007 Challenge

Hem, Him or Hymn?

She calls it her bohemian look.
Skirt pushed down upon her hips,
hem frayed from dragging.
Bare foot or sandals,
fresh nail polish for toes of course.
Peasant blouse a little loose,
but she she knows I'll complain less
about her drinking my beer
with her sitting in my lap
breast pressed against my cheek.
 
My addendum poem was just a leftover, I was gonna give it a minute before I tried writing a new poem every day. But now I see your two new poems, PGlitters, and I think I'm inspired and as always competitive, so maybe I won't take a break and try to write something worthy of being posted with yours. Phaon and Sappho seem to have fallen asleep or run off together, so it's nice having someone posting poems regularly.

TheFool, I really like you poem. It's the hem lines, we may have come across something, some poetic gold mine about a part of a skirt. My poetry hem fascination may have started last year with this poem, I don't think I've posted it anywhere:


You dress for the love you want
your desire pleats from the waist
to the hem of your sheer skirt
and its veiling mechanism,

For the white flame of your stocking,
I'd once and again rediscover
the bows tied behind your thighs
and your turtle's head patella—

Free from the bone to bone grind
of normal day to day devotion
 
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"this is not a metaphor it is my hand
this is not a metaphor it is my hand"

the Brit philosopher G. E. Moore got legendary status when he pretty much said, 'This is not an idea of a hand(Idealism), it is my hand.' then held up his hand. I think you're saying the same, which I really like.
 
dislocated ambivalence
yes, ask her
once more
to make me care
but she doesn’t know how
and I lost track of why
in the mad dash
from here to there
the give a penny to the Old Guy
communion in our silence
cyanide for the soul
 
Week 4 poem 2

Fool! Wonderful to see your poems here, and to see someone else grabbing the hem line. :cattail:


For $30 more a night
I could be a guest of the Hotel California
but it's bad enough to have that song
pinking up the whole trip with its iced Champagne*
(which probably isn't)
as I book a room at Super 8

because 8 is a zen number and 80
miles an hour is fast enough for a driver
and high enough for a room
and long enough to get to know
somebody--as least as much as
water weight.


*Champagne reference is not anything to do with our lovely Forum member, but to this.
 
Week 4, Poem 4

Summer's Crescent

Cantaloupe's honey rises,
round and cool in your palms.
So do you drink,
even on a carpet of pollen,
against the tunes of sweat bees?
Sink lips to the center of its sugar
and shrug off as jealousy
the smirks at your wet cheeks?
 
1

Limited I shape your silhouette,
and this text can sit for days,
in the point of view pursuit,
word processing by diction,
or dictation of which suit,
which suit would fit which tie,
under your jurisprudent eye,
I slink by metaphors from poems,
lines from poets you've never read,
and draw each new trace of melody,
from secrets you once locked away,
away from me, in your head.
 
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Summer's Crescent

Cantaloupe's honey rises,
round and cool in your palms.
So do you drink,
even on a carpet of pollen,
against the tunes of sweat bees?
Sink lips to the center of its sugar
and shrug off as jealousy
the smirks at your wet cheeks?


Your saliva is cool
and sticky on my chin,
like watermelon
seeds in
 
2

Your tongue bitter
than any strawberry
ever had,
your tongue whisper
quiet any run river
or falling waterway,
I woolgather.

I dreamt a day
you were a tongue
I bitter,
like your berry
strewn with seed,
I cross your berry,
a prayer!
 
She left the table,
smiling her excuse,
leaving me with the thought
she would be right back.

Only a lucky glance
let me catch her leaving.
I have no problem with the check,
I have a problem with no goodbye.

I’ve enjoyed our habit,
intimate dinner for two.
She left this one barely touched,
just a bite and regretful sip of wine.

I suppose I could call,
demand an explanation.
Except I feel I have no right
to make demands.

So I’ll drink my wine,
finish my tasteless meal,
pay my bill.
Dessert I think I’ll pass on.
 
