007 Challenge

#2 Silence

Silence

This silence
awful

leopard slippers I sent her
perched still on the couch, the plastic loop between them
unbroken
“They are looking at me” she had said
but she could not talk long,
she was tired

Now there is only
this silence
awful

swallowing resolute activity
of casseroles and cleaning out
friends and cousins reuniting
carrying on

Instead I unpin postcards
from the kitchen walls where
my childish handwriting evolving
in loops, slants and drops
over the years
my fingers so resemble hers

I add these to the traces I
explain to no one

Traces
Meaningless, confusing
to those left
in
awful silence.
 
Last edited:
Fire and Forgiveness

A kiss stained by salty tears.
Tongues battle for authority
as both attempt apologies.
I knew it was my fault,
I’d overreacted but I refrained from admitting fault.
You were perpetually calm,
even as I spewed strings of profanity at you.
You refused to allow my jealous bile to hurt you,
you didn’t allow my fire to burn you.

Calm and curt replies tumble from your lips,
your composure was kept.
I couldn’t get a rise out of you,
even though I desired to see your cool exterior slip.
I longed for the fire that I knew was inside.

I want to be forgiven.
Veins once fueled with explosive words
burn with something else entirely.
I allow the fire to burn away the barriers between us.
There’s a need to be closer, to feel more, to be one.
You embrace my heat, smoldering me with your coolness.
We tangle together, melt into each other,
chocolate and marshmallows.

Lips, teeth and tongue come in contact with your soft flesh
leaving passion marks; brands.
My hands roam freely,
caressing and groping you.
The ferocity of my need is unprecedented.

My name slips from your lips,
softly, sweetly, as you bring me to you.
Raining kiss on me in an attempt to extinguish my fire,
but it doesn’t help, I’m too far gone.

My hands travel south,
passing through soft curls and soon,
I reach my destination.
I slip into your cool waters,
first one, then two, and finally three fingers fill you.
I bask in your moisture, enjoying the feel of you wrapped around me,
tightly, refusing to let me go.
Breathless whispers of I love you and please more
satisfy me as I watch you.
Even now,
with your face contorted with pleasure
you maintain a sense of tranquility.

Your body bucks beneath me,
shrieks and squeals of ecstasy escape you,
the dam breaks, more cool waters flow.
Breaths are uneven and fight for regularity,
the embers of the fire cool.
Ice blue makes contact with hot chocolate irises,
a conversation is had absent words.
You have forgiven me.
 
#3 Vows of Silence

At first, she was irritated
wondering if she had been
unceremoniously dumped

But that was out of character, she knew

and so worried raw strips of flesh
around her normally perfect nails and
welcomed insomnia over dreams
of accidents, confrontations, tragedies

None of which was ever confirmed, or denied

just silence
silence

It was then that she realized the real problem
With loving someone taken
Is not being able to be there
for better or worse

Till death do us part.
 
#4 Christmas Spa day

On the fog bathed road we burned sage
in her 1978 car with the echo effect radio
looking like Cheech and Chong on a road trip
but our escape was different -- we were just sisters
doing a day of beauty
One of therapists asked about our names
When we explained the woman replied
Oh, I am Israeli
And we all looked at each other and smiled, because really
Who else would be at a spa on Christmas day
And she said
” Well, here we are”

On the way back we stayed in a B and B
we had wine in a hot tub overlooking a vast open field
and here I confuse things, because I remember
seeing geese and her saying birds could talk
but all of that came later

Several years and one or two breakdowns later
but who is counting
I came to visit again, this time with my family
she was living in a big sprawling house in Seattle
The kids picked the wild blackberries in the yard
When my 4 year old daughter said
“Look at the naughties in the trees”
She lifted an eyebrow and said: “You can see them too?”
 
Lynette and Desejo, you are tempting me to jump in, but I am preparing for finals. I'll be back at it in the New Year, I think. Thank you for the poems to read. Your number 4 is marvelous.
 
Last edited:
5: Cold feet

I’m tired of my empty bed.
It’s spaciousness does not comfort me
as luxury
it just seems wasteful
I only ever take up one side anyway
As if waiting
For someone to slip in and surprise
My sleeping form with shocking
Cold feet
 
I’m tired of my empty bed.
It’s spaciousness does not comfort me
as luxury
it just seems wasteful
I only ever take up one side anyway
As if waiting
For someone to slip in and surprise
My sleeping form with shocking
Cold feet

Lovely poem. Though aren't you waiting for someone to occupy the space, rather than slipping in and surprising you? I'm splitting hairs. A picture we can all relate to.
 
#6 Fresh Baguette

She hollows out a long tunnel of
warm fresh dough
with her small white hand
and leaves the crust for maman.
 
Lovely poem. Though aren't you waiting for someone to occupy the space, rather than slipping in and surprising you? I'm splitting hairs. A picture we can all relate to.

I don't know. I'd almost rather be surprised... my judgement is not always the best. :rolleyes:
 
I don't know. I'd almost rather be surprised... my judgement is not always the best. :rolleyes:

We can all make bad judgements, they are usually the most exciting as well as the most regretable.

