Poetry 365

Untitled, Shauna Ubersox

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:15:35 -0500

if there is one thing that i am, i am books. i am

ink, gushing black out of aisles of time, i am ache, brushing

past protagonists in purple and girls spun from gold.

i am tall and heavy, standing in grasses so thick light never

touches the dirt; i am a couch on rainy sunday, springs

sticking out and reaching for freedom from musty confines.

if there is one thing that i am, i am heart. i am

constellations stretched out before myself like an angry map,

i am bound at the stake, i have stood in the sun and not gotten

burned. i am consumed with passion, green with envy, red with

rage; i am wax dripping from antique chandeliers onto battle plans

over and over again.

if there is one thing that i am, i am the semicolon. i am

always held at half past half, continuing to both stop and go at once.

i am sleep on a summer afternoon, dreaming about creativity and

angry for heartbreak. i am back in the past looking ahead through

rose colored lenses tinted slightly too pink. i am never in the present

or the future, i am always wax, i am always ink, ache, i am always

books.

-enderrocket.tumblr.com

The Widower Speaks, Kate Horowitz

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:58:27 -0500

Appoint not the silence
as thy messenger:

One cannot predict
how much it will say.

-http://thingswrittendown.blogspot.com/

dec 08, Brittany Jones

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:50:00 -0500

You don’t have to say you love me..

Say, “I’ve noticed darling,
I can’t breathe if you’re not around.
And I’m going to try and make this forever
But, I know there are no guarantees.
And I’m not sure we’ll always understand each other
But, you’ll always be
The first person I look for when I enter a room
And I’ll always want to share my coffee with you
And I promise to keep your name safe
So that no one else in the whole world can say it
The way that I do.”

Four Minute Poem, Chris Vivion

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:59:09 -0500

During takeoff, after the young girl
Crossed herself three times,
Kissing her fingers before touching the air
I remembered how my parents
Would take me on airplanes as a child.
Back then, people smoked on planes,
The cabin smelling of polyester and dusty
Smoke. A stillness would overtake the back
Of the plane, a flannel blanket settling
Into the dull, staring faces. I remembered
My mother was so nervous, crossing herself
As we hit a patch of bad air, her face
Smoothed soft by a sliver of sun and hidden
Slightly by a finger of smoke, resting for a minute,
Along her cheekbone.

-http://blog.herenotthere.com

Untitled, Kelsey Hennon

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:54:00 -0500

I wish I could breathe you out
As quickly and completely as I
Inhaled
You into my heart, my lungs, my soul.
No matter the decongestant or the
Wind behind my coughs,
bits of you still remain,
Expanding within me over time.

And like a toxin,
though I hate to compare you,
the remnants can never be
Ultimately cleared.
There will always be scar tissue
Waiting to be discovered by the
next debris that drift through
These airways.

So I wish I could breathe you out
and have my contented sigh returned
to me in full ownership.
Ever since you ripped yourself from
my lungs, leaving just the right
Amount of goodness behind,
I cannot own my own sighs
Because the thought of you always
creeps in to block the passage of
A dandelion breeze or a swell
of warm firefly air.

I know you didn’t mean for it to
happen this way
But you’re inflaming my heart,
Closing my throat and
constantly pumping these
Tear ducts to their capacity.
And eventually, I’m going to break down
Again.

But I wish I could breathe you out.
These short shallow gasps are doing me no justice
Except personal sabotage
And I often hold my breath hoping to
pass out and require a pure mask of
you to keep me going.

I don’t reach for the inhaler
And I ignore the doctor’s orders.

The only person I can blame for this
black lung and failing heart
is myself and the fact that

I wish I didn’t have to breathe you
out.

Stealing Beauty, Dan Bristol

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 13:47:00 -0500

It was a cool October dusk, the sun gasping for its last breath,
When the light hit my face with a youthful request,
And after a moment of pause and reflection,
I saw you standing there with awe and affection.
You spoke to me in a language not of this land,
And still to this day I don’t know how I could understand,
For you never moved your mouth, or made sounds from your lips.
Your eyes spoke the words your feelings had built.
They whispered longings and a hope of romance delayed,
For life always seemed to get in our way.
But a crease in your brow, and a quiver of your lip,
A tear down your cheek replayed our first kiss.
So, I wiped away the memory in hopes of creating something new:
A simple smile across your face, or a whole life spent loving you.