Sometimes I feel my age. Other times I don't.



If only one could know
could know the thoughts
of that gentleman sitting in the park
wearing time,
lots of time,
upon his careworn face.
years have taught him to hide
emotions from his expression,
but eyes still light with appreciation
at curves
lithe curves of a younger woman.
Age has not dampened his desire
for women,
for the woman
he calls his.
He offers her his appreciation,
she replies with moans and sighs.
 
speaking in tongues



So is it the clever tongue
that seeks to offer
sublime erotic thoughts
within innocent comment?

Or is it more
the clever use
that tantalizes and torments
along erogenous curves?

Perhaps she should not have to choose.
But instead be inflicted
by kisses dancing along her neck
and whispers telling of what is yet to come.
 
Week 4, Poem 5

We, truants on the roof
of my mother's house, lay on a beach
towel, arranged our bodies in pictographs
for the hot air balloonists
who waved from their basket,
pretended we were the ones moving,
rolled up our shorts, and made up stories
for each other's scars. I am compelled,
you said, to tell you the story,
as your finger traced the bite
of grandfather's razor,
of rising up, knife kick,
and your finger rose
to the roll as we lay
together on a flying carpet.
 
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3

The Ark
(with tongue-in-cheek use of 'baby')

There is no end where we begin
our sin is unremitting,
from the bud in which you arose
to the ark that protects and drowns out
the clamor from the flood,

You’re the same as you were back when
we were heavy and ignorant, baby
no cradlesong could make you behave,
because the end of the poem
ends in the grave
 
4

Making a pact with the Devil
I spilt your four letters,
your name, my love
falls from the doors of my mouth,
your tetragrammaton signed in my blood
for all to witness,
the lamps of your eyes to guide
and the one true name...
 
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5

Ritual for the Men Away

this boat we've sent
will pitch right, then left
for sailors soon bereft,
when the girl we harbor
hasn't the ardor,
to quite keep her silly head,
so as to confess,
she ties a little knot,
for each boy she's ever loved,
and her string's so short
it could be, she's only loved me,
and I wish it was--
that she'd only love me!
 
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Week 4, Poem 6

baby i love you like a fax/copy/printer
until the ink runs
out or until the usb port is damaged
or until the porn you downloaded
infects the system

baby i love you slow like the wink
in metropolis that never
opened even during the closeup dissolve
reminiscent of a dolly, yes a dolly
with rollup eyes

i'm told in califor
nia they all have roll up eyes
but I'm sure that's not true, just the fog
rising as the bars close down
at two
 
baby i love you like a fax/copy/printer
until the ink runs
out or until the usb port is damaged
or until the porn you downloaded
infects the system

baby i love you slow like the wink
in metropolis that never
opened even during the closeup dissolve
reminiscent of a dolly, yes a dolly
with rollup eyes

i'm told in califor
nia they all have roll up eyes
but I'm sure that's not true, just the fog
rising as the bars close down
at two
PG: This rocks from line one and each strophe just gets better. I loved the break on califor/nia.

I'd ask you to marry me, but I have previous commitments. ;)

Well, well done.
 
Shoot the boy,
shoot the boy.
She doesn't need to say hello,
hello
with such a smile,
warm smile.
Allure on demand,
as if he needed much.
Needed much to come on to.
 
baby i love you like a fax/copy/printer
until the ink runs
out or until the usb port is damaged
or until the porn you downloaded
infects the system

I like this so much I wanna parody.


Baby, I need you like a hammer
needs a firing pin, or until
you let me undress that hot bod,
undress you down from breech to muzzle,
and make you feel my jag and rod

Baby, I wanna craddle you like a bolt in carrier,
grease you up and address you
with charging handle to boot, though
sometimes I need to get a little rough,
sometimes it's all: Slap, Pull, Observe
'til Release, Tap, Shoot
 
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Week 4, Poem 7

Thank you Tzara. :rose: It made my day to hear you'd liked it.

