not sure how many words

[eagleyez]

half a century
standing guard
poised with a feather
asleep in the yard.

familiar deserted byways
you shouda known
what is real by now
cant slow down
travelin 4 barell speed.

spent the mean time
a shift in the road
afterall this confusion
is put aside
right here
right here
afterall.

 

[wildsweetone]

waffle...

chilling out after the zing
from sneaking through electric
fences to steal berries, rub
tummies churning with fermenting
fruit, wiping blue chins
and grins and giggles, play
fights in the grass
green stains on torn jeans
jukebox music in our minds
and mother, hands on hips
red hair frizzed, frazzled
at the mess, not fooled
by the lies.

 

[eagleyez]

better
best
Im talking to me alone.

the finest hour
leaned on a wire fence
bricks and mortar
lichens and green algae
grow like dollars in my wallet

listen to the causeway
primitive and loyal
hang your collar up inside
fire on the hemisphere below

better
best
Im talking to me alone.

 

[eagleyez]

Angel Alice

Sweet sister of my father,
I missed the funeral
Called and talked about
St. Jeromes, the family burial wood craning under the crowds weight.
Standing Room Only
For Alice

Angel Alice
Kid memories
Riversides and innertubes
Scattered along the way
I search for understanding.

Uncle Tony grows tomatoes in the
Black soil of his enclave in the urban West,
Makes sauces, married an Irish girl-
now she wont steep the sauces and can up the extra,
And he is reclusive
And Broods on backporches
While the wakers coif ale and wine and woman cry and men smoke
Out Back, eyes to the concrete, talking and uttering.

Oh Alice, evidence of our great demise-
Or mystical believer
Matternot to me-the veil remains.

Angel Alice-
You were such warm skin last May
I blew in and we had a laugh.
You took sick and Im half a continent removed
A piece of my hide hung, torn on a barb wired fence.

Im alive-
You are gone-
They threw you a blast
But I know as you Angel Alice
Who cares, thats the matter,

Shackled to this ground,
I am still
Treading the floor,
Carpet worn
And this tearstained pathway I choose, down to the plywood.
Down to the nails.

Couldn't swing a ticket so quick
But my wings beat the bellows
Of the fire- you -
Angel Alice.

How I love you.

 

[champagne1982]

Antique Rose

tea in a porcelain cup
the red rose faded
like the lines there
glimpsed when her cuff
slips and the tea
trembles perilously near
the lip. Her voice shakes

We came back to the place
Papa and I. Our neighbour,
I was surprised to see,
she'd never been taken
so her house was a mish mash
of guardianship.

dreams hang in the air
like the smell of pipe smoke
lingers in the corner
by Opa's chair. Not forgotten,
not by his daughter, even
as she sips tea from a treasure
thought lost, but found
in the keeping of a neighbour

She'd kept this cup safe
for Mama, in case she
wanted it. There were ghosts
to talk about. I went outside.

ashes blow on breezes down streets
where lace once drifted at windows
and kids played with hoops and sticks
rolling down the road. All that's
left to comfort one survivor;
a rose teacup, fading, filled
below the rim lest the shake
of palsy spills on the white cloth.

 

[eagleyez]

Antique Rose

tea in a porcelaine cup
the red rose faded
like the lines there
glimpsed when her cuff
slips and the tea
trembles perilously near
the lip. Her voice shakes

We came back to the place
Papa and I. Our neighbour,
I was surprised to see,
she'd never been taken
so her house was a mish mash
of guardianship.

dreams hang in the air
like the smell of pipe smoke
lingers in the corner
by Opa's chair. Not forgotten,
not by his daughter, even
as she sips tea from a treasure
thought lost, but found
in the keeping of a neighbour

She'd kept this cup safe
for Mama, in case she
wanted it. There were ghosts
to talk about. I went outside.

ashes blow on breezes down streets
where lace once drifted at windows
and kids played with hoops and sticks
rolling down the road. All that's
left to comfort one survivor;
a rose teacup, fading, filled
below the rim lest the shake
of palsy spills on the white cloth.

This is lovely.

 

[Angeline]

This is lovely.

Ditto his comment, Champ. It's a beautiful, evocative piece of writing.

 

[champagne1982]

This is lovely.

Ditto his comment, Champ. It's a beautiful, evocative piece of writing.

Thankyou for your compliments and we can thank Mistress Jett for inspiring this poem with her Dachau piece she's asking for feedback on. I feel bad I didn't comment on her poem, maybe this is enough?

 

[MissBri]

 

[MissBri]

 

[wildsweetone]

it's odd how the sparrows
flit and sit
chide and chatter
in the rain.
what do they hope to gain
with the water pelting
and the wind whipping
up a frenzy in the garden?
i watch them scatter
to the lawn, on the hunt
hounding the ground
for morsels to meal.
and so does That Cat.

 

[eagleyez]

Pallamine

All muddied up,
2 Rivers runnin high.
Closer to town, the Stillwater is up, evenly and glassily,
And she whispers, and she whistles, as if southward
Under the railroad trestle,
She knew she would slide
under and fall beneath the Jurisdiction
Of that gnashing, roiling Bigriver,
Where with spring ya get riffles-
Today boulderfields and rapids.

The spars of the riverdrivers
Embedded and solid in the middle,
Creosote, like obsidian suggesting the planned immortality,
Of the mighty railroad tie Islands, manmade holy grounds.

