007 Challenge

[tongueslip]

found origami

gold rolled over the middle
promises it will fill out

a promise is half empty
or half full depending entirely on thumbs

even if the hands fold
sleeping over comforter or cat

simultaneously in the cotton jitter of dream
her thumbs crease degrees precisely

aligned with all useful planets

1000 cranes are only prologue

[Micahb2]

These things fire back.
I can hear your bare feet
on the exposed floor.
The phone is ringing us up.
I won't dismiss any more calls,
or, let you take them.

It was late when I finally
Crushed the light in all the lanterns.
All the ones that lined the river.
I can hear these words.

Look for me.
I will be singing
out loud
to a lake
and its mirrored world.

[Micahb2]

Far Ticonderoga

The isle and the islets
were a chain you
wore around your
sand-caked waist.

I was terminal
waving a ticket in the air
Shouting.

Months later,
in plaid,
I stirred some eggs
in an iron skillet.

I draw breath now.
Keep my hands close.
Tiny darts at the corners
of my eyes.

[Cholla]

Empty pages
Broken pencils
Unfinished songs
And Memories on repeat

[Cholla]

My heart slowly hums to the melodies of lotus petals

Paper angels carry my crippled hopes and leave me promises

The lyric of sweet sorrow floods the meadows of my tired mind

And the memories of sadness dissolve into pools and streams of incomplete thoughts

In this moment, I pray my dreams and needles remain unbroken

[tongueslip]

still the shadow of her hair
grazes his knee
ghostlimb

as if ignoring the cut
will make them both twenty
and her fertile

egg unbroken and the needle
cleanly stroking vinyl
yet barely scratched

[tongueslip]

no blood on the snow
because the fox loped
home hungry

leaving morning this clean
sweep of slate to dance
ruby slippered

[tongueslip]

i am sorry about yr shoes
and the gum that stuck to them
sorry because public health and safety
require observance of ordinance

sorry that although the gum weren't spat
you sat in it anyway
then kicked your own ass
all the way home

where the piggy wig with the ring informed
with its knowing piggy eyes
the gum shoe so as to make us look
down at the tracks
and the sand
not yet worn diamond

clearly those grains that stuck
were long term investments
in a short term portfolio

so what remains is the question
do you have another folder
or another pair of shoes

[tongueslip]

all of our names are written in salt
which have dried grain at a time
the waters that bore them
from skin
from the cork on the bottle
from the silent tread in sand
all dry and erect
except the threatened spills of seraphs
prematurely blooming in corners

[tongueslip]

naturally the (prospective) homebuyer
notices first all entrances and exits
for people and their shit and their
various messages
endless tributaries of alerts
statuses
amounts owing I say naturally
but maybe I mean unfortunately

the homebuyer studies floorplans
envisioning beds and holidays
visiting children and children
of children in some silver future
notices the berths and angles
through which the traffic of invisible futures
will flow with attending lights
with attentive grace

rarely the homebuyer hunches
to sniff the drain tile or flake
paint from cracks spidering foundation
and still more rarely the homebuyer
knows what he's in for
but signs anyway

only because fires are lit in hearths
before the wood is carried
beyond the single wood press illusion
the real estate agent had already partly cindered

which is not to say beware
at all it is to say
simply and cheerfully
all of these fires are yours
if you will only bring an axe

[tongueslip]

cashiers paw mechanically
for shopping bags but
none rustle in the new empty
bin it is the new
open slot it is the new hollow
tube begging repurpose
in arms too full already

the next stage is bargaining
i am the perfect vessel
for any sausage even ziti

or hold me to your lips
and I will carry songs

[Micahb2]

Those gray wings
Brush them back.
They will cloud
The face.

I pulled the tackle
From the lake.

Paused.
I know more than them.

Yet, I cast.

[Micahb2]

It is a good day.
The sidewalk bounces back.
This Invisible city and
And it's stupid towers lumber.

With a flick:
What. Ever.

While you were all sleeping
I was hiding out
As a monk.
I split tails.
Carved dice out of
Your insincerity.

The flag I am flying.
The flag that burns in open air
Reaves and reaves
Leaving nothing to spare.

[Micahb2]

You

The airfield was small
Even for Iowa.
I heard the radio
Conjure.

The question in play was
"We need some keys cut and delivered"
I heard the radio, too.

