30 Poems in 30 Days

2:3 Dragon's Breath

Like shards of ice,
I swallowed it,
throat twist
and burning pit.

Now I am the treasure.

A dragon's breath
guards with envy,
stiff as gold
and just as heavy.

14-29

i think she reads me
whether i link her, or not
searching out some meaning
get a feel for a feeling
one day its clear and real
the next fleeting
i manage, i always manage
to recall lessons of a
hard-edge perspective,
lessons from a queen,
always keep those moments
that seemed i was a king.

Dr.M. I-14 A Rose of Water in the Sea

I-14 A Rose of Water in the Sea

Flare found a mist of softly air above a rose there
Air born at night remind a heart often repair lives
Isn't it so whatever is never unseen was
Until you're not neither will I because we won't then

There wasn't green all round you red above us violet
Shot golden lace revealing thighs vermilion splendor
Hugged held divine washed licking drown devoured down kiss
Upthrusting heave down hammer plunge together crash blaze

Out till you dark me in you fast close round me spirit
Lost in this place shut of my face and seeing nowhere
Outreaching hand child in the sand, child in the darkness
Was home again was over run would study fainting

Loved down is sand up rooting moon tree dancing north star
One girl one eye lens knife sublime ape climbing tower
One arm one torch reach high as God plunge low as devil
Say all out loud. Cry as you shout. Speak on the level.

14

...

There was a time when my walls were black,
when the ceiling and the floor were black too,
when I knew I was outside, and yet
walked as if I had pulled the black wrap tight

around me, closing gaps so that no other colour
could seep in without warning,
without having first donned the black
requirement for fasting through funerals.

It wasn't that I looked good in black,
or that I knew how to loosen the tight hold
my bony fingers had on the dark walls,
it wasn't that I died and buried myself

underground where no light could ever betray me
again. I didn't want death,
had no concept of its permanent end.
It was simply that I was blind to life.

4

Duel

When he woke, he noticed
his heart had moved two
paces, slipping like a badly
fitted glove. Feeling its empty
cavity, he heard its echo;
a loud thump-thump daring
him to enter, to take its place.

14-30

malice projected
inward, the protection
by layers of blackened
rejection is scratched away;
the oils from human skin
eats at me, slow-like
like two hundred year old paint
it takes
quite a lot of touches to make
a bare spot in
the middle of cezanne
especially when
each touch is so slight
they add up, over time
what's left are byways of
fingerprints
but really,
its renewal
modifying old art
to fit these guessable times.

15

...

The church was fired
and I wondered if the flames
burnt unanswered prayers.

Smoke and tears lifted up
as if they expected God
to take heed anyway,

to answer each appeal
though it be about themselves
and not others. I was foolish

to think He would not answer mine
and so learned the art
of not asking for help, the art
of not leaning,
the art of unbelief.

Dr.M. I-15

I-15

Here, where the books all holy sit and me
Feet up, watching asses and tits, lure of the world
Don't think in terms of damnation or salvation
Just girls going by
Surely the Divine Light of Emanations, Infinities of Creations
Have echoed these, will echo these, am echoing these
Very thoughts now through the infinities of cosmological confusions
Where everything is happening at once,
Somewhere
And these rude thoughts won't be ignored.
They're heartfelt.
They're pure in their honest sweat of desire
They set infinity's gongs to ringing
They must be heard.
Because infinity's like that. It has to be. It's even
Big enough for God.
Big enough for
Me as a woman married to You as a lady cop—in Monkeyland
Monkeyland Mabeusian Lesbian Cops
That's how big Infinity is
So big the worst TV show you could ever think of
Somewhere
Is a hit
And so Big
That maybe here
In this library
I can look at women and read about God
And be blessed and blessed
In both realms
Of the Holy
Amen and Amen

5

Smoke

The cigarettes' smoky
sigh flooded your lungs.
Desperate to extinguish
its murk, you gnawed
away in a fan of palms.

But it stayed, clamping
onto the tissue until
you knelt and gave up.
Listening to your tears
did nothing, the final

flash of the lighter
burning them up like paper.

16


Progress

They have re-invented the side street,
a walk way with fancy cobbles
and great steel structures
that grow out of the ground
and look like brown tusks.

They will kill off the shops,
relinquish the hold of history -

the barber shop
where life stories were snipped
away like split hairs,

the hardware, that sold the handyman
his do-it-yourself tools with free advice
on how to mitre corners
and fix the world's woes
without the use of cross hairs -

and then draw it back in pavement art,
fancy lines depicting the vineyards,
the pioneers, the people

who crowd and no longer know
their neighbours. We wonder
if it will be a white elephant,
a graveyard of broken bones,
this new look street,

if we have a chance at old age,
or if we will be re-vamped too.