-http://dannybrist.tumblr.com

7 seconds OR the good fight, Frankih Kay (for 11/27)

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:32:13 -0500

one.

we repeat
the same fight

about the
Reckoning and how
you think i don’t
care
about anything
at all.

two.

i met a boy once.
we drank red
wine in a music hall and
he took me to his house
and played me

a tape
he’d made, a
7 second
loop of millisecond sounds
and it went on
all night.

one.

we repeat
the same fight.
i cry;
you cry harder.

three.

i met a girl once.
she had dark
eyes, olive skin and
she held a sunflower at
a train station and she
held my hand at
the harbour and

i slept on her couch, her
feet touching my feet
and i wish that i had kissed her.

one.

we repeat the
same
fight
and i think about
clocks,
telephones.

four.

i met a man once.
he called me a
whore
but he fucked me
better than
most.

one.

we repeat the same fight
and on the way
home i find
your hat and half
a cigarette;
i smoke it.

five.

i met a woman once.
she was my ma and
i wish i knew
what i couldn’t
forgive her
for.

one.

we repeat the same
fight
like seven seconds
of tape loop,
clicking,
whirring.

six.

i am trying to
fight
the good fight

i feel like i am
losing
and

we repeat
the same fight

we repeat

-http://divorcepoems.tumblr.com

Fornicating Fenêtres, Kira Hesser (for 11/26)

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:26:57 -0500

I want to make love to open windows

That way I can draw whatever you that you happen to be behind the curtain

I’ll draw the curtain back and then draw you against the windowpane

My finger twirling your braided rope, tracing your outline, crossing your chest

Like a priest, I am crossing you, now I am double-crossing you

Sweat dances faint against the glass

I summon ghosts, figmented reflections of all the yous

I see, while riding on the top of double-decker buses, looking down at the

Tirelessly grey streets littered with pubs, men men men, growling at each other

Over piss-yellow pints, finding burgundy solutions, slurping and burping

Their way through opaque foam

What are you wearing, What are you taking off?

Below your hips is a latticework of lace

I am seducing you, I am seducing you,

I repeat this to myself until I believe it.

I cannot take myself seriously enough to believe in seduction

It is a cinematic moment, I am preening in front of my flickering reflection

I am inconsolable

I want you to be dressed in Edwardian clothes, slowly unbuttoning your waistcoat

There has to be a pocket watch, and I want you to finger it, I want you to grasp

The metal links of your fob with two digits, with purpose

On the stroke of midnight, I’m ticking and

Goosebumps crawl all over me in one quick advance of porcupinal armor

Phantoms and shadows cannot argue,

Or take up all the covers

I’m naked in front of this window, I blow on it now and draw

A heart, which vanishes quickly, before I can even finish

-http://flamelikeme.tumblr.com

Shoe Man, Carolyn Sams (for 11/25)

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:25:34 -0500

It’s the finest you’ll ever see.
Ever wear.
Warmest one when it rains.
Quite a miracle, that hide.
Even when it pours.

Now you seem to be looking for
Something to support you. Something
To hold your balance right straight.
Don’t we all.
And I’ve found it, and I’m here to
Share that little secret.
It’s top of the line.
Made to perfection. You can run
A marathon and think you’re flying
Through marshmallow clouds.

Try them out.
Let me see you walk in them.
Real nice, huh. Now they’ll break in
Soon. Should only hurt for a little while.
People say that same thing -
They hurt right there, the middle of the sole.
But they’ll come back in six months,
Crying for the same pair.

