The Gymnasium

[Tzara]

wanted to say I have been enjoying the short poems you have been putting out lately, many of them are like a needle prick, perfect.

http://besidethewhitechickens.com/submissions1.htm

they would love them too, if you are interetsed in sharing

beside the
white

wheelbarrow the
red

chickens there grazed
on

seed and rain
water

 

[Tzara]

wanted to say I have been enjoying the short poems you have been putting out lately, many of them are like a needle prick, perfect.

http://besidethewhitechickens.com/submissions1.htm

they would love them too, if you are interetsed in sharing

There are always chickens,
white or red or barred,
and wheelbarrows, though
not always red.

And rain.
There is always rain.

 

[annaswirls]

, and I am not exaggerating,

this made me cry

There are always chickens,
white or red or barred,
and wheelbarrows, though
not always red.

And rain.
There is always rain.

a real tear in the right corner of my right eye

it refuses to fall

 

[Sara Crewe]

I thought that growing up
was a matter of making something
big. A knitting together of belief
with action and filling in the holes
with pink slips, a partner and if you’re lucky
trimming the whole thing with offspring.
It all seemed simple and I was sure
I would be smarter, know the secrets
of understanding and trust in faith.
But I am half way through it and still trying
to find the answers to the puzzle
instead of accepting it as a moving picture
where some pieces are lost or never fit.

I know the finality that falls like a heavy snow
when someone you love in an everyday way
dies. I have sat in the silent cold and listened
to my voice sing a chorus of goodbye. Tried
to keep the dead from becoming a memory
that does not need to be fed
with a photograph and failed. I also know

the infinite brightness of seeing
someone you will love every day being born.
Felt the light and heat of new life that shocks
even the most cynical eyes into a squint
and squeezes out a tear that quenches a thirst
for hope and the desire to live in tomorrows.

I have weighed these bookends of life
with my hands. They are heavy enough to hold
the rest of the pages you write in place
and will never change. It’s the work and play
of the words in between that are rewritten
from the first day right up until your last.

 

[Sara Crewe]

He was always seemed tall
and even when I did nothing but play
I knew he was a good measure
of what it meant to work hard.

I only saw him at midday
when I came down from hide and seek
in the loft and his tractor stopped
beside the front door like it was waiting
for a parking valet but it never moved
from that spot till he was ready.

I watched him splash his hands
and face, drink two glasses of water
to wash away the dryness
that lingers from hours in the hay
and heat. We ate lunch together
in the dining room to fit everyone
around the table and it never mattered
that I was extra. He would tease me
about a ride on the bull, threaten a razor burn
and ask if I had added more freckles
to my nose or if it was just dirty.
I would smile at my plate and push
around my peas while I turned red.

I didn’t know he loved me until the day
my dad died and he held me strong ,
knew I needed his arms more than words.
On that day I saw were the same height
with my heels but he still seemed big
to me but now as I sit on the side
of his bed he seems so small. It’s my turn
to tease some smiles from his sun-wrinkled
face. I try to remember every line
and laugh with him before he goes to sleep
and I have to say goodbye again.

 

[Sara Crewe]

There is a hollow joy in being
your favourite toy because playthings
have no part in the everyday
and have to wait at the back
of the line behind the dominoes
of responsibility. If one gets knocked
over I am buried in the mess
and the crash hurts but not as much
as the quiet, the lack of hurried footsteps
and hands reaching out to uncover me.
I sometimes imagine your voice
but I know it’s not you because I add
concern and I never hear you say
that I will be fine. Like fine was a state
anyone would ever want to be.

It’s in those buried moments
when I remove myself one stone
at a time from the rubble and see
myself bleeding into your life
that I wish you would forget
about me and let me fall down
with the other dolls in that dusty spot
where the wall and the bed won’t touch.

I wish you would forget me
because I can’t forget you.

 

[AChild]

Smoking in mine
KEEP
spine sauce in lava lamp
catch surreal jag emo rivers reverb
dew drop needles collect in wrinkles over time
this strength to carry water defines features
poems collect from the collage
of experiance
pen movement tin man reversal
get that oil out my rhyme heart pumps
ripping muscle
rippling tongue
push the pretty image till those watching scream
rape yet keep hands jazzy and hidden
ink wand digging more than the sum I bleed
more than the sun depth light

 

[Sara Crewe]

There is purity in physical pain
and it's more direct than sitting
in front of her like a soldier
caught in no man’s land taking shrapnel
that had already severed parts of me
to float away like balloons freed
accidentally from a little wrist. Foreign
to the sky, no one saw them burst
and fall in shriveled pieces to the ground
in coloured rain. She was very good
at explanations of my mistakes
and lectured about forks in my road
until I wanted to take a spoon
or anything dull to scoop out my heart,
watch it beat out like a beached fish
slowly dying. Today she baked at the counter
her spine bent by time and suddenly small.
The smell of raspberry squares filled the kitchen
like small talk. There were no words
to warn me and I thought even in tragedy
she would be a stony reflection
of her past expectations. When she cried
I was surprised by her need for comfort
and to admit that I had stopped seeing
her as human. It’s awkward to meet

a mother as an adult and stranger still
to realize she taught me so well that I’m afraid
to get closer, hug her or even hold her hand.
I folded my napkin till her tears stopped
and pulled the silence around me
like a favourite blanket. We ate
her squares and agreed they were good.

