007 Challenge

I dropped the mammoth grasshopper you found me with.
That was my last bet.
Roll on.

I wake and...and I wake.
My Running Partner was dishing,
the free drinks,
and the fact I was patient

Cleared out the room.

Okay. We can start tomorrow.
Be ready.

You are so sweet, invincible.
 
New 3

post anything
post coital post feminist post lighthouse
post stamps of your missing dog
post the corner location gps scanner
geocache

to the bobbing cliche with no accent
the bottle but cut and pasted still nestled
in the slim crescent of previous environment
now in a sandbox on the moon
bearing in its see through belly
a personal advertisement
wanted one hot palm

to hold all precious waters
in its cup
then to raise these droplets
thenceforth known as me
up to quench

wanted one deep thirst
 
that keen ear eventually sleeps
its pledged alliegiance below the skylight
invitation up
warbling from steadfast legs
flatpalm pushing thick air
up to the nasty trick:
glass!

so sleeper diets
noticing in her fast
hollows between and which
are shaped for fingers and which
can bear weight (normal human girl
weight not bear weight or truck pull tricks)

Ear leads the rolling left
still closed eyes
or right the head rolls guiding
(what is this uncorporeal instance?)
guiding the body unbody past
transom jam shutter path
willow cries tiptoed past
the napping night guard

freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
panting hope and dread at the same time
in little puffs that spell out
I think I can
 
shutter slats click domino tongues
over interior skin
interior side of my right fore
finger knuckle
one two three four five six seven eleven seventeen

the backyard closes and in the dark of the room I dare
cut your hair, address your politics, cull
necessary tributes so the pile
elevates me in my
Imelda Marcos kitten heels
Just the few more inches
necessary for delivery

Here we are
alone hushed ready pulsing
loud heartbeat verbs

diving foolishly onto memory foam
gone viral
 
Gondolier

open your palm for I have carried this penny
years and years left beside my plate
witness to close and closure unfolding
from triangles the napkin on my lap
until finally I stood and finally
bent and finally carefully placed
my foot into this gondola's cynical country

pushing off into the sleepy lagoon
deep greenly, towing Ophelia's train

next or never bells ring white icing
next or never bells ring cold boxing
beyond the parallel arms of calendars
so friendly calendars it's easy to lose them
perhaps in the crying bag of coffee
or the memory foam mattress

bedknobs illuminate crooks
armed, legged solidly
demanding bylines
handscrawled over the tickets
and the accompanying envelope

tip the concierge
 
Venice has been sunk for decades,
Detroit is the new Cathay.

Cupped in your hollows shadows
Form with their backs to the sun.
Evening begins it's dusting.

The rings on your fingers.
The bare wrist on your hip,
The open palm in your hair.
 
pithy helmet you have there
Hermes and shoes to match
pushing that coffee cart around in
coach waiting for Suzanna
to twist an ankle already so you can
serve unblinking business
as it reads Forbes

collectively think tanking
to the big show the big
aquarium via satellite
linkup so number one
call tell number six glug
and hang up before the burble back

below the underbelly
of the clouds which kiss you now
lands do not know their borders
only the voices of their waters
and grasses
 
We are in the middle of a 9 game winning streak.
I am prowling the sidelines completely distracted.

How do I get the shadows to mean something
like "more adventure", "solicitude"?

How do I get the ball downfield?
While solving the Hamiltonian cyclical aspects
of your city, your Earth?

Oh, Neruda, you and you.
My knives flash like mirrors.
 
I take great pleasure
in these rooms.
The way the frames hang

I waved back to
the fair warning.
I was just three flights up.

You on the street, in my tiny room of a heart,
walk and pennants snap.

Oh, honey...what washes!
 
Process

this shirt in the sink was soaked many
many times and sometimes scrubbed
depending how long the spill set

tonight I scrape with nails and soap
brush and soap
spray and brush
rinse and soap
rub and rub the sides together

wet blue dark blue all the same
can't tell how well it's done
until it dries sometime tomorrow
over the bar below the window

where the sky sings to the room
songs which fade into the fabric
of the walls the shirt the earth the rug

into us fading with the stars
clean as new
but thinner
 
eight thousand dollars

can buy a truck move across country
but who really watches chase scenes
nobody if not
for the rising drum
nuanced with snare
and hands raised up
above somebody's head

can buy two months' rent uptown

can buy a four years used economy vehicle
a cheap lawyer for a sizeable crime or sizeable
lawyer for petty

can buy a dinner of slim political influence
even kill a secret permanently

can buy 8000 postcards more or less
depending on delivery

each one would say
I watch for you always
 
I was in line. Stifling the worst.
Boys up ahead bemoaning
"I did her the best mix!"

