a few of mine, diversity and regrets included

butters said:

coffee and blinking lights
how the brain does work
hanging half in shadow
looking for dawn
eyes focused on some low star

Click to expand...

corndog_ said:

Perfectly describes my writing style!

Click to expand...

butters said:

nice to see you posting, dawg

Click to expand...

corndog_ said:

I think it is nice to see you, too, but my screen keeps steaming up over your avatar.

Click to expand...

butters said:

try blowing on it

Click to expand...

corndog_ said:

I wouldn't touch that joke with a 10 inch pole.

Click to expand...

butters said:

here you go, bflagsst, a few either already published or aired online. I've a fair amount of newer material but am considering where to sub or if even to sub at all.

a smallish one:

and still i stare

her hands, her dress, her hair
all fail
to tear my gaze aside

from eyes
whose sadness is a shockwave
breaking over me

they say she's crazy




the somewhere other-looking boy

with filthy hair and mis-matched shoes
eyes soft-focus dreaming blues
this boy is somewhere other-looking

with the mind of a child
and the body of a man
he only knows pleasure
in the palm of his hand
he walks like a sleeper
a smile coasts his lips
and he's treading on water -
a silence in his fingertips

(published in Cold Eels about 4 years back)



wintered

still waiting for the snow to start to fall
you'll miss the bluebells' haze on woodland floor
the sigh of summer breeze across the waves
and let me tell you, watcher, what is more
you'll miss the cider-light of autumn days
their crisper air and sensual delights
their tart perfume and subtle, russet glaze -
you'll miss them, craving only winter's ice



andthen there's this one from approx 6 years back I think, published in Epiphanies and Other Asurdities. Sigh. While I am still fond of it for various reasons, there are changes I would have made looking back at it.

and you and you and you


too soon, too soon, the eagle flew
while you were busy drawing down
the moon into those icy hands,
purchasing one-eyed wisdom
to crowd your poppied mind
until you could no longer stand
but gently tumbled tousled thoughts
to fall asleep in twilight lands,
asleep in the laps of legends.

and, as you dreamt, a river of woe
washed over you and carried you down
to those blasted banks, where the rocking stone
could be toppled by the gentlest touch;
you stroked the smooth-skinned serpent's egg
and, though asleep, you cried real tears
for emotions that somehow eluded you
and for the names of the faces
you seemed to remember
with a distant and palsied anxiety.

and you dreamt you wrote a mystic piece
where vague and shuffling demons danced;
where Odin cast aside his mask
and settled on your shoulders, round
a mammoth task:
a burden irredeemable - a lance;
a lance to bear in diamond jousts,
advancing through the teeth of fear
to seize that chance to win the soured prize.

Methusulah, with his long grey beard
whispered in your sleeping ear
of fools and wise men, sons and daughters
the Devil's love for holy water
of a single, human footprint in the sand;
of the perils of duplicity
the rigours of respectibility
of such passions as can tear apart a man.

and on the sharp infliction of
such sorrows' textured wounds, you woke
with knotted hair and eyes still chasing phantoms;
and even though the darkstream coursed
still dully in your veins, you spoke
of fields of blood and lonely Death's cold tantrums;
and lifelong cravings threatening to choke ...
to strain and break the slenderest of throats.

with that distempered mind you reached
for lightless needles littering the floor;
and, as a stray dog to its vomit, warm,
to poisoned dreams did you return, once more.

Click to expand...

Henchman999 said:

***
'and you' poem

Subject/theme warranted pulling out all stops to set
a form that historically invites and complicates elevation
above (far above) the ordinary open-form poem. This
poem plays to the popular grain and appeals to an at-
least temporary adjustment of mind-set (cognitive poetic)
to read as a deliberate counter-move and variation on
outworn romanticism. This, by a determined avoidance
of cliche and by a more assured use of fresh idioms.

This poem, generous to perfection, allows the poet to
stay out of the way. Poets too often get in the way and
mess their own nest by lingering.

me

Click to expand...