Of the many birds, beaver and riverotters,
The clownchild of the rivermen.
Quick and slipery, swimmin on its back,
These underwater prairy dogs were the favorites of the flanneled bootmen,
Trading shrimp for crawdads when the winds were calm, in the noonday spray.

 

[sugarmountain]

Library

they leaned as books upon a shelf
ears open, unwritten
illuminated only by campfire
and the words she spoke,
gathered them up
imprinted them on the empty pages
of their minds, eager, attentive
no detail too insignificant,
no inflection overlooked

this was their history,
would be read and reread
generation through generation
referenced through cave paintings
represented in stone carvings
told of in song, in hushed lullabies
and at battles before swords clashed

more than just words one after the other
this was identity, the beginning of being
the natal valley, the river of life
the breath of the spirit
which no mere book could contain
for it was the essence of their existence
and so they leaned, listened and became
the story of their life

 

[cherries_on_snow]

soft

as the giggle of a spying brother
as the whisper-purr of a sleeping kitten
as the sound of raw silk collapsing slowly on a hand knotted rug
as your first stroke of my throat
as surety

is the sound of my fall

 

[eagleyez]

Memory Day
BBQ and retro Deoderant,

I remember
English Leather,
I remember
Hai Karate,
You driving
Into Long Beach

I remember
Uniforms and tournnaments
St. Anthony's
You dropping kids
At back alley players only metal doors

I remember
Huntington Beach
Baby Oil and Body wompin
Shorebreak on
Kids with brothers in Nam,

I remember
Docs insist
You quit the smokes,
Fear and lonesomehouse
Until they got it right,

I remember
Moving back north
Your last home
30 years to go
How could we know?

Memory Day
11 year old son
Wonder what
He will remember
How long
After the
So long.

 

[sugarmountain]

Harder harder
treading the mill til I drop

faster faster
hair plastered a sweaty mop

heavier heavier
the more the weight the better

pushing pushing
to be ready when I get her

for she is demanding
in her wants and needs
and if I'm to be standing
after she's been pleased

I need to be buff
cause she's going to be rough
I need to be ready
to go at it steady

til she milks my bone
tnen lets out a moan
her body is shaking
her thighs are quaking
her eyes roll back
her body falls slack
and she tells me
I can go home

 

[annaswirls]

I am not sure what this thread is about, but I think that is what it is about.

I have some poems I wrote in my little black book and figured this would be an okay place to put them for now....

who will I write of next year
in hotel hallways as they sleep inside?
what diagrams of ex-lovers
and heart holders?
And you, what shall I write
of these parts we play?
The lonely old man
who mourns for his past
and the lonely mother
who longs for conversation.
Just looking for a place to stay.

08-05

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Brother, it's another planet
you're going to; this is no Sayles pitch
but as close as I can render tribute.
Smell the aged cedar?

Even if you go only as far as Iowa on the bus,
you still go (in the show).
Do you hope to get there?

So close to your holy city,
you could be a pilgrim,
but you're not.
You carry a rifle.

 

[wildsweetone]

It's raining again,
not cats and dogs,
but fat drops that splatter
on the cobbles, curl
down the path
to catch in the grass
that hasn't been mown
since maybe May.

 

[Angeline]

The purple lupine stood
along the tracks three finches
bent to the feeder and four
fox kits yipped when the train
passed I thought of your hands
on the keyboard your foot
on the pedal and the slow chords
you play in me I love your hands
when they move deliberate
I'm liberated forever in your arms.

 

[eagleyez]

Summer time and the livin
Is Porgy
Is Bess
Languid sun falls
Smoke trails Miles
Through the upstairs-

You
A huddle of books
Laughing orgasm
Smoothie Queen
No mail today
No mail today.

Stuffed bell peppers
Jersey style, eh?
After endless symphonies of
Talks and Broadway remembrances
Daddy packed up the car
Come on girls-

Porgy
Bess
How layered we are
Neverending.

 

[Angeline]

Summer time and the livin
Is Porgy
Is Bess
Languid sun falls
Smoke trails Miles
Through the upstairs-

You
A huddle of books
Laughing orgasm
Smoothie Queen
No mail today
No mail today.

Stuffed bell peppers
Jersey style, eh?
After endless symphonies of
Talks and Broadway remembrances
Daddy packed up the car
Come on girls-

Porgy
Bess
How layered we are
Neverending.

 

[champagne1982]

Dew Dance

Spindrifts of spider web and poplar seed
sailing off to smoky horizons
that distant somewhere I've never been.

Don't say I cannot go. There is no reason
to deny a visit to the golden sunrise
pushed with the eastwind as it blows
the night across the day. How rare

to feel the moon against your face
in a June dawn. With dew soaking
delicate ankles while I dance
across the lawn in celebration

with Apollo and his Bride of Spring.
Joyous couple that promises a summer
of love and faith so that even though
there is dark to come, I'll still glide

towards the west and find eternal
summerland just beneath the violet
horizon with the spindrift of the sea.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

not sure how many words?
too few to keep afloat
treading water frog-like
doggie paddle back up
to surface and page one.
buoyant with saved phrases
and remembered moments
poems all waiting to be
stranded when the tide
retreats once more.

 

[tungtied2u]

*****