Walking home, Saturn caught my eye.
A hard telephone rang.
Pressing my tongue to the roof of my mouth,
I answer.

It's years later. I pat my pockets for keys.
At the truck, I see the fog on the lower fields
and I am so glad you are here, too.
 
I stare hard enough at the brown bubbles along
the edge of the pond
Galaxies well.

Back off a bit, you're just another curly-headed thing.
I am using my shoe to dig here, so
Can you get out of my light?

The black-green grass and the spotlights sweeping the grounds
I see every night. It has been awhile.

Then, on the coast I watch the birds divot and track.
 
This case says, easily, "Hello".
In small doses
The glass asks "Maybe we need 'Harry'"

A false front.

I look out from this awning.
"Hey, I'm angry alone...."

Bullets hail. You want me.
You want me to laugh.

You get nearer
there is only one away
away only away away.

Sure. Kiss me.

Not yet.
 
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I put some things behind me
A wash on the the beach
A Wave from the froth,

How are you?
Get it, come close.
The rockets will start soon.

I like you.
Watch my hands
Watch my hands
 
This is genius. The rest of you cannot do better.

Gondolier

open your palm for I have carried this penny
years and years left beside my plate
witness to close and closure unfolding
from triangles the napkin on my lap
until finally I stood and finally
bent and finally carefully placed
my foot into this gondola's cynical country

pushing off into the sleepy lagoon
deep greenly, towing Ophelia's train

next or never bells ring white icing
next or never bells ring cold boxing
beyond the parallel arms of calendars
so friendly calendars it's easy to lose them
perhaps in the crying bag of coffee
or the memory foam mattress

bedknobs illuminate crooks
armed, legged solidly
demanding bylines
handscrawled over the tickets
and the accompanying envelope

tip the concierge

Roll, roll, roll, roll....
 
Roll, roll, roll, roll....
Dear M2,
Do I detect a challenge here? In the early stages of Gondolier, I can feel the death images and then a sort of revival, which was done quite skillfully, but then, at the end, it melts down to a sing-song, mumbo-jumbo of neat sounding words that have nothing to do with what was being conveyed earlier. Nice? Yes, but genius, I don't think.

You are entitled to your opinion, but your rather brash statement that no one can do better is insulting. You've come back after a few month layoff like "folded lightening" if I may quote you, but I think you need to rein it in a bit.

I am a technical writer by trade and enjoy much of the work all the poets contribute to the Poetry Feedback & Discussion forum. Some of it not my cup of tea, but all efforts are appreciated.
Best,
StG
 
The ticket I was slapping against my wrist
and the radio dictating hiss
I rotated clockwise in the room.

Curtains part, crowds mill, I inhale.

The bus pulls forward
Lungs fill with one more departure.

I know you. You are that woman who keeps tipping her hand.
There are better ways.

Smaller corners to claim.
 
Because We are Latin

I curved your arm back into your body.
Spin from there.
That spot that brought you
to this place.

The Tango crawls.

Into a tower that looks over a
Plain that said
"I like her more than you."

She bent down and waved.
Cars honked and begged.
I shifted some eyebrows over.
Later, collected.

I am not yours to say anything of.
 
Shooting the Cuffs (at 17)

I work enough.
The kitchen begs forward
the old guy sent to watch me
smokes at the end of the counter.

The cigarette might as well be sitting in his lap.

What orders being called out are not being answered.
Pans clap down on the burners.
I can hear "order down".

My hands are pink.
My fingers are beginning to show their length.
My chaperone is keeping an eye on me.

The two sitting next to the punch clock flick their butts my way.
 
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The sidewalk looks to smack You
So hard
That it hopes to say
To you

Let's go
You and I

"In what manner" you mewl.
"Down this aisle." and I drop away.

Years down the road
We meet. It is awkward.
Rockets lift from their bays.
I sit back.

My tongue.
 
TV is the filter through
reticence, calculation, any
reply longer than the 5 word
catchphrase max is withheld

the ready ear, the captive eye
gimps. Love eludes catch phrase
love catches
the runner because he is fast
the bullet because it is hard
the gist because it is aimed.
 
two

soft and far music dances
your name your day in tremulous
number letter combinations

your specific day
and somewhere you imagine
glasses are raised
but before the toast

a bomb drops
the villagers are gathered
men from women

use your better head the soldier
cautions his commander
before the women die too

now no one's favorite
color is red
 
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