,
as I wanted myself to be?

 

[29wordsforsnow]

I didn't read the rules...
Just came around here...
and started to pour a verse!

I started off to be close
I thought I'm verbose,
just talking as it arose
my feel a broken rose
i lie outside their door
crumpled, I don't know,
I'm yearning to be more,

my spontaneous rhyme
try to sound like sunrise!
but am becoming in to be,
as I wanted myself to be?

Let's do this in reverse:
Thou shall not ever fear
to break those bendy rules.

I heard from there and those
no matter what's your vow
it's hard to not expose
what lies inside your core
the feelings that you chose
they came from heart and are therefore
done in rhymes and not in prose.

There comes a time
when we will see
if this poetic spree
was holy crap or poor advice.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Mark O’Brian gets Laid

Mark O’ Brian contracted polio at the age of six. He had three functioning muscles, one in his right foot, one in his neck and one in his jaw. With these he managed to be a successful reporter, publisher, journalist, social critic and poet. Died July 1999 aged 49.

At age thirty-six his body
is like discarded clothing, twisted,
to tortured angles, pointless.
Turning is not an option,
eyes, ears, mind percolate all too well.
From the neck up he is perfect.
Paddle-hands, useless as empty gloves,
lie open at his sides, a state of pleading
but pleading for what? Not death,
those days are over for he is loved
and has loved but sex eludes him.
He dreams of it at night and wakes sticky
with reality. His care-giver says nothing
as he bathes him but it hangs in the air
like an accusation. He hates his body.

She comes into his claustrophobic world
like one of those pure spring days,
initiates all kinds of possibilities,
not just hands but tongue and more.
She won’t mince words, a spade’s a spade
in her world. With talk and mirror she
lets him see his eager body, that straining
thing he had not seen since he was six
and calls it lovely, not a common word for him.
At last, she touches it, nothing explodes,
we wait as she lowers, guides and smiles.
“Breathe” and he does.
Afterward she kissed his chest.

 

[Lyricalli]

You stayed with me all night
in a sequence of dreams
I can't begin to comprehend
when act one was the touch of your lips
your wanted weight pressing down
filling me with contentment
warmth
feelings that seem at odds with sex scenes

Most of what lies between
is a blur of lighting
and the memory of your face

But I'm left vividly with the conclusion
of changing sheets
because the cat pissed the bed
while you slept in the next room

I can only imagine what interpretation
those who delve into such things
might create
though in the strangest of ways
it seems to mean
I miss you

 

[Klingsor]

hint

what is it that you want? I asked
as she rose from the couch
and, turning, walked to the bedroom

where she paused, as if to display
the curve of her hips,
her long and taut thighs

then, looking back over her shoulder
said oh, nothing natural,
with a joyously wicked smile

 

[RoperTrace]

I awaken
like every other morning,
needing relief
and doggie's need
comes soon after

the early spring air
wakes me fully,
time for Gus
to eat his kibble

coffee is my friend
and enemy,
however my pounding
head says drink up

where is the Tylenol?
Land-o-Lakes butter
melts slowly on twenty-one
grain wheat toast

I don't know
how this day ends,
but its start
is no mystery.

 

[RoperTrace]

Mark O’Brian gets Laid

Mark O’ Brian contracted polio at the age of six. He had three functioning muscles, one in his right foot, one in his neck and one in his jaw. With these he managed to be a successful reporter, publisher, journalist, social critic and poet. Died July 1999 aged 49.

At age thirty-six his body
is like discarded clothing, twisted,
to tortured angles, pointless.
Turning is not an option,
eyes, ears, mind percolate all too well.
From the neck up he is perfect.
Paddle-hands, useless as empty gloves,
lie open at his sides, a state of pleading
but pleading for what? Not death,
those days are over for he is loved
and has loved but sex eludes him.
He dreams of it at night and wakes sticky
with reality. His care-giver says nothing
as he bathes him but it hangs in the air
like an accusation. He hates his body.

She comes into his claustrophobic world
like one of those pure spring days,
initiates all kinds of possibilities,
not just hands but tongue and more.
She won’t mince words, a spade’s a spade
in her world. With talk and mirror she
lets him see his eager body, that straining
thing he had not seen since he was six
and calls it lovely, not a common word for him.
At last, she touches it, nothing explodes,
we wait as she lowers, guides and smiles.
“Breathe” and he does.
Afterward she kissed his chest.

Mark O'Brian is a new role model for me. It appears that we were the same age, and I knew people from our generation who contracted polio in our small town of ~600. My best friend was one, and the son of my mom's childhood friend also. It was everywhere. My soon to be 92 year-old sister was a young physical therapist who worked with Jonas Salk during the time he developed and tested polio vaccine. She still calls him Jonas, which I love when she says that.

 

[butters]

no matter how we sit and fuss
dutifully turn each egg
abstain from distractions of food
or company
those chicks will only hatch
when they are ready

make sure you're ready
with scratchy pen
when those peeps start peepin'

 

[butters]

"bathroom sex", that coy euphimism for a shag in public bogs

how desperate
insensate to aromas of shit, piss and puke
invisible, lurking bacterial clusters
from toilet bloom and unwashed hands
must one be
how sad
blind drunk
or stoned
to even consider it
let alone go through with it
each surface suspect
for traces of cocaine, covid, or cum

just
ew

 

[EllenMore]

No Safeword

Sherry asks me what
I can possibly get out of kink.