(submitted by a friend)

your name, Molly Looze (for 11/24)

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:24:24 -0500

the silhouette of your name across my lips
is an outlined sweet, a slick of honey sticking
like shadows in the corners of an empty room.

it stains my mouth in pomegranate red, a joy
built in my hands when they ripped the seeds
from the thick husk.

it’s garlic three days later, a taste that infiltrates
all the backbeats and feedback of my mouth,
like the wind breathing into a microphone.

i want to spend more time with your name,
swallow shots of it so it burns my throat
long into the night, so when i wake up

the hangover is an excuse for me to
think of you.

the vowels and syllables coalesce
between teeth and tongue, between roof of mouth
and cheeks to create one sweet harmony,

a homogeneous anatomy that
should be more than just a flavor; it
should be a part of me.

-http://mmlooze.tumblr.com

Achalasia, Patrick Wilson (for 11/23)

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:22:01 -0500

It came to my attention that you were leaving
the morning I came downstairs to breakfast
already made, toast already sliced
diagonally and a newspaper on the table like

A commercial for cereal, wherein the smiling
man wearing a cable-knit sweater and olive trousers
is kept by his wife who is also smiling though
she’s trapped in a technicolor wasteland and
she knows it.

Your glances across the table at me had a
peristaltic effect. I kissed your too-smiling
face; heard the catch in your voice when you
told me you loved me and have a good day—

In the flushing of your cheeks, a revelation:
For all of our caresses and glances and
desire and hunger and despair and desperation
and loathing and hurt and projected inadequacy
there is nothing.

-http://www.thegnomeproject.net

synonyms in a different language, Takeki Ishihara (for 11/22)

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:20:47 -0500

In a synaesthetic mind a complex mathematical equation yields not the correct answer, but an array of abstract color fields and physiological sensations on the surface of one’s skin.

This is the aesthetics of misinterpretation. Mismanaged misunderstandings creating its own network of meaning. We are holding hands with the memory of post-incarnated ghosts. Secondhand strangers. Reverse lullabies of disrupted silence.

Display before me, once again, the recurring delusion of unfiltered reality. The side by side scenarios of unfired neurons. Theatrical personification of malcontent.

-http://footnotestohappiness.tumblr.com

For Rumi, Across a Thousand Years, Kathleen McLeod (for 11/21)

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:18:48 -0500

Oh lover, trace me like biro, blue veined and pure.
The way your words move in me, like a sea
to flood the heart: calling the masses out of the mosque and into the square.
See there, my hand is fair
I will scribe the discomfort, the longing -
The ache for your art.

Prayers falling on white marble,
This is the Passover.
Drink from the cup of ecstasy and spin.
The blood of Egypt washes clean from doorways,
And as the true son you are spared.
Let’s celebrate, I’ll bake bread and you will rise.
Eat it for energy, while I devour your poetry.

-http://kathleenjoy.tumblr.com

(of course I posted this to the wrong tumblr)

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:44:46 -0500

Sorry for the slack these few days. Internet issues and preparing for the upcoming holiday have kept me from the computer.

Decision-Making, Christine Jensen

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:52:58 -0500

I am your little Dresden,
Your Swiss-cheese darling.
Pockmarked by craters that plummet
Into mines meandering through
My jungle of pulsating organs,
A simulacral image of last night.
You bought me a carriage and a dress,
Said we were going on a journey,
Oohing and aahing as we trundled through
Corridors seeping a substance I realize
Is what stained my bed sheets this morning;
Like transforming doves to cardinals that
Have been crystallized in mud
And crushed by leather boots.

I sat on the floor in front of the mirror,
Sewing pieces of old t-shirts over the
Collapsing gates of my ribs.
I coughed, wheezed, toppled over, and you
Laughed, called yourself my adoring heartworm,
Admired your artisanship,
“The lovely curves and colors,”
Strolled out of the room,
As I moaned and clawed at myself.

A plague, a pestilence, a parasite;
All of these I would pluck from me
But I count the holes and
I caress the rims
That you bored through me
Though each touch pains me
And lets you dig deeper.

-http://defeat.tumblr.com

Secondary Fatality, Rachel Ricca

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:51:00 -0500

She cannot open the morning

paper without the blackened number

distracting her resistant vision;

higher every day, how

many will it be this time? How many

fathers, mothers, sons, daughters tremble

beneath their futile camouflage, nightmares

unfolding across vacant eyes

and salt-frosted eyelashes? She cradles

a cup of steaming coffee between

her unstained fingers, new wedding

band tapping the hard ceramic. Imagines

his, pressed into calloused skin that hasn’t

touched hers in months, too preoccupied

with learning the art form of enforced regret.

