not sure how many words

[Angeline]

As if a bottle of blues
were poured into me as if
ragtime clicked my fingers
as if the moan and jump
of jazz slid and jerked
my limbs said yes hips
yes feets keep a movin
movin the fascinating
rhythm a pulse and throb
sidewalks and the forest
of legs horns and engines
rev, doors spin a low
constant hum of voices
and the soloing siren screams
even as the bass never
bottoms out but beats
snappy as if my schmaltzy
heart sings Gershwin loud
enough for you to hear.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Angeline, that was wonderful.

 

[Angeline]

Angeline, that was wonderful.

Thanks, Dora. I was cleaning this morning and listening to Bernstein play Gershwin, and I love them both and the next thing you know, poetry ensued.

 

[eagleyez]

out boweevil road,
norwest beyond shady gap-
in clear sight-
a steam from the river
leads me on rockroads
towards the stinkbud maven.

these trips encapsulate my day-
as when red rick the underground sheriff
flashed his sparkly red star.

Just north of garberville
hitchin to Humboldt,
where the steelies still spawn
and the box camera flashes

boys whittlin in the living room.

now I sweeps up the shavings,
place them where they go.
the wisdom of agedness
or the reminder of winter past.

 

[PandoraGlitters]

Red or Blue

Capsule years into the one text that sets
fire to the house. It is less difficult
once the match is struck. Merely bite your lip
until you taste blood, until you lick
the disappointed resolve which hardened beneath
that softest kiss. It's there. Still there. But so
are the other boxes we packed. So is the first
walk your eyes followed. So is the low
voice I pillowed and so
we are offered up in one another's
palms to forgetful fires
or memorable pages--
our fingers snatching corners from
confessional embers.
None of these coals light a person
any less than a letter makes a name
or an hour makes a life. They simply light
our place in line
and in what queue.
A-M, N-Z,
Me / Us / You.

 

[eagleyez]

one eyd jack

outrunning the avalanche
a faceplant a surrender
then saxophoned by the lip-

cranking foot turns-carvin dude-
i recall the conversation-"you cant fall off a mountain."
i ride the white wiamea into the perilous shorebreak.
downmountain they just tell you
'youre one vivid dreamer son,"
touched, as far they could tell.


downshifting hard
steady decline
flexy fllying and headed for the hump
glide till the glide is funked.

 

[Angeline]

outrunning the avalanche
a faceplant a surrender
then saxophoned by the lip-

cranking foot turns-carvin dude-
i recall the conversation-"you cant fall off a mountain. i ride the white wiamea into the perilous shorebreak.


downmountain they just tell you
'youre one vivid dreamer son,"
touched, as far they could tell.


downshifting hard
steady decline
flexy flier headed for the hump
ride till the ride is stopped.

It's better than you think. But that one long line needs fixin.

This I love.

a faceplant a surrender
then saxophoned by the lip-

cranking foot turns-carvin dude-
i recall the conversation-"you cant fall off a mountain

 

[bogusagain]

the café in Pigalle, you danced
breasts to breasts with Francois
and you, the only woman there
but you were not the most beautiful
you, a cockless stranger, dancing
through a phallocentric world

flamed in red light, your blushes spared
‘They’re not women! You cried
as woman gave head to woman
taking his frustration to her mouth
the stout pipe pressed between her lips
a bull’s horn beneath a black leather mini skirt

repairing her smudged lipstick, she winked
letting you know she ate vagina too
if you dared climb his nyloned legs
and moved him like Johnny Hallyday
pelvis to pelvis in a slow hipped grind
while a kitsch moon ballooned over the Eiffel Tower

 

[eagleyez]

It's better than you think. But that one long line needs fixin.

This I love.

a faceplant a surrender
then saxophoned by the lip-

cranking foot turns-carvin dude-
i recall the conversation-"you cant fall off a mountain

I fiddled with it a bit. I still think its sketchy, but that the hell, its only Lit.

 

[eagleyez]

Salt air amusement park
Frozen in January, rows of shister
walkways flapping to the drum of the wind and the
loose dancing canvas.

nobody in sight.

The greygreen ferriss wheel rises
like a european statue and the climbing wall
shows fingerscrapes down cyanide walls.

The bleak view past the pier
to the water, gray as the gulls that
fight with pelicans for the minnow given by the sea.

A dim night air descends and the erected
are now shadows,
backing out of town-
on the watch for cops and
nightbirds.

 

[butters]

i love this thread. it offers something deeply satisfying to me as a reader. thankyou

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Observation

I've been looking at ears,
those varied cups of
appreciation. Like snow
flakes or finger prints
no two are alike. Some
truly worthy of poet's praise,
others large and homely.
Yet others, folded and rolled,
softly pink, slightly obscene, not
meant to be seen.