It's simple,
I say. When I'm being slapped

I can just spit out a word—
"yellow," "pineapple,"
or whatever
and it will stop.

My marriage never worked that way.

 

[OtherMan]

No Safeword

Sherry asks me what
I can possibly get out of kink.

It's simple,
I say. When I'm being slapped

I can just spit out a word—
"yellow," "pineapple,"
or whatever
and it will stop.

My marriage never worked that way.

Sometimes I’m struck
by simple words
so sublimely uttered
that I feel the slap
and am humbled
by the strength
it takes to stand
and feel
and grow
and own.
An honor
to have been led,
to have read
such clean
Power.


Sincerely. Thank you.

 

[butters]

weatherhead

overnight low of 74
humidity off the charts
as the Gulf's sweaty breath
renders poetry a soupy mess
sequestered
in unrealised throbbings
related to barometric pressures
not erstwhile inclinations of the flesh

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

One More Time

So, here we are.

Together again.

Familiarity stiff
with fresh healed hostilities
from weeks of warring,
concentrating on the task at hand.

You used to cook,
I’d set the table.

Your wok, my china.

Your cock, my vagina?

Stop it!

Once comfortably
accommodated,
now an insistent itch
of need.

Erotic novels bought together
on blustery. bookish days
bellwether for our future,
blurt obscenely across the floor.

Other evidence of discordance,
photos ripped in two; gifts given
then cast back in anger.

The Tiffany lamps, the nipple clamps,
the crystal glass, the distal pass
of your eyes over this marital mess.

Undeniable electricity crackles
at the brush of knuckles, hissing,
breathless thirst.
Instant recall, Saturday morning’s bed
destroyed, bathroom floods
destroyed, bathroom floods
from shower sex,
body-heated hot tub.

Eyes meet in understanding.

Just once more for old times’ sake.

 

[Ambient4190]

when the belly
sticks out almost
as far as boobs
my rule for me
time to lose weight

bye bye cookies
with coffee - sigh
desserts at night - boo hoo
winter is over
drink lots of water
flush the rubbish out

 

[29wordsforsnow]

Sunday Brunch

Shamelessly
we sit, your feet in my lap
sleep still in our eyes
while the world passes by
in their Sunday's best.

My shirt looks better on you
than myself licking jam
off your finger and the question
an elephant in the room
can this go on?

There will be Mondays
and breakfast before 7 am meetings
socks caught in my own shoes
while I miss the honey noon minutes
for another five days.

 

[EllenMore]

Broken

Masculinity was a glass vase
perpetually at the edge of the table
—Melissa Febos, "The Cure"

I was afraid to tell him
that I didn't want to fuck him anymore,
because he seemed almost fragile
as a champagne flute
that would shatter

on any high note from a violin
or a coloratura soprano.
So I let him stay in my bed
while I thought about how
I might tell him he should leave.

But then he offered me a ring,
and I had to say no. So
then, finally, he moved out.
I have to say, though,
there are times I really miss his cock,

and while my hand and my toys help.
they aren't arms around me,
which I'm not sure I want anyway,
though sometimes they were a comfort,
even if I didn't really, you know,

love him.

 

[butters]

death of a rooster

i'm a patient person
and he'd taken more liberties
than trump backstage at a beauty pageant
inflicted stabs and bruises
used up more than 9 lives
was on borrowed time

and still
believing the hype of his plumage
and sick with that vitriolic rage
unique to small-guy syndrome
he pushed his luck
and pushed it further
pumped on adrenaline
causing the end of the rake
to fall off
and staff met him halfway

even near death
he showed off
cartwheeling for posterity
before i took his head

as he swims now
in fragrant broth
in a diced garden
of complimentary vegetables
i wonder
will he taste like anger?

 

[butters]

not store bought chicken

there's something
primal
about eating one's opponent

my stomach processes
in bites
this new experience

 

[Ambient4190]

precious
returned to me
how was your pilgrimage
journey over sea

mother of last year
or one of her brood
your wings flitter so
difficult to know

nectar i will make
faithfully and true
thru til november
or whenever you may go

 

[butters]

which comes first
the white roar in my ears
making me sleepy

or being sleepy
inducing white noise
in my ears?

not that it matters
just circular thinking
revolving down rabbit holes

 

[OtherMan]

Why is the worth so shallow
the fertile dirt in need
as ready earth lies fallow
and waiting for the seed?

The ground it is not salted
just wants a tiller’s hand
for that it is not faulted
waiting the ripe command.

4/26/23

 

[butters]

David bowie's brother

insatiably curious child
split between two families
opened his brother's mind
to new worlds
via the medium of art
music, books, films
all alien to small suburban living

months here, there,
s p l i t the boy
his behaviour
sharing and loss
constant companions

escaping meant flying to the sky
the sun in his eyes
and after the war
a diagnosis
schizophrenic
doomed to spend his remaining days
in one spot
alternately flying
or feeling the poison
of heated winds in his face

his younger brother
a collector of personalities
never entirely sure of who he was
nor especially caring for long
enjoyed a freedom to explore skies of his own
art his escape
his expression
a spectrum child
fractures unconfined to a hospital bed