007 Challenge

Agreed. I liked the runner, too. I could see that one pretty clearly.

:D Thankyou. This is a great idea to get people writing.

I've liked your poems, RBS, especially this last one. Welcome to the Poetry Forum.

Thankyou <3 I feel a little rusty since it's been years since I last wrote a poem, but it's good to start again.

004

In my cocoon, there is quiet-
The buzzing cars and bright lights are mute,
Nothing bright or hard can hurt me here.
I stretch endlessly in darkness,
Unaware of passing time and days
It was easy to escape, my phone doesn't ring,
-I've pushed away my friends and lovers-
No contact, just sleep.
Slowly rotting flesh
Unmovable, untouchable,
Metamorphosis in isolation.
Will I be a butterfly
Or Kafka's creation?
 
005 Cherry

This is an old one

Cherry

Your perfume curls toxic tendrils,
A whore's excuse for cherry sweet,
Wish and pray my angel, you're my Lilith and deceit,
In your red dress, make god and the devil look incomplete,
On your knees you pray for a nightmare to fill your loneliness,
And I'll be there, between your thighs,
No such thing as love, only lies, and what a lie, the best lie,
You're such a delicate thing, made to be broken thing,
Take my sins, make them you, purity is outdated, and so are you.
You fight to imagine you're a butterfly delicate,
So I'll rip off your wings, fashion them for sale,
You're just a game to him like you're a game to me,
Green eyes made emerald cold shimmer, so you're falling for me, with me,
Your lips taste of powdered dreams, bitter chemical promise,
Rip and tear your silken skin while you can, the sensation won't last,
My little angel, my little goddess, you're less than human,
Your lips so cherry sweet
 
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006

Whoops. Almost going to miss the seven day mark.


Collision


Time collides, your story into mine; the river's taken it away,
That place where we used to play, my escape, the tormented little river.
Week by week and day by day they ripped apart this place, picking ever still,
'Til we're whittled into pegs, and we'll be docile as we fall.
Fall into the abyss of a picket fenced home, you with wife and me as pet,
Don't forget me as she walks down the aisle all in white, I'll be in black,
Waiting in the recesses of your mind, the girl without a veil.
Promise me and promise real, I'll always be your angel on the bridge,
Suspended in air, waiting for the crash, the water's cold,
And time will only hold my hand for so long.
A baby's crying and it's not my own, stranger in my stranger home,
It wants milk, it wants a woman made of soft,
My thoughts float of you, wife in white with baby too.
Our little river's drowned; we'll be docile as we fall.
 
007

Pleasure Transformed into a Woman


Naked she sits upon a pedestal, the rain cuts daggers of cold
Like a cigarette she's been smoked and discarded,
Cruelty of a woman, beautiful in her transgressions;
The funeral pyres' smoke behind her breathes waltzes of her past,
The revelers dance and celebrate the three-beat rhythm
Bitter chemical promise, oxytocin, depression-
And she would dance too, if the chains didn't cut so tight
There aren't many positions to stand in for perfection.
But now she's for sale, made into pretty pill forms,
Pink and powdery, accessible by night,
They want more.
She sheds and spirals, twisting dance of sex and promise,
Never enough, spread her open, let her mysteries be made for more sale,
The rain pours down on naked flesh, desperate hands seek to stretch her silk,
Taste her youth, devour her hopeful purity
She smells of cherries and semen.
Don't pity her, she needs it,
Don't hate her, she loves it,

Her mind whispers she's eternal from their adoration,
But they'll never stop tearing.
When she's bone,
When she's ash,
Another one stands in line.
 
Ya'll jump in. The water's fine.

001

Shed your adverbs. Trophies. The Angels
padding your shoulders. Slip like a razor
into the water and hold your breath
if you have to until you remember you are stainless.
Water cannot hurt you. In fact, you can even
pray for rain. There is no consequence. Only
reward. Plunge
chin deep and cut across to the trees
on the other side. On that bank you will find
a suitcase and pair of clean panties (optional).
Your mission: climb the tallest tree. Look steadily
and do not flinch from anything in the family
of honesty. Eat coconuts as necessary. Then
report back. Yours are the only eyes that see
your visions. Yours are the only words
that speak your voice. Yours are the only fingers
painting the colors you alone have mixed.
This mission is not about ego but duty.
Deliver your travelguide to the Universe.
This is your only job.
 
1

Note to Teacher

I wish your stomach was not so flat,
your thighs so slim,
because you shouldn’t believe

it’s just your body
that pulls me like gravity
toward the center of your being.

That you can talk
a whole list of adverbs—
sillily, cattily, snarkily, intelligently—

does not make you Miss Modifier 2012,
though you do look good
in a swimsuit

and those grammar police eyeglasses.
I’d sure make sure I knew
my who from whom

if you would but grace me
with detention, where I would carefully write
in repetitively, perfect cursive: I love you.
 
2

After the Poetry Reading

when I asked, May I escort you home?
my insides went tight
as that verb, my hands curled
in on themselves, because you belong
to another.

He loves you, so
I can only drive my nails
deep into my palms

in the hope that this new flowing blood
can remind me
there is someone.
 