Dr.M. I-16 The El

I-16 The El


I work through the shadowed station
Neath the roar Behemoth— ignore
Up straight steel stairs, jog, jog,
Through the turnstile slicer
And over & in & out &
Across the warped ancient boards beside the track.
Where pigeons bop, hobble over
crippled seeming cobbled traffic honk sounds
garbage can strewn bus fume
To the east, the light, the Lake, Sky—storm clouds
The West, great high shot canyons of Superego building
Dash the sky into shards
And here it comes, here it comes!
Silver dragon name emblazoned come crawling around the Loop curve
Swerve brakes squealiong, sparks, lazy urbanity, kids hanging, doors open
Hiss rush, step, climb on. door close, lurch, jerk, offtake, roll and grumble
Headed north
Headed north now
Headed north
Lakeview Uptown and the joys of Chinatown North
And big bowls of steaming Noodles under the
September sun and
Hot pork buns
And scalding hot tea and
Cold beer and poetry
Romance maybe for me
And what else could you want
What else could you want
What else could you possibly want?
What the El's brought to me here
What the El's brought you to me
What the El's brought me to you
What the El.

6

Doctor

Perhaps you were a cartographer
in a previous life; evident
by the way your fingers trace
lines of pulses along sheets
of skin, stopping to examine

a bump or mound. Coming
across an imperfection,
you erase it. Clearing the dust
from your pencil mark
leaves no trace of where you

had been. Only the stethoscope
knows; its round skull a watchman
to where you once rummaged,
discovering only the ends
of the known earth.

Dr.M. I-16 Keys to the Drawer of My Heart

I-16 The Keys to the Drawers of My Heart

Here are the keys to the drawers of my heart:

(1) Ease
(2) The Moon, with clouds, almost always
(3) Shadowed colonnades
(4) Sexual tangos, an occasional waltz
(5) Mystery (when confused I ejaculate in copious, satisfying gouts)
(6) Touching, that you have skin, that you end and you begin
(7) Paintings of deceased Presidents in front of jungles with flying saucers
(8) Words like shovels that dig foundations, said all night without even realizing it
(9) The back of her neck—its humble submission breaks my heart, like a peach clenched between incisors
(10) A woman like an ocean, to swim in, get lost in, be frightened of, be buoyed up in, knocked down by, explore, lead to more poems, more lists, more life, more drowning in the adamanthine sea divine oh fishes oh piscus vaginatus oh
(10.5) fish chow
(11) How love tastes, her words—bite them as they come out of her mouth
(12) Lists of erotic scenarios scrupulously kept in bound notebooks, labeled, dated, signed, checked, discussed. Tell her she's done them wrong. Make her cry, you turd.
(13) Mirrors held underwater until they smoke and burn your face
(14) Women who are confused, who are bad lovers, who cry and despise themselves. I do too.
(15) Women who don't make sense. I hate sense.
(16) Drawers which are sealed, due to infinities of drawers waiting to be opened, examined, picked over, rifled through, dumped, vandalized, searched through, exploited, spit into, have pancake batter poured into, beshat, befouled, besmirched, etc. etc. and anon.
(17) Getting up and going
(18) (to be continued on separate planet...)

17


Revisited by Khan - Golden Retriever

You were here this morning,
a memory,
my hand tickling your chin
your brown eyes looking into mine
expectant, though not yet knowing
how the pain would be freed
from your sore and swollen body.

I held you at the end,
while the drug worked its way
through your vein,
while your eyes glazed
and closed.

I could not hear your last breath,
did not see your last shudder.

I felt again this morning, the full weight
of your release
as you left to walk
Summer pastures, pain free.

7

This Unscripted Love

Her body charges atoms,
bends typewriter heads, sunflower
stalks, strips antique bathtubs
of their enamel, rewrites laws
of physics, dilates the pupils
of every cat (but not dog)
she comes across, makes
skyscrapers do the tango,
releases clouds from their silos
and makes my brain go haywire;
my love swinging like a needle
caught in a magnet, unscripted.

18

The Men


It wasn't as though they were placed there
just for my own pleasure, though I own
the joy of eating with eyes

seemed to fill my belly
and weld my mind
to the way they walked,

that look they lengthened
long enough to make sure I noticed,

the occasional accidental touch
on the shoulder,
the back of the neck.

Teen angst played a part
in acceptance of their word,
that and the budding realisation
of power.

