writing live

[Winter_Fare]

Numbers

It's
not what she thought it would
Be getting older she
Thought she would find herself
Rising into the part
Filling out corners and
Reaching her dreams but they
Float away faster than
She can grow worst of all
They don't even look back.

The
Body is weaker the
Will has been vulcanised
Subject to wearing out
Burning on asphalt it's
Bound to endure it is
Pressed into service to
Keep her progressing in
Spite of her suffering
Waking up at all hours

Age
Is just a number but
Interest accrues and the
Debt must be paid baton
Passed wisdom atrophied
God forbid fungible
Ashes to ashes and
Egg on her face no more
Aces to play nothing
Left to trade but carbon

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Childhood

I remember my sister’s tiny
china tea set that I achingly coveted
and the huge teddy bear
who’s growl was more of a moo
which spooked the delivering
mailman as he nervously handed it over.

We had a wonderful wheeled toy,
a child-sized version of a railway
handcar. The four of us took turns to
hurtle around the neighborhood
Such tear-away conduct caused
scowls of disapproval and we were
steered towards books, puzzles
and other less boisterous endeavors.

Later would disappear
from morning to dusk
on gearless bikes to play
in hayfields or steal fruit
from unguarded orchards. Today
children are not so lucky,
not so care-free, my generation
saw the end of the age of innocence.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Roadside Memorials

---

​

Appearing overnight
mushroom-remembrances,
crosses, sometimes rough,
with flowers,
fresh and plastic.
Left to fade or blow away
in the slipstream
of passing trucks.

Watered by spilled blood
and the tears of those
left behind to grieve.

Past years' crop still stands
here and there sadder
even than when new,
forlorn in their neglect
and scattered flower remnants
faded names
Jason,
Shelley,
Dan,
all torn by metal
too fast, too soon, too late

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Revolting Gays (a rondeau )

The victors smiled behind ice-packs
The mighty lesbian counterattacks
Came suddenly with punches thrown
Reports of deaths were overblown
The media embroiders facts.

They marched and chanted “we pay tax!”
And “government, get off our backs!”
A rowdier bunch we’ve never known
The victors smiled

“We want Prop. eight to get the ax
And then we gays can all relax
And we want vows to call our own
No church should be a gay-free zone
We want progress just like the blacks.”
The victors smiled.

 

[29wordsforsnow]

Black-eyed Susan

Every day, what to do to that everyday face
it's not like the rest you can temptingly hide
in glitter and gold, red velvet, or filigree lace

Tinting the deadest red with a brushful of cyanide
bend, don't break, lashes, with these artist's tools
my true color applied, welcome to the darker side

Wink, wink, come hither all you love-starved fools
closer and closer, invade my most personal space
drink my tears, swallow my sight, drown in my pools

 

[KingofBadVibes]

Laying in the warmth
Of a moonlit sun,
Feeling your soft rays.

Burning with your heat
Pressed against my chest
I let myself go

Melting in your light
As it envelops
The length of my desire

 

[todski28]

Images cast on cold brick
define the afternoon sun
brown bark barks silent
in bitter consternation bitten by the
fact it’s new shoots will always be a tree
even if the perspective changes

I wonder at the depth of it all
roots trailing into soil to cling to life
leaves reach skyward to embrace the light and rain

In the backdrop
bright eyes glare from black shadows
raging at the sky as it dares to cast its naked judgement

Crisscrossed trunks speak to the thickness of our inability to think of more than the norms by which we live
fast and frugal
no thought
no monopoly
I skim Tik-Tok pages
while prepping the blades of the chain saw
because bricks need protection
lest they run out of breath

 

[Winter_Fare]

I see that free is going to be
The line that cuts you off from me

I'm not like you I don't know why
I don't know what it is to die

See pixels flashing prophecies
Of our appointed destinies

The children caught in that machine
And everything they could have been

Keep me awake my daughter snores
Open your mind but lock your doors

Shoot all you want all you hold dear
Only the fool is free from fear

 

[Winter_Fare]

This cunt is full of ugly words
and who knows where they came from?

anger only just a finger's width beneath the surface
sleeping far to lightly to ignore
though the silence lasted half an hour or more
Until caught between full bladder and my fear
a hopeful kind of courage carried me on bare feet
Treading sneaky steps across the hall and back
but still afraid to flush the chain...

Too scared to wake the beast again

My peace with her
with it
a mother in name only
was a sleeping pill
An absence of awareness was her anodyne
her spirits ease
neglect

When the small hours find the sunlight
creeping lazily above me still I count my steps
to cross the hall
and hold the child within unwashed and weary
dry her tears
Forgive her for the things we had to see
And who we have to be

But the words still cling to me

 

[Lyricalli]

Yesterday you mentioned
bridges we've burned
and I wanted to argue
(of course I did)
that I'd never burned one
with you
not on purpose
never even tried to strike a match
though I have helped
rebuild
them all
sweat of my brow and all that
even as I watched you
place little sticks of dynamite
along each pile
but I"m still here
hammer in hand
and don't plan to change that
ever

 

[Winter_Fare]

Tiananmen Square/Cake or Death

Mind yourself
Take care
Cake looks nothing like
Broken eggs and powder
It's a square
Square
Lined with rendered fat
Roll it flat
Make enough to share
Make it taste so good
That no-one cares
What happened there

 

[29wordsforsnow]

on a twenty-force of June
reeling through the night's ghost
the fire of the sky is gone
like her eyes a blank matter
disenfranchised
the future plowed in
in the rapeseed fields
that took the light
sucked the laughter
swallowed the life
from her soul
lorn in the fields
her doom's perished
by concealment bought
on a twenty-hurt of June

 

[butters]

on days like these

dream

of setting words loose
to fly and spin on wayward streams of air
watch them tumble
end over furling end
mount rooftops, treetops, beyond
swirl then scatter
chatter in autumn's bright tones

watch them dance in fathomless blue
a susurration of thoughts
images coalesce
fall apart in aerial ballet
only to shoal again
reshaped by new imaginations

dream

 

[Lyricalli]

on days like these

First, I found this delightful and enjoyed the imagery very much. Second, thank you for adding susurration to my vocabulary. The imagery of aerial ballet brought starling murmuration to mind, and at first I thought perhaps they were similar. I quite like the way you used susurration here, and I'm definitely tucking that word away for later.