RBS, I meant to tell you good run. I was really moved by this in #6
It wants milk, it wants a woman made of soft,
My thoughts float of you, wife in white with baby too.
Our little river's drowned; we'll be docile as we fall.

and #7 was quite thematically interesting. I hope you keep participating in these challenges.

Lubricant, you rock. Wonderful to read your poems so far and look forward to more. Your first could spark market demand for reading glasses!
 
Where verbs are plural
and bodies remain underground
I will step into this box and
make a call.

Drop a dime on myself as I've heard say.

We were talking and behind you
the moon was rising like a
bus on fire. I made a slashing motion
to get your attention and, well...
keep the balance.

The moon was bent on success.
The moon is a thumbprint that
smacks of bourbon.
The moon knows it rings hollow.
The moon is the sound of a kitchen drawer
slamming shut.
 
3

Alacrity

At a time I had more hair
I would have loved to meet you
in a sidewalk café

on some backstreet in Venice,
sip a Marocchino
and talk about your day

winding about the city.
But I have aged, and like wine
have but few years

where I am anything like drinkable.
If I now hasten you to bed, it’s because
every vintage has its time.
 
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002

everywhere I cannot see is wonder
around the corner
downtrack or rooted
deep in waking beds where earth
worms shit magic

even in the dark round
larynx of the tunnel
when I align myself
deeply within its blackness
I hear lips open and suddenly
Stevie Wonder is everywhere
 
4

alla puttanesca

you are not a whore, just tasty
laid

sprawled in a bowl,
loose and open,

coiled like a rope
I can, at will, knot

or simply twirl on my leisured fork
like al dente pasta
 
1. Covet the Night

Sundown made the sky bleed
onto the sand stone. We drank Chianti
from each others mouths, igniting
redder and hotter than Moab at night.
Though this very morning ash smolders,
with it's wispy smoke lingering
like lust and I still say you led me on.

.
 
5

untitled

It is not (or, to be fair,
just not) your legs, your hips, your breasts.
It is how your face opens
when you meet me—sunny, sweet
as a fresh orange, skin damp
with pleasure. How could I not
want the nourishment of your flesh,
not couple with such happy need?
 
003

Ophelia Graduates Rutgers

Blue nail polish smacks
our eyes and nose until
watery. The glint
of it off the water
below (did I mention
we were crossing
the Raritan?) cheers
even the drowning,
debt tugging the crimson
satin of their robes
even as they leap to throw
up their hats.
 
004

night's fingers slip
deeper into this tall
room tall enough to
stand tall enough to reach
even with my thighs
hot on your shoulders
my toes curled into
your chest

reach and not touch merely
stretch for the pleasure
of shadow for the sweet
exasperation of hope
but because the room
was tall and the night
was sweet and we
can only answer in whispers
 
005

Maybe it is not wise to live
in a room of mercury. Better
keep that glint at the edges
than to run dry adrenaline until
nerves singe numb against the buzz.

Even so resist the temptation
to seal yourself off from
the noise of the sun
entirely. Some best minutes flash
still from the bumps you gave back
when the whole world shoved.
 
2. Caduceus in a Box

Years of studying anatomy,
physiology and pharmacology,
all to earn a pin which old fingers
trembled, failed to attach to a lapel.
But it mattered not; she saw
a dream realized.

Then like all good nights, they end.
The sun comes up and we wake.

Years of pain, grief and more tears than
I could count; it was her hand in mine
as a heart stopped, I gave in
and it mattered. The pin sits in a box
with ashes where I found
the dream was hers not mine.
.
 
6

Dust Devil

I want to bend you like an isobar
written over a certain county,
wind up my cyclonic
winds

and just leave your district devasted,
though only in metaphor.

I do not register on the Fujita scale
as lover, as hurricane,
even as irritant. Yet I

swirl about you, still. Whoosh.
Whoosh.
 
I Will Not Be Sad in this World.

To the dead, I claim
All we owe is our honesty.
To the empty oars I can still
feel your pull.

This rimless plain
my body registers
a small wet stone in my chest.
The ice cracks.

A few passing clouds over this Rest Area
on the interstate. A family stands in front of
the Coke machine.
Wanting what it will dispel.

I sit at a blank picnic table
stub out a cigarette.
Gather, pull back into traffic.
 
7

Torn Bedsheets

How can one be capable
of such destruction? The winds
were gentle at first, building

force from the heated earth
until they began to spin us out and out
into a whirl of depravity.

In the center of the storm, tenderness
suddenly passed over our bodies
but it was a false blessing,

for the trailing winds were worse
and finally nothing was left of that love
but an empty, tousled bed.
 
006

Twenty Sided Die

some must be sucked
into the mud or eaten as hatchlings
or jump off a bridge high on Adderol

the earth cannot sustain us
not all until we leave this place
go forth in our oarless boats pregnant

with our destruction and our want
with our cubes of argument
with our scrubbed off hair

with our curious fingers and wet eyes
with our prayer books and porno
with our cups of sadness

cups of that mud beside some
seeds to carry to some
celestial womb
 
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