At night she stares at the ceiling, welcoming

insomnia, too afraid of what sleep

might bring. Her photograph lies folded against

his chest, thousands of miles away from

the empty side of the bed; sometimes

she forgets in the heat of a dream and turns,

greeted silently by the unwrinkled pillow and

faint smell of his favorite shampoo.

-http://rar22.tumblr.com/

Bulb., Peter Halton

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:25:27 -0500

The bulb’s gone again
And I’m stuck
I should get up and change it
But I can’t bring myself to
I was doing so well and then

Darkness

It has a beauty that overwhelms me and sends me to sleep

And as I lay dreaming of laying with you
There is a light inside that shines like your eyes

I can see now

-Peter Halton

the end, thislooksfamiliar

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:23:00 -0500

when the comets explode, and the fires burn blue
and the earth turns to ash, under grey hue,
the wind howls against the burning dead plains
and there is no more violence, there is no more pain.
everything gone, in a flash of bright white
before in creeps the darkness to starve out the night

love is a word and thought is a crime
description is gone, as well as the time.
all over forever, does it make your head hurt?
right in the back? where you KNEW before birth?
the cause is unknown, the result is quite clear.
the being is gone, and the knowing is near.

so the dust gathers up, all in the corner
a lone person watches, a solemn young mourner.
impacts and shaking do not disturb
the serenity and tranquility of this peaceful mood.
keeping watch on the motion and holding it all
inside and inside forever, for after the fall.

the scene drifts away, like sand on a beach
and remembrance is shallow, forgetting is sweet
it floats out of the mind and towards the heart
held on to like everything, right from the start
the curtain falls upon the world’s head
the looker looks on, remembering the end

-http://thislooksfamiliar.tumblr.com

a wish on I-70, Richard Wehrenberg Jr

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:39:01 -0500

when pulling the horn for two kids
yanking their arms up and down
in a passing sedan you realize

you want that sound to last them all their lives.

you want that sound to be
the frequency they remember
in their most desperate times.

you want that sound to be
the first sound their children hear
as they are born into all this noise.

you want that sound to be
the voice of a nurse whispering
through a web of telephone wires -
your father has died.

you want that sound to be
the one note that stands up
when all others step aside –
with some damp, resonating shine.

-http://www.simperingfool.blogspot.com

Waiting for First Frost, Julie Oliver

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:49:13 -0500

When humid summer air
turns to billowed breath, but before
the leaves begin to fall and creeping white
edges engulf otherwise healthy flora,
I wait for first frost. The spectacular
death of New England, the climactic end
of a seasonal chapter.

I remember our seasons. That autumn, just
after the first frost, making up excuses to
steal kisses, and shivering on the front
porch while the others drank and laughed inside.
Not minding the cold, or the company.

Our winters spent with cheap red wine, no cable
television and our bodies entwined on the frayed
second-hand couch.
Playing house, making home-cooked
meals with “love” for the first time and knowing
what that meant. Watching the
dime-sized snow flakes fall against the orange glow from the
street light.

Spring meant moving, starting again. New apartments
with freshly painted walls and the comforting smell of
new carpet. Hosting barbeques in the parking lot when
we had no yard. Toasting warm weather with friends,
our families skeptical but accepting of the life we were
working on.

In Summer, we traveled. Making our way to the coast
to enjoy the sea, pretending our lives had more meaning
when covered in salt and sand. Waking up early to bear
witness to the epic east coast sunrise, and
splurging on seafood feasts at night. The ocean
appeased my worries, swallowed up my doubt in it’s
cold northeast waters.

At summer’s end, after your August
birthday, after Labor Day,
we resigned ourselves to the coming autumn;
accepted the end of summer with poise and class.
We didn’t whine or cry for summer not to
leave us. There was no begging or pleading,
no ultimatums. We waited for the
first frost and felt closure when it came.

-http://eilujion.tumblr.com