30 Poems in 30 Days

[annaswirls]

don't forget to take care of Sunday
call for the muscians
call for the flowers
call for the woman who writes up the papers
minister's husband is in hospice
I take the pulpit
I say the prayers
lead lead lead the people
to casserole and carpool
and who can pick up the homeless guy
with Aspbergers and bring him to movie night
he needs a ride
we open our hymnals to number 90
the Gods have been changed to One
we sing Whitman and Emerson,
Pope and cummings and
Dickenson with piano and flute
"if I can help one fainting robin
back into his nest again"

We think
there is no nest
there is no stopping
this heart from breaking
but we sing as if we believe
that we do not live in vain

They took him into hospice
Thursday morning.
We hold our own hands.

[Selena_Kitt]

This morning he praised me
and I was swimming in
an ocean of luminous stars,
a full, glowing moon.

Tonight, teeth bared,
growling his wrath,
he whittled me down
to a sharp little sliver.

[flyguy69]

Fly 1:2

Fierce jealousy does my heart seduce
for those that on command produce
belch, vomit, poem, love
or cockeyed cake thereof.
What rudder so fickly permits
the course to wander in fits
of impulse, whim or siren
song? Mine will not listen
to the calendar's call
that I should tomorrow fall
from this petty, obstinate place
back into love, her cold embrace.

[4degrees]

intermutation
intention and conception
are half a world apart
convoluted mirror image
as seen through
glassy eyes
define a self
evidence is absolute
no hiding from a truth
castigate and leave a scar
that will look pretty
from a distance

[DeepAsleep]

Carla's wearing skirts, again
she's wearing rugburns like accessories,
getting the best of me and my
fertile, fertile imagination.

They're awful burns, so bad
she can't bend her knee more than
a few degrees.
She is walking like
she has a cob up her ass,
as the saying goes.

I don't understand the advertisement.
I think she's actually bleeding.

Carla's looking sad,
a little down at the ruffles,
oughtta buy her a beer.

PBR is hauled from the earth in buckets
only explanation for that well water taste
At least it's cheap and I can afford
to hand her a free one, from
my side of the bar.

I show her my satanic tattoo
because she's into that shit
(I think it's funny, anymore)
Inverted pentagram on my shoulderblade's
the world's most fucked up tribute to love
that never quite worked out because
I am hardcore
to the core
until you abort yourself in my bathtub.
Then I struggle to reach 'merely human'
and sort of leave it at that.
Everyone got a limit.

Carla is smiling at my shoulder
Carla is holding the beer
Carla is asking me to take her home

I never do and she goes home with Nick,
who will ply her with light beer and
Pogues albums until she feels
punk enough to fuck him
and I wonder if he'll
have the decency
to take her on her back
or if she'll have bigger burnscars
on her knees when I see them
poking out from under her skirt
tomorrow night.

Cleaning off the bar,
outside Scene, but
I still had to be part of it,
still got to be the witness.

They buried Carla in a closed casket
and no one ever saw
scars on her knees but
Hank Williams played in the background
and I knew they were there.

Well doc, it happened like this

I lean in, listen to the fool
with his privy parts not where
they should be
quite frankly, I'm squeamish myself
the same shade of corpse-white
he is, his face, not his violet cock

but I can't help curiosity
after all, I want to know what he did
to get the result he got
NO sane man
would want to suffer the same

"Big" Frank explained
bean counting the new hot thang
and boning Evian, his plastic lover

I screwed the pooch
It was easy going in
but so hard to get out

It was kind of funny but kind of NOT
funny ha-ha, like watching
a kick in the balls
It makes you laugh even though
you know that shit smarts

I double gloved in case stupidity
transmitted like STDs
cut "little" Frank out of the bottle
and put his story away for
Emergency Room's Wildest On T.V. one day

[wildsweetone]

1:4


A Second Chance

(i)
bloodshot eyes
fast paced talking
covering their tracks
as they lie
through plaque-stuck teeth
telling they'd phoned
showing the message
hiding the date
and lying
with blank faces
covered in acne
concerned for none
except their own skin
and willing to die
second to none

(ii)
in a night
the spider weaves
his complex silken threads
into a web thrown
to capture
unsuspecting prey.
Dewdrops lure
the curious, caution
too late as the sticky mass
holds them fast. A hand
or breeze
might brush
and break the web,
setting the pray free
for a second
chance.

[duckiesmut]

1-4 ...Make the Sale


He hitches up a pant
leg, two inches too long,
scuffed asphalt black as
he
push
push
pushes
new-used tires
out the chain link fence.

[The_Fool]

I think tonight speaks more to silence
Than to words that really say nothing.
I’ll save my emotional digressions
For another day when I am more ready to play
The game of double entendre.
Not that you ever listen anyway.
But I still go through the motions.
At least it makes me feel good.
Even if the words are said to your back
After you’ve given up trying to pay attention.

[champagne1982]

I (heart) You - a valentine for Michael

This is a song to love, declared
in more than words and music, measured
in heart beats and heard with the heart.

A start of this big moment, shared
with you and placed in the box, treasured
with those whispers of truth from your heart.

My darling, I have loved you and cared
deeply for the soul you give me, pleasured
you as we melt together, my valentine of the heart.

[annaswirls]

The silver thread
I used to pull you up
catches your ankle.
You swing in the nowhere
between drowning in life
and flying in death
but I cannot bear
to cut you free.

[Man Ray]

with the right Mrs, Ms or Miss
there is no way of really dealing
with that exquisite delicious feeling
of perfectly sublime post-coital bliss

[Angeline]

Unwise to tell
I talk to a ghost,
unwise
to admit he is

more real to me
than the listless spirits
who carry flesh on bone
and bump their trivia
into my days. I barely

notice them afterall,
those living zombies
in the post office
and grocerystore
weigh less than stamps
or candybars,

but you are resplendent
being nowhere
but everywhere
I go you follow,
say looka here girl
their shit don't mean