 

[clutching_calliope]

Star Defense

The blue world comes at gloaming
when our eyes are half-lidded
and ready for dreaming. This

is when you arrive with the Venus
star and before Orion has put on his belt.

Worries have been left in the back
pockets of our shorn jeans crumpled
near the front of the cave and when you

are at my throat, I expose myself
wanting you to bite and consume me
whole while the nebulas spin.

 

[Tzara]

SEA/DFW, DFW/SEA

Flight dull as rain.
To somewhere and back again.
To no purpose.

Her words are plain:
I never want you again.
Barren surface.

 

[Tzara]

Skew

I have wanted to die in the end,
like Hamlet, pierced by a poisoned
foil. That seems Romantic, and
I am Romantic, despite our. Fall.

 

[bogusbrig]

murder would have been easier
quicker, kinder, less cruel
than the death note you left
like a shadow on my pillow

 

[clutching_calliope]

The Pear

The pear, I find,
is the most pleasing shape.
That when, at the end of the day,
we unwind I turn to see
your eyes have fallen
to my behind. I do not
mind. The pear
is the most pleasing
shape,
don’t you find?

 

[Dustystar]

Blue Rooms Beyond Tulips

Sometimes I miss you
even when
you are in the same blue room. I’ve wasted
too much time on the outer rims

and in
the vestiges of suds
of imagined tenderness
thinking maybe this time,

this time
we can be better. I could be better.

I’ve skimmed the surface
of your cold skin as death’s slow,
wet kiss
hoping to glisten life,
or, instead
to resuscitate a life I perceived
which once included me.

 

[TheRainMan]

. . .

eh hem . . .

welcome back.

 

[Tzara]

Chest

You pull open my worn heart
with the handle of your eyes.

 

[Tzara]

Deep Fried

No I didn't say you're fat.
I said, You're fattening. Like

that crisp and tasty motion that your ass has
when you walk or the rich heaviness

in the motion of your breasts.
It's high caloric. Makes my heart seize up.

And you know, of course,
that more than just my arteries get hard.

 

[Tzara]

Method Acting: Othello

Its like I'm standing in a pool
of gelid, greenish gasoline,
desperate for a smoke
even though I do not smoke,
even though it would be stupid,
so very stupid there to smoke, and then

I light and drop a match.

 

[Tzara]

Peyton Place

We're just a city made of soap,
where our lives are like misshapen bubbles
in a constant, acid rain.







Y'know, I should probably save some of these. I'm still trying to finish yet another 30/30 and inspiration (hell, even aspiration) is such a fleeting thing. But, well, I can always write something.

I think.

 

[Tzara]

Drive

We are like thirst,
but I don't know who is water

and who drinks. I do know
that when the need is slaked,

we'll need each other how
a fish needs wings. That is,

I think.

 

[clutching_calliope]

Without Doubt

I know a man who sticks.
Not like glue, or tape,
or even bubblegum.

He says, you go, I go,
and I know he will.
Without doubt.

And when my legs meet
around his back I say,
don’t go. Not yet.

And I snap my gum
in his ear. I say, Love,
my Love, wait for me.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

This is beautiful, Dustystar. Best of luck here at lit.

Sometimes I miss you
even when
you are in the same blue room. I’ve wasted
too much time on the outer rims

and in
the vestiges of suds
of imagined tenderness
thinking maybe this time,

this time
we can be better. I could be better.

I’ve skimmed the surface
of your cold skin as death’s slow,
wet kiss
hoping to glisten life,
or, instead
to resuscitate a life I perceived
which once included me.

 

[vampiredust]

Watching Venus in the Morning

She is beautiful only when the city
yawns, stretching its arms over
the sagging harbour and clam lipped
trains crossing its ribs.

She is never beautiful when sunlight
is suspended in its liquid, when rain
starts falling, when people trample
over its ancient streets,

when life starts to unwind back
in its shell and all you can see is a
reflection of her former self:
uncurling before the transformation,

falling before tomorrow's rise.

 

[Tzara]

Why there is always blood

Writing poems
is passing diamonds
through your gut.

They're always hard,
but when they're faced and brilliant,
they also cut.

 

[champagne1982]

Why there is always blood

Writing poems
is passing diamonds
through your gut.

They're always hard,
but when they're faced and brilliant,
they also cut.

instead of faced, can you work in "facet"?