I posted this poem somewhere else on this forum but here seems appropriate to post it again. Well, maybe it is a poem I am just pleased with and don't want to let it die and be buried in the threads. Poems, they're like children at times.:eek:

TURNING THE OTHER CHEEK

in your dreams, maybe
whoever he is, he never arrived
just some unsuspecting dick artist
that circled your fashionable periphery
the truth is here, we experience it
you woke up in my bed

we can debate your choice
that maybe drink got the better of you
the convenience of my apartment
and your long ride home to the suburbs
it seemed a fair exchange
as you clawed my back

morning has a contrary view
your bitter lines, the pull of your face
drawing on my last cigarette
the suggestion of, could have done better
your hangover, adding a realism
to your mistake

well, Entschuldigen Sie bitte!
your forty something body
unapologetic in the morning light
is a triumph of experience over form
confidence over desire
bare faced cheek (quite literally)
occupies my bed
 
7: Visit to Arlington

The grass is oddly springy, and vibrant green
even though it is December
All around people have decorated
the same grey stones with memorabilia
letters and photos in plastic sleeves
taped on with trembling hands
small stones piled in pyramids precariously
on top of the uniform stones
row after row in perfect
straight formations


Tracey hands me a strand of shiny red beads
we drape them around the small tree nearby
“Now don’t get excited”, I say
“These are not Mardi Gras beads
And we aren’t going to flash you”
This makes us laugh just a little
and forget that a year ago
we were the ones in the procession
exactly like the one
we passed on the way in today.
 
Great run, Desejo. Couple a keepers there for sure. Bogus, you should do the other 6 now. Very interesting poem you posted, evocative. Clear. Not sure about "literally" as your strongest diction choice, but your poem held my attention. More? Maybe Des will do another run? I may jump in in a few days. Almost finished with my most pressing tasks at semester's end.
 
001: At the Iranian Grocers

It’s all about what you eat, says my father
he is perplexed, because these people look familiar
but they do not speak his language,
and the food selection is a bit off.

Take seeds, for example.
People who eat seeds are like us.

Tables in salons covered with bowls sunflower, pumpkin and squash seeds.
Guests crack the shells with their teeth neatly
and drink tea and coffee sweet in small cups.

Eating seeds in this way means visiting people,
and have time to talk about nothing
while sharing these common movements and tastes.

These people eat seeds.
They are like us.


Americans, by the way, do not eat seeds in this way.

We buy a pound of salted watermelon seeds
our hands touching when we reach into the bag
leaving a trail of shiny black husks behind in the snow
on the way home.
 
Great run, Desejo. Couple a keepers there for sure. Bogus, you should do the other 6 now. Very interesting poem you posted, evocative. Clear. Not sure about "literally" as your strongest diction choice, but your poem held my attention. More? Maybe Des will do another run? I may jump in in a few days. Almost finished with my most pressing tasks at semester's end.

Monsieur Bogus.....come out and Play!
or someone else. I iz lonely here. :cattail:
 
001

allow, mind,
drink at times

nectarine
tangerine

juiced metaphors
reek depravity
 
002

still white
December papery
breeze has settled
down to talk
proceeds,
words latent, freed
and nouns
cut loose, demand,
get, the fair
verbs they see
 
003

sounds there are
that on the street do not exactly soothe
too many beasts that may be considered
on the moderate to high degree

of savagery as alas
an ear grown scaly, nostrils puffing smoke,
no stranger, frankly, like mints these toxins
within systems tender - maybe when first

around for tests, toughened to take
all these - so poisons popped like candies,
verify certain vermin near
the corner warily venture
 
2: Media

I do not watch TV
or read the daily paper
even so, I have nightmares.
 
004

notes suggest
a night of wine

evoke they do
another time

that summer knew
and winters were

from stories to
let a child grow
 
005

for simple request
miffed slap the price though the cuff
in a statement, rebuff, was the train
oh but judgment in harshness
for empathy sees men can so
frail be; fuels are basic,
red meat and the meats that are
womanly; mouths must water
and out must the eye bug, and yes,
so often it hurts when once
screwing the courage to ask
for that touch but must suffer
rebuke and getting the heart
to shut the fuck up
 
006

the demeanor properly
thoughtful tumbling
from crested knoll,
could offer little but crumbs
for hungry village canis
litters woods birthed, still do,

for their fathers were carpenters
trading all the huge barrels
of glue though of no use
to those of the knolls; would be
for home repair handymen
for their fathers were carpenters
able, lucked out, rose from lumber mill

scrap yards, favored habits, brawls,
silver melted after all night
card trickery, yet a bit
estranged it seems they have turned
into faint copied phantoms
grandparents may soon as shoot
as hug, see a trespass and see

no kinship; smell forgotten,
ointments from scarlet stained canister
fingered as violets
cannot by humble and simple
valley souls be husbanded
justly for their fathers
were carpenters and those forefathers
did clear each and every single knoll

of every moccasin-scented bush
or tree; how the moccasins
wound up way up there and so far
from the waters, history books
have omitted for their
fathers were carpenters
 
007

all the density fogs,
but a hope is within
a collection of hickories
trained in elite if gold
era academies
elder woods built - with bare hands
perhaps not, but the trick
in all this is to have in the pocket
a pen that will pass
all the major out of idleness
may think up for surprise
or for no other motive
except that of sadism, as
a major the officer is
 
*mood hit the other night and as always got nervous, just wanted to wrap it up*
nice stuff up there from Des and bogus and glad to know Pandora is well and I love your AV. Shall mosey along now until the next time the mood comes swishes by. :rose::heart:
 
003: Irish Coffee

Irish Coffee

it was when you stirred
sweet whipped cream
into coffee

the look in your eyes
and slight tilt of your head

hit me
like a final round of whiskey
that leaves you sick as hell the next day

it was then I realized
*I’m in love with you
Damn it.
 
The service you held
The chop in your wake
The fires you slapped out.

I am folded lightning.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top