Dr.M. I-17

I-17 Incident

Lying close on the dream of your tenderness
Half asleep and in that state where dreams
Know what's real, makes desire a drug thick like blood
That filled us and fused us so skin didn't exist and
Your breast was transparent, my hand touched right through
To your heart
And stayed
As simple as sunlight streaming in dream-filled rooms, beds
Pillows, warmth, useless lips, bodies, all vanished
And truth to true I was touching nothing yet touching you and myself as well
There was no separation, there was sunlight on one of us
Just hand and breast, then surge of ecstasy unsuspected, shocking,
Almost cruel, the pleasure that brought the climax
That to ourselves quickly returned us
And brought that moment
Wherein we lived
So rudely
To an end

8

All These Small Things

Her feet were still in their cast,
setting like jelly. Eyes rolled
in aspic. Lips mouthed names
of former lovers. Her hands
were stuffed in the drawers
of his desk, stripped of fingertips
and palms. 'They're dangerous',
he would tell the police later,
'they can still speak when dead'

Dr.M. I-18 Rainy Night

I-18

Rainy night, black streets, Chicago,
Shiny slash of wet tire
Neon coming on prairie wind
Strange to think my heart needs an umbrella
That joys need be covered to be picked up from the ground
That I need someone's protection
To be bundled safe from the dark
When the night rains come down.

When the leaves hang like things left unsaid
And the poem's not hard to write
Not as hard as knowing it won't be read
Nor is the sound of one hand clapping hard to do
It's easier to bear than the echoes caused by two

It’s the depth of the reflection in the rainy streets I like
How it doubles everything and makes it rich, gives me another world
A life underground, smeared, bright, drunk, and forgiving
Where I might melt in a beauteous dream and do my real living
With the ghosts of things that knew me once up there
The neon signs the color of my wants and quaint despairs
No more complicated than that.

I want to be with you bone on bone
I want to be with you, your teeth in my mouth
I want my soul washed clean in the liquid of your eyes
My life redeemed by the desperation in your smile

This rainy night is sucking me down
In the reflection of streetlights on a wet corner
I founder and drown

19

...

For what it's worth, there are the risk takers,
bikers who ride their wheels
between rolling lanes of traffic,
gamblers who bet their last dollar
on the turn of a painted piece of card,

those who know well the vast choice
between good and bad,
excitement and steady,
safety and risk.

And then there are those who play it safe,
who hide behind the cake of makeup,
behind the solidity of walls,
and the security of rings,
those who have forgotten
that sometimes risks pay off.

9

New Mexico

It's Labor Day in New Mexico.
Women are waiting for the bus
to leave, discarding their thoughts
like gum. They crackle in the heat.
Clouds are snagged on the roof
as the bus slowly hee-haws
along the freeway. Yucca watch.
Watches chase herds of imaginary
cows, seconds rounding up lassos.
At Albuquerque, a gecko is found
clinging to the buses' belly, spread
out like a starfish. The passengers
secrets cling onto their hosts,
almost anticipating to fall.

20.

...

Out of a crippled city
comes strength,
the ability to rebuild
buildings and lives
around debris and death.

Strength and pride
in a land skinned
of both,
a land that struggled
to soak up the depth
of chaos that had rooted
its evil in their lives.

Six years on
there remains a gap
between buildings,
a memorial for people
and a way of life
that was paused.

Six years on
they have grown again,
to carry the flag higher
and straighter than ever before.

Dr.M. I-19 Tango a la Porn

I-19 Tango a la Pornographer


The shy pornographer he sits like a mantis he's
Splayed above the sheets of wan desire
Purveyor of want, Doyen of lonely fantasies
Plucks from his memories ancient fires.

Words he caresses in the liquid of his tongue
And spits them oozing on his palm
Arranges them to form the juncture of a cunt
Lovingly adds viscosity to his come.

Oh how the words devour, they sing, they make him soar
They dance with him and call his name
They take him to bed because the words know he's their whore
They take his ass, he loves the shame.

Ah sweet pornographer, your work, how it enchants
It makes us ache for life's truths revealed
It makes us stumble with our hand stuck down our pants
The only truth we know, concealed.

I pray one day I'll write the story oh so slick
'twill be the crown upon my art
And unlike the forty-four Double D or fourteen-inched dick
'twill fill the emptiness in my heart.

10

Timeless

Mother checks her reflection
in the bathroom mirror,
wandering why she isn't ageing.
After all, the outside world
is wrinkling. She checks her face,
pushing back cheeks and under
her eyes. They say nothing.
The kettle in the kitchen boils,
sheds another layer of skin.
Mother's bone sigh. Perhaps
she will wake up one day
and wonder why everything
is so young. But that is not now,
not right now.

21

Song of the Sea

The westerly wind is the wind blown off the sea,
blown through the pine forest,
blown over the rolling farmland, hauling
the sea smell in.

The easterly is tropical, warm
carrying the arms of the city,
the waiata of the Pacific
across the green
to the Tasman,
following the route
of the bio-optic cable,
up and down dale.

The southerly brings ice
from Antartica,
drops it low on land
where winter lambs huddle
and farmers swear in
spring, for the brighter falls of rain
that nourish new grass
and add bounce to the step
of their field-browned boots.

No northerly blows here,
there is no trawling the equator close,
no smell of land to lock us in.
Here we live with the water,
the dominant wind
and humidity. Here,
we live with the sea
and the westerly.


(still working on this)
nb 'waiata' is the maori word for song.