That Hum was clear to me.
Static that won't set me back a step.

"I'll go."

[Desejo]

Yes, this is past due
so unlike me to be late but
my voice
my voice is
How to explain?

I dream of tapeworms choking me
I pull and pull them out
of my mouth like taffy
wind it around my hands
in great infinity signs
then scrape it off shamefully
into public waste bins

I tell no one.
Yet

People quote verses to me.
As if because a number is attached to words
they are now more meaningful
or divine, as the case may be.

It has done nothing to take away the worms.

[Micahb2]

Memory gives.
It doles and sweeps.
You will wave and ask:

"This time?"

Funny?

The band is playing and you sit.
You sit and sit.
Alright.

That sound? The kick of gravel against the cars as they peel out.

[Micahb2]

Lapse

I was nursing something cold.
Something I could bring up.
Never thought about you.

I was wrong.

Now...how easy was that?
I am talking to the driver
asking when we might arrive
He strokes that thin line of hair.

"We will not be there before 5".

I settle back, bank it in.
Worry later.

[Cholla]

Rain inside my heart
Rain outside my window
Empty pages scream
For the words to set me free

[Micahb2]

I will give it away.
One last time.
Can you see the lack of logic here?
I give you something that is endless
To someone with the same vaults.

Sure. The fog on the Downs
the birds fleeing the report
the little boy yelling out loud
in the drive.

See? What does endeavor?
What?

I will lace this all together.

[Micahb2]

Hello 2013 -

A quick note of my demands:

1. Get out of my light.
2. In this car, your seat is the luggage rack.
3. You will be left behind with the car.
4. Treat everyone you meet as if they are in the same situation.
5. Call me when you're done.

As ever,

...No.

[Micahb2]

Song

I was tapping the counter
Avoiding the mirror
behind the toaster.

I can think to myself.
I can think of something cool.
I can think we could.

Yet, I am here.
Pretending to badger,
to care
that poetry mattters.

I change and I grieve. I will say

"Ouch!"

But, you pass.

I am smart as this.
-and as heartbroken.

[PandoraGlitters]

Always prodigies are asked
"How young were you when first"
etc. And probably the answer is fudged
inches from the edge where memory
melts into carcinogen tawny bubbles
of first attempts, early failures,
derivative reductions of other
favorite efforts. We all hope we have
held out for breakfast hot burners, but mostly
are caught some crusty midnight
when heat can be measured
only by fingers grasping as if gathering
the light spilled at the edges of the coil.
Probably years ago, unremarkable jumbles of barn planks
and jam jars eventually piled into an invisible discipline:
folded maps and pointilist portraits evolved
until eventually I could read your language--
the glue marks between clippings,
the fingerprinted corner.

[Micahb2]

Tintypes and compasses flooded the foyer
As the Night kitchen staff were on break.

Yes, they were on break. I don't have any other explanation.
(The Checkout lane shrugs, the narrator invents more hints).

The residents who were coming home during the melee
Didn't notice a thing, except maybe the smoke,

The coffee rings, some solar flares, another night...
Here in the lobby on the street where you live.

[PandoraGlitters]

Fifteen stamps I will peel for publishers
who will not clear my house but possibly will
print my poem so I throw in another
couple of seconds each to imagine the taste of the old
lick-stamps before I seal the peel-flap envelope.

Fifteen little pregnancies wait for delivery.
Fifteen little cheesecakes firm up
expecting fifteen forks. Fingers drum between tasks--
fingers which pressed
which typed which fed
paper and ink to the sourpuss printer
which creased the aftermath in thirds

waltzing into each starched skirt two confessions,
two invocations, one prayer. Nimble jacks tease
the flicker off the wick, stuff the snuff
into the safekept billow under my sleeping ear. Soon
my little ducklings--we must push out from shore.

[Micahb2]

I want to make Love until the whole world jingles like a music box.
I want to tune forks and hid them in a fez.
I suggest that you should sit close to the gate.
We are all terminal.

(I grab the board and throw the outlet.)

It's one hand folding after another,
Yet, somehow, I am still here.
I am guilty of thinking I shouldn't be here.

Of course, I should be. The case is still open.
What Delves?

What curves hard on the inside?
What batter steps back and smiles?

I do. I am coming and going.
Only your tongue will tell.