 

[OT]

I've been looking at ears,
those varied cups of
appreciation. Like snow
flakes or finger prints
no two are alike. Some
truly worthy of poet's praise,
others large and homely.
Yet others, folded and rolled,
softly pink, slightly obscene, not
meant to be seen.

ears hear
filtered

imagine instead
what they want

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Oh OT!

Eyes, eyes can be fickle
fooling the feelings
making fun of faint hopes
yet, here you are
alive and creating
kicking that poetic can
down the littered lane
of Literotica

Don't be such a stranger.

 

[eagleyez]

Riding with Kid Gavelon Bolero,
Glass jawed roundhouse king,

tearing up the 2-lane,
chasing the storm with full vigor.

Holding teacups out in the rain
To find wine and raining fish,
On Old Samoa cookhouse,
a spit of land
where the wrecks reap burlap and mold.

Ten men to an undercut-
Posed in the redwood shade, tin type photo,
Pies for each table,
For the men that work
In Black and white while

Grunion swept up in clouds,
fall for the cats and possums,
feeding the masses,
with the roundhouse king.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

The Biographer

clipped for polishing

 

[eagleyez]

About a Kid

No thanks to the treadmill,
No thanks to the gridstone,
Take your place on the wheel Son,
All in all and one by one.

Narration comes from the sky,
Pastel memory clouds dripped
In front of the bluest eye.

Leaping off a perilous spire,
You land as if in a dream,
42nd street, Wyoming, Baja, upcountry Maine.
Carry you as you are
And ventilate gently,

Your world.

 

[eagleyez]

i was thinking of poetry
but i'd rather eat and laze it off.

murder the murderers
with henry miller,
read usa today, oh boy.
gangbanger behind the counter
gaspumps lined up with nigger knockers
on gunracks,
hickory sticks,
Im all dazed out
feeling punk
feeling stupid and intellectual,

Hell, Im only going for breadcrumbs.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

A Story.

The story goes that,
in an Iranian village
not long ago, a child,
just a toddler,
wandering away from
others too young to go with their parents
to the fields. Their watcher,
barely more than a child herself,
was distracted by another’s tears,
“only for a second”, but
long enough for legs deceptively reliable
to seek adventure .

Horror, slow and shallow
then bone-deep
stiffens the parents weary from day’s work.
They search their village,
turning neighbours out in
infectious panic. Night comes
but not sleep. Before light the search widens.
Other villages join to hunt the little quarry,
blanched lips whisper of wolves,
bears, careful not to let the frantic
mother hear but she has had those haunting thoughts
already.

Another night,
another day,
some give up
but his parents can’t. A few of the men
go into the high forest, further
and higher still with no sign.
No one speaks the fear they hold.
One more valley, one more cave
and then they hear, yes!
A child's voice, deep in this, one,
last cave.

He is cradled
by a huge she-bear,
gently in the big, clawed limbs.
Milk is freely running
and the boy is fed
and well but, seeing his father,
starts to cry. The bear, fearing danger
for this strange, new baby, tightens
her hold silently staring them down.
The story goes that the child
is retrieved but nothing of the
tender mother bear.
I hope she was allowed to live.

 

[eagleyez]

a junkie listens to his heighborhood

screendoor thwaps out a rythm,
up a sketchy staircase on the back of the big square building.

chinese toddler falls flat on the asphalt below,
dont cry but smiles.

firecrackers and 9 mm's crack the sky,
crowd grows restless, tacorias bulging with business.

hot sun dusk when he reaches home,
i strain to hear,

up the shaky stairs thru the screen door,
the clang of glass layed on the counter,

baby cries faroff as he finds her,
shakes the dust of hiself and says
"hey baby, Its the fourth of july."

 

[KatieJones]

.......

 

[eagleyez]

She aint cut like a chunk of diamond
But when she blleeds its in silver and gold.
The biggest moon thru the trees is what it takes
To find her,
As she wanders so far afield.

Splendid Behaviour-Thats what the gravestone said.
Finish the job, that's what the bossman said.

The children look up-
All they hear are sky blue bells ringing.

 

[darkmaas]

The Art of Pessimism

...not realizing I dwell
in Malevich’s Black Square ...

::

Aesthesia

I heard in passing
a comment ‘bout
the Black Square of Malevich.
I know this place.
Do hob nailed boots
still guard it’s cobblestones?
Unlike its red and Russian cousin,
no blood ran in it’s gutters.
Was it the well framed scene
of abstraction’s triumph over form?
Or just a skirmish in the war of art?
Can pointillism flourish
in a world of dithered pixels
1200 to the inch?
And what of Monet’s garden,
bisected by a highway?


::

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Mary's Monster

I did not ask for this
half-life, she conjured me,
part formed, from air
and imagination born
of bewilderment and grief.

I was not made evil, more
innocent and wild. She
placed in me abilities and
tied me to her. Blamed me
for the death around her,
husband, children, friends.

She is alone with only me
to remind her of the darkness,
nurture the past creations
and cast it all, ink to paper
while a murder of crows
keep vigil in the rigging.

 

[KatieJones]

.........