007 Challenge

three

will depends

upon requisite paragraphs
possibility of overtime
signatories
proximal shade trees

dependable maps
treasure lust
skin's starve

dependents claimed
and claiming

voiced invitation
letterboxing failure
to unseen margins

will we this
shared breath
 
four

now you hold me
like a split river
constantly new
carrier and sweeper

each moment I am a little less
each moment I am a little more
 
1 : Drink, Drank, Drunk

The last rays of the sun catches
water from the sprinkler
and they are diamond drops
flung onto my flip-flopped toes.

Ice cold, hard lemonade cools
the inside, fuzzes the brain
with a lot of lemon,
more sugar with too much vodka.
And none of that alcohol pop,
bastard Zima shite, I made this.

Hmmm, buzzz...
way too much vodka and it's all good.
Sitting here in this lawn chair
I can see the grass gets greener
on my side of the fence and that's all right.
 
2 : Time bleeds

Cracking an hour glass to swallow
one grain, one second after another
takes patience. If you don't have it,
don't bother because time doesn't stop,
not for you and certainly not for me.

It goes in as sand and comes out as
glass.

Think about that.
Or don't. It doesn't matter,
out of time, just...

. . . . Time Bleeds out.
 
3: Dandelion's Dance

They're all arms and legs across
the stage. I'm amazed with the beauty
of something I've never watched
or ever cared for, but now I see them.
They're on pointe, white skirts whirling,
graceful as dandelion seeds
dancing on a breeze. As my flower floats
by, I make a wish she is this happy
always then root it all in memories.
 
4 : Fragile

Your white spiny conch was a treasure
we found, one smoothed with time.
I saw you whispering in its curve
and hide it away. With a secret smile,
"Someday you will know," you said.

Years, I listen to the shell and I hear
an 'I love you' for the first time.

I remember us, how we were
and let it all fall. Love like the shell
were fragile, they break and I crush it
under heel, further the shatter.

You can't fix that.
 
5: Rant

Little pesties find every
leave behind,
cracker, cookie or cat treat.

It doesn't matter,
they find it and carry it off
with a scent trail
for their brothers
to follow
and they
follow
all inline
back
and
forth
working
for
their queen.

I'd kill the queen if I could,
get right in that nest and rip off her head,
her little leggies too.

But I read, there is more than one queen
with a thousand workers for every one.
All are
foraging
working
carrying
right this
minute
and all I can do is hope the baits do what
they're disigned to do: kill queen, kill the colony.
 
6: Honey-do Ever After

This old house
I don't know. There is so much
painting, fixing, replacing
and worst of all, redoing the kitchen.

I wonder if it's worth the effort,
surely not worth the money
but it's the only place
that's ever felt like home
when stepping through the door.

Give it one year and one year only,
be damned the relatives,
and friends who want me to stay.
As they say, fences make
great neighbors and shutters
shut out the world;

I have only to build both.
 
7 : Thirty-Sex

She wears Chapstick,
sunscreen and runs a brush
through her hair then she is done.

I'm in the bathroom longer
getting ready to go out
(that's all in the shower).

But she took days to plan
for my birthday. It was the best
grilled steak and blow job,
not necessarily in that order.
 
1

For My Oldest

When our stack of twenty books
was taller than you we’d sit
and read Lost Moose
who was very lost
as was maternal patience
upon the 100th go.

Now the six foot bookshelves are full
and too short to measure
your height. It seems
to have passed
with the speed
of a flip book, edited
to contain mainly smiles
upon quick review
but I remember it all
and feel grateful
for our shared story
on the pages
in between.
 
2

Birthday Presence of Mind: More or Less

Consciousness falls
like snowflakes.

You don't realize it melts
into you over time
until you are standing
soaked in awareness
of mystery
and life is reduced
to knowing the more
I love the less I hate,
the less I live the more
I die and the more I write
the less I say.
 
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1

go on and strut
naked as you dare
might as well
best jeans quit
fitting years back
so strip

down to essence
the perfume
you'd make
were you boiled

call it venom
because luck
doesn't move shareholders

stake your bets
your claim
aim for my neck

bite thin air
 
2

hot rain pisses
pitiful patches of dark
sidewalk and dots
gutters but cannot
run nor gush nor rise

yet slakes thirsty
windowbox petunias
anew aperk

atop clay coffins
crumbling their faithful
penance to the tide
 
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3

canoes pretend they are catamarans
as if posture alone can evade

rock splintering
every dry corner

sinking canoes hymn valiant
curses at calamity

then relearn
there are no dry corners

we are the same
sinking and floating

villages that made us
and sent us out

then collect us up
beyond repiecing
 
4

For Robert

still sit still sit
cannot you know cannot
capture indeed
film only gets you moving

charmed to the socks
so long as the reel keeps
up up your jaunty
lunge against reason
jaywalking traffic

hat miraculous
and knees stringed
mustard saints preserve
my hand
your arm
 
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5

last night exhausted all the tiny lotion
hotel gifts and this morning boiled
the last coffee

eliciting double bonus smiles
haloing over calendar rooms

we will descend into
suitcase-creased futures
casually dropping our pasts
without explanation
into bins for recycling
 
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6

Piquerist Plays at Accupuncture

the second color of that laugh
easy to see in an age
stripped of puff sleeves
gloved fingers no longer
curl coyly over lips
none of that now
none here

behind that laugh is fear
I want to fold her in and whisper
you are too big for this little pin

let it drop

next time
bring massage oils
or a knife
 
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7

Guilty of undertipping
the whateveritis these days--
beautician? Cosmonaut?
Slim hipped finger goddess?

I had 300
and owed 290
to put summer atop me
and peek-a-boo bangs.
Tipped 22% but not enough
for the eyeliner treatment and
styling tips I will never follow,
lacking tools specific to hair
beyond a comb.

She even brought me wine!
(Ok it was sour crap wine, but wine!)
Gave relationship advice, plucked the three
stray eyebrow hairs easy as skipping

over sidewalk. Now I have to find
another cosmonaut whom I have not left,
frowning, behind.
 
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2

Things Never Change

Some prose, while terse, seems neverending—
A politician’s speech or, worse,
Some swain’s proposal, on knee bending,
The maid receiving it averse
To ever marrying this young bumpkin
(Whose head resembles a ripe pumpkin)
Were he the last male on the Earth.
She wants a lad of lesser girth,
To live life with appassionata,
Con brio, en fuego,
wild,
But doofus here seems much too mild
To play life’s Scriabin sonata.
But he drones on and on and on,
Like Yeats did, I guess, to Maud Gonne.
 
3

Wankety-pankety,
Indigo Augustine
Is a young porn star of
Wonderful name.

Pierced and tattooed she is,
Etymologically,
One half a color and
One half a saint.




Ah, the double dactyl. With its BFF, the triolet, the last refuge of a poet writing form under constraint. Need to pop out a form poem by tomorrow? Find somebody with a double dactylic name and write a double dactyl!

For the record, Ms. Augustine (whom I've never heard of before, honest) seems to be the only porn star in this thread with a double dactylic name. And, yes, I am (slightly) misusing the word "etymological" and "name" and "saint" are, at best, slant rhymes. Give an aging perv a break, 'K?
 
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