Fool and Empd, all I can say is happy curled toes. Yowza. Mighty effective use of capitalization, Mr. 607. And bflagsst, your run has been inspiring.

Madame Tasha and her girls will solve
most problems for $300 installments,
with hot wax and lasers, tightening,
tanning, pulling the hair in strips
from absolutely anywhere, smooth
as the skin of a new cucumber under
its shady leaf. Armies of pedicures
lift disposable-flip-flopped feet
while the charge machine sings
credit card confirmation welcome songs
and 20-year-old Russian girls promise
you can be young forever or until
the card is declined.
 
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6- Wonderful, Fabulous, Boring, Love

Tonight, we'll sit side by side,
watch television, let life pass us by

Tomorrow night, we'll wait in line
catch a corny movie, and find
new ways to waste our time

In between, we'll sit outside
you'll ask me if my love is true,
I'll read what your t-shirt says:
"My heart beats just for you!"
 
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7- Modern Folk Remedy

if you tattoo the baby
her bones won't grow
they said, if you take her
to the chiropractor
he'll crack her back,
for the fact that
he can make you,
her mother,
apperceive the crack
 
Restart, 1 Lame Response Poem

To the poet who insinuated that Ben Folds invented music
and in the same breath asked,
"What did Tom Waits ever do?"

1,000,000 B.C.E.:
Ben Folds pounds out "Rockin' the Suburbs" on a log, with a stone...



and Tom Waits is listening at tide pools, again.
The sigh and whisper of bacteria slithering,
amoeba tickling his fingertips like a premonition of ivory.

Ben has finally figured out four-four time and Tom is waiting
around for people to whom he can lie.
He's got a green jacket and Danger-
High-Voltage triple-nickel-plated penny-loafers.
He's cave-painting Bel-Aires and saxophones on rock walls in Gaul.
He's writing his own history.


2700 B.C.E.:
When Enkidu the wild man comes into the city
of Uruk and befriends Gilgamesh,
Tom Waits lays down twelve tracks,
wet brushing into clay tablets a prophecy
about Floodwater and Gene Krupa
and all the foolishness we pursue for the sake of the moon.

Ben Folds sleeps in the frozen North, still desperate
for a story worth telling.

24 A.D.:
Tom Waits learns carpentry from the first incarnation of Mississippi John Hurt,
while Ben Folds bangs out shoes for Roman horses.

68 A.D.:
Ben's trying to write songs about salt mines and senators.
Tom's been teaching the lyre to Roman children for years,
and in proper stage-costume, sings "The Sack of Ilium"
with his wine-hand twined in Nero's crooked arm.

Although there were actually no fiddles in ancient Rome,
if you were to reach between Tom's index and pointer fingers,
you'd feel the hum of a Theramin vibrating in your molars, while flames
burned like Halloween through all Rome's boulevards.

400 A.D.:
Tom Waits lends his face to statues on Rapa Nui.
Ben Folds, by all accounts, was either trying
to convince Athenians that he built the original model
for the Acropolis, or selling Carthaginian state secrets
to the highest bidder.

1700 A.D.:
Tom lays a harp on its side and beats its strings with drumsticks.
Jellyroll Morton's Great-great-great-great-great-great-
step-cousin (9 times removed), Bartolomeo Cristofori
stands slack-jawed and awed as Muriel's Waltz takes his ears
for a spin. With a grin stitched to his metronome,
he goes home and invents the Fortepiano.

Ben Folds is still playing
the same
fucking
song.
 
1

Blonde strands on white cotton,
no more sea-foam sheen,
nor drying sea salt,
to rub her cheeks,
a mien rosy red.

Let her remain at peace,
in sleepy slumber,
-pretty Lora's head rests
prettily on her pillow,
her soft warm pillow.

I'll lift her wings,
I'll blow her billow,
so her light wings will lift!

Jack's a thrifty fellow,
a bricoleur,
he'd cobble together wings
from the bits of her dreams,
in canary yellow feathers,
to float his citrine gem.
 
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