not sure how many words

[Man Ray]

Insistent knocking upon your door is what you hear!
Killing the sense of serenity that you yearn for.
Now who can that be you ask yourself?
Oh, for the impatient noise and the angry tumult to cease!
Why are they knocking so hard, RAT-A-TAT! is all you can hear.
Who can it be out there, who so impatiently demands entry?
Hesitantly you peek through the rattling banging door.
Enigmatic familiar excited eyes blaze back at you.
Reality squeezes your heart and you gasp!
Every sinful nightmare, dream dreamt is before you!
Your life swirls around and around as you unlock the door.
Only now is the immensity of what you have unleashed revealed.
Until now it has been a playful silly game, a careless pastime.
Letting him go, casting him adrift seemed so casually easy.
Images of what he promised are now all you can see.
Visions of forced pleasure fill your fragile body and mind.
Exquisite pain and passion steps over the threshold of your sanity.

​

 

[wildsweetone]

...

WSO,

Same to you. You are always so thoughtful to everyone's writing here, and so free and willing to say what you feel. That is invaluable to this community.

...

thank you.

 

[champagne1982]

Tomorrow is a place I've yet to visit,
with its promises and worries
carried like a burden,
left over from yesterday.

Today I'd like to stop a while and look
at all we've wrought from pasts
left far behind and think
of tomorrows yet to come.

 

[Man Ray]

on lonely days I wonder what you do?
do you make an organic winter stew?
are you making a vat of home brew?
creating art from bit `n bobs and glue?

or is it something darker that you do?
trawling the shadows for a victim new?
do the sad masques of old still fit you?
I hate to think so but I think its true...

​

 

[TheRainMan]

Childermas


Another rutted Sunday, bored and bouncing
in pews while pogo sticks wait
with animated message. All
the children are edgy, taken so soon away

from the gifts of yule. They listen as instructed,
fold their hands, pretend to pray
for all the baby boys of Bethlehem.

What do they know of death and lamentation,
of the sobbing of holy innocents
and mothers mourning sons?
How could they understand
the disturbed vengeance of Herod?

They bear no palms in their small hands,
are no weeping witnesses to one
of their own, born a king.

They are not the feast today.

The only drops of blood this day
are across the street and home—

in the market, on the cottons of men
awaiting the rush from mass
to spin their fine-grained whetstone
at the edge of a precise blue blade,

on the hands of mothers and fathers
who pat their children’s heads
and recall the tiny martyrs
with poultry and raspberry sauce.

 

[vampiredust]

The Last Memory Of You

The smog offers me a eulogy,
which drifts into my half chewed
lungs like an irritant, corrupting
the capillaries. My mind crashes
with that last thought of you.

But that was then, and the tears
are no longer soldered on to my face.
The butterfly that I kept in my
ribcage has been set free, exploding
the sky into a million spots of color.

 

[eagleyez]

He Was Hard of Hearing

He supervised the avalanche
Stacked the boulderfields
Built cones
Planted the months
Under their own full moons

Car doors click shut
Next to stairwells ascending
Heavy boots rattle the openings-
All night its up and down again until
Galvanized Tenpenny nails shake free

Kid Gavalon Bolero
Kid Congo Kelly
They ride their office
While He initiates the first
Followed by the rest

He Supervised the avalanche
Set loose the colony that had been
Trapped in the wall
Winterlong
The songs of animals
He heard for the last time

The Kid and the Kid
They were there
Providing evidence
Answering questions
Now he was the sidewalk
The Superintendent

Surmised just so
The dustplume would
Circle high enough
To cover the Birds
As Its time to drive away
Time to Drive away.

 

[wildsweetone]

...ee, you reminded me *smile* of a poem i wrote a while ago (i did a quick edit fiddle for here).

My cell

Come into my cell,
make yourself at home.

The walls are high,
windows round and
the sky - my ceiling.

Parrots sit in beech trees,
humming birds hover
near jasmine. Lavender,
bluebells, daffodils
and roses nod agreement
on a breezy summer’s day.

A lone forget-me-not sits
under a tree, a wild seedling blown
from the nearby field, established,
flourished and growing.

It watches me
as I gaze.

Bright yellow bees suckle
sweet honey from clover
and a monarch butterfly bounces
happily in a wide arc
landing for restful moments on leaf,
after leaf,
after leaf.

A cumulus cloud expands -
giant steps upward to another world;
a fantasy of noisy waterfalls
a cacophony of chaos.

Stay here in my cell of light and shadows,
of colour and crumb,
of creation

my silent world.