 

[butters]

First, I found this delightful and enjoyed the imagery very much. Second, thank you for adding susurration to my vocabulary. The imagery of aerial ballet brought starling murmuration to mind, and at first I thought perhaps they were similar. I quite like the way you used susurration here, and I'm definitely tucking that word away for later.

thankyou x

in all honesty, i was trapped between susurration and murmuration, liking the idea of the thoughts being seen as murmuration with that link to the sounds of murmurs...didn't want to repeat that sensation in the aerial ballet line, so ended up with sus and hoped the aerial ballet (mur) would fill in the link between images and sound. i should have just gone with murmuration, shouldn't i?

 

[Lyricalli]

thankyou x

in all honesty, i was trapped between susurration and murmuration, liking the idea of the thoughts being seen as murmuration with that link to the sounds of murmurs...didn't want to repeat that sensation in the aerial ballet line, so ended up with sus and hoped the aerial ballet (mur) would fill in the link between images and sound. i should have just gone with murmuration, shouldn't i?

No, I don't think so, honestly. I think it's a beautiful use of susurration (and I learned a new word!). I think it's unique, and adds another element of thought and sound. I like the additional S sounds it adds, the way they all give a gentle shhhh to the poem. It all comes together in a really lovely way for me.

 

[butters]

i suppose if you're a chicken
a coop of roughly ten feet cubed
complete with bathing bowl and feed
seems enough for three-toed feet
used to tighter quarters

but when you're used
to chickens roaming free
—from peach to cherry
trees to garden rows—
it reeks incarceration

and though a temporary fix, it's true
—a thing of frame, zip ties and fence—
their new 'grande-run' grandly adds on
300 further squares to pace
of dirt and grass and past-best plants
a life less hard—albeit in their prison yard.

 

[butters]

we needed rain

so much heat
humidity levels off the charts
barely a spit in weeks
fruit sits in leathery silence

broad leaves provide some shade
it's not the same

after last night's rain
figs droop
swollen
purple-brown and glistening
with juice that oozes
from their fuzzy skins
as wasps emerge into sun
dodging showers
competing with greedy butterflies
eager to taste this yearly glut

 

[29wordsforsnow]

i suppose if you're a chicken
a coop of roughly ten feet cubed
complete with bathing bowl and feed
seems enough for three-toed feet
used to tighter quarters

but when you're used
to chickens roaming free
—from peach to cherry
trees to garden rows—
it reeks incarceration

and though a temporary fix, it's true
—a thing of frame, zip ties and fence—
their new 'grande-run' grandly adds on
300 further squares to pace
of dirt and grass and past-best plants
a life less hard—albeit in their prison yard.

Congratulations to the chicken on their nouveau country chic

 

[HarryHill]

Vengeance for 1201

He died the other day,
the man that took his love away.
Sliced apart by razor sharp rocket fins,
never to point and kill again.
The best part of my day
walks past the open office door,
nude, on the way to the loo.
I imagine Twelve-o felt much the same,
before she fell from the tower.

 

[butters]

huge shadow crosses bare mountain face
demonic shrieks accompany the vision
made more awful by the rippling rock's terrain

people stare in awe
cower
in fear

misdirection
wizards behind curtains
a ragged flag and a bullhorn

 

[butters]

fire
incapable of mercy
devoid of compassion
burns clean away
the rot, the old
right along with the sturdy—
shades of purification

it has no plan
no cruel intent, no
human sense of vengeance

yet
where there's fire... smoke

lungs labour
suck up molecular poisons
that raft on vaporous streams
harbour them deep
nurture them long

 

[29wordsforsnow]

rain
is a two-faced coin
some beg for
and never have
the half they need
some, sadly
cannot ask for
less
no more

 

[29wordsforsnow]

Your fifteen letters of fame

Woke up to mid-summer grey
and early afternoon to find

"You are the winner!"

a serious typeface
in black and white
all over the place
of a letter-sized card
stuffed in the mailbox

"Oh, you are a winner?"

they ask
on my way
outside
down the road
in the café

"Look here, a winner!"

Coffee and cake
never before
came that quick
with a wink
and a smile

"So, you are a winner?"

the waitress wonders
smiling no more
recounting yet
the small change
still no tip

"You're such a wiena!"

I can hear her dialect
leaving through the front door
maybe I misunderstood
or I didn't explain why
today I feel like

"Yes, I am the winner."

that's what I picked up
among the rusty coins
of the edentulous
who always leaves the jam on the cash desk
his pension never says

"You are the winner."

Not if you missed the fine print
on the pack of cigarettes
blended with the coins, his and mine mixed
so the coffin nails stayed
and the old boy's newfound sweet tooth sang

"Ha, I'm a winner, baby!"

Should have taken that pic
and added some words for the waitress
who bags abandoned sugar packs
for the ninety-year-old toothless grin
inviting her to a sandwich with strawberry jam.

 

[butters]

when the sea sleeps
a sweetness on my heart
a weightless breath
between its troubled dreams

thoughts expand
on black smooth-gentle swells
lit by countless points of
possibility