 

[eagleyez]

very nice

Ange always says she knows exactly what Im writin about, as I fill my stuff with place and movment. And within that place-chronology, of a minute, or minutes,that sort of thing.

Ahem, then she always asks me what I was listening to when I wrote it.

Miss smarty pants-dont ya know

 

[Angeline]

I usually know what he's thinking, too.

 

[TheRainMan]

Walking Sticks


He has no tint or flux.
A brown ghost,
fixed and framed
on a beam of my wall.

A hanged man,

hooked ever heavy
to a tree—he snaps
a limb, unfolds a blade

and now I am a boy again,
watching him
whittle under tupelos
that shade his face like God’s

good hand. His neck
is loose, his wrist as free

as Renoir’s horsehairs.
The art, two staffs—

man and child and wood
walk three-legged. A collapse
of sun colors the corn and treetops.

Tired, I lean against his future.
He moves away, not ready

to droop like strange fruit—
his cheeks are rouged

by the brushes of his blood,
by the poured wines of sunset,

legs as light
as the swipe of his knife.

 

[*Catbabe*]

I usually know what he's thinking, too.

Ange, I AM not old btw...I'm uhmmmm, just a sec...I'll be right back.


*leaves to get a thesaurus*

 

[Angeline]

Ange, I AM not old btw...I'm uhmmmm, just a sec...I'll be right back.


*leaves to get a thesaurus*

I knew you couldn't let that go by.

No you're not old--you're much younger than me, but you've got longevity here.

 

[Minervous]

.....

 

[TheRainMan]

Lynchburg


Growing up in whiskeytown, our first names
were hardly mentioned. You were
J. L.’s boy or Mimi’s little lady, as if
accurate identity might be
something to hide. Even the town

was given cover. We lived in The Burg.
In passing, when mash flowed free
at supper tables or cracker barrels,
you might hear it slip out
of old men in stories of gowns

on the hunt. But in churches and schools,
the bitter fruit that hung at dawn
from the walnuts was never connected
to our history like Jack’s black labels.
Ugly legacy is not for the young

and squeamish. They were just feeding
the buzzards, anyway. That’s not news.
We ignored the rot of steamy July
and passed mint juleps, chose to forget
the blood red record, the thumping

on doors at midnight, the torches used
to light the carnival and straw,
to see clearly and choose
among the convenient trees.
Or, shy rope, to locate dry twigs

and other combustibles for the cleansing
while a frantic man gave
his human performance, his penance
for the sin of being dark and undevoted,
somehow disfigured or queer. In small

towns, it’s always a stone’s throw
to a courthouse surrounded by hickorys
that hold the wood we might cut to beams
for its sagging roof, for the tables
and benches upon which justice is done.

 

[bogusbrig]

Lynchburg


Growing up in whiskeytown, our first names
were hardly mentioned. You were
J. L.’s boy or Mimi’s little lady, as if
accurate identity might be
something to hide. Even the town

was given cover. We lived in The Burg.
In passing, when mash flowed free
at supper tables or cracker barrels,
you might hear it slip out
of old men in stories of gowns

on the hunt. But in churches and schools,
the bitter fruit that hung at dawn
from the walnuts was never connected
to our history like Jack’s black labels.
Ugly legacy is not for the young

and squeamish. They were just feeding
the buzzards, anyway. That’s not news.
We ignored the rot of steamy July
and passed mint juleps, chose to forget
the blood red record, the thumping

on doors at midnight, the torches used
to light the carnival and straw,
to see clearly and choose
among the convenient trees.
Or, shy rope, to locate dry twigs

and other combustibles for the cleansing
while a frantic man gave
his human performance, his penance
for the sin of being dark and undevoted,
somehow disfigured or queer. In small

towns, it’s always a stone’s throw
to a courthouse surrounded by hickorys
that hold the wood we might cut to beams
for its sagging roof, for the tables
and benches upon which justice is done.

The racial tensions and politics creeps under your guard in this. Gritty poem that is quietly disturbing.

A good read. Thanks R

 

[Guest]

She tells me
it doesn't pay to look
beneath the surface
of dark water for the hidden
meanings or stare too long
at the light.
There is a reason
for reflective surfaces
and shaded eyes
see more of the open
field of play.
but it's not play
it's deadly serious
isn't it?
I don't reply
I'm concentrating
on the movement down there.

 

[champagne1982]

Smile

stretch crinkles smooth
across a worried brow
set deeper creases
at the corners of your eyes
a light lit at the fireplace
of thought, spills free
of iris and lash
to sparkle in quick brevity
like the sunset
on a chuckling brook
with the gaiety of your smile.

 

[TheRainMan]

Convenient Trees


Sometimes at night instead of chewing
through the straps, you submit
to the bedposts and listen. At first

wind, you think it’s a small girl
in the ravine of a grove
where her father tied a tire to a maple.

The humid air scrapes its back harder
against the shakes, and then
you think it might be an angry dog

stretched to the radius of his leash
as he wraps a willow and tries
to yank it out to get at your trespass.

You lay under a ceiling fan that drools
and mimics the shrinking circle
of his madness as thunder claps

and then you think it may be a man
stripped to the waist and chained
to a hickory, a passion played out

for the eyes of a mob, in the symbolic
shadow of City Hall. When night
comes, you are afflicted with urges—

to push the swing, to cut the chain,
to participate in the butchery—
It’s always the ties that bind,

defined in the fluid arc,
the taut limit,
of rope.

 

[wildsweetone]

i wrote a tree poem a few weeks ago... let me dig it out. (oh yeah, it's nothing like TRM's lol)



The Gone Tree

The bent man and I
planted the conifer
at the crossroads,
he in his morning milk gear
and me in orange hot pants.
When you’re older
and the tree is grown,
you’ll remember this day
he’d said.

I looked for it yesterday, the tree,
found instead a steel gate
and storm water drainage.
No gold limbed beauty
to behold, though
the hills still echo
the barrage of his spade
that hit kauri gum,
and his cuss still echoes
in my mind.

 

[TheRainMan]

I'm on a tree kick, WSO. I can't get the concept of 'lynching' out of my head. . . it won't go, not until I write it away, and edit it away, and write, and edit, and . . .


Convenient Trees

Sometimes at night instead of chewing
through the straps, you submit
to bedposts and listen. At first wind,

you think it’s the voice of a small girl
swinging in a grove
where her father tied a tire to a maple.

The air scrapes its wet back harder
on the shakes, and then
you think it might be an angry dog

stretched to the radius of his leash
as he strangles a willow
and tries to yank it out to punish

your trespass. The ceiling fan drips
and mimics the shrinking circle
of his madness. Thunder claps, and

you think it may be a man stripped
to the waist and wrapped
on a hickory limb, a passion played

for a mob in the shadow of City Hall.
There is no sanctuary
when night afflicts you with urges—

to push the swing, to cut the tethers,
to participate in the butchery—
It’s always the ties that bind, defined

in the fluid arc,
the taut limit,

of rope.

 

[wildsweetone]

you've missed out the word 'sweat'

lol

 

[wildsweetone]

hip shoot

it's still hot out
though beginning to cool
under the fingers of the late
afternoon sun shadows
of the frangipani.
the shadows are quite long
making the lawn fill
with dark crevasses
where black crickets will hide
until dusk. they'll sing then
their trill song reminiscent
of fingernails on blackboards,
screeching to each other
as if they're lost
learner drivers unable to map
their way back in the blackness
of night. tonight wont be black.
the orange street lamps
will throw a lucent glow
across the garden
as the frangipani flowers
supplement the scent
of night and the wooden seat
will be the coolest
place in the garden.

 

[TheRainMan]

The Time Around Blemishes


The walkway is different in winter—
dustings of snow, the pink-purple flowers
gone from the wild thyme, the scent
from the clustered primrose. Tussocks
of grass brown and folded into themselves.

Changed too is the shoreline—missing
are the sandpipers that skitter back
and forth, west and east,
from the imagined devastation
of small waves and smaller children.
And castles, and buckets and shovels
colorful as crayons and just as dear
to the tiny summer hands that hold them.

I’m alone in the semi-dark of half moon
and its reflection on the sea,
and I like that. Solitude
and low light allow me to imagine
myself as somehow better than I am.

They’ll be back come Independence Day,
the sand piles and riot of flowers,
the tourists with legs white as milk bottles.
I’ll watch them from the balcony
in sunglasses, crowded by their noise
and sunlight. They’ll get smaller

and smaller as they go down that path
and I’ll find myself wishing them gone,
my palms rubbing dry together
trying to turn the world, a world
that starts spinning again
only when my hands are sheathed
in the greased grooves of my pockets.

 

[wildsweetone]

hip shoot - milk bottles

whatever happened to
glass bottled milk,
to summer days
of designing huts
under trees in grandma's
garden, to dressing up
for the Daimler drive
to the city, to movies
on Saturday nights
where neon lights
flickered and rain
fell straight down?
Now it's all plastic,
humidity and
air-conditioned Escorts
while movies are hired
three bucks a shot
and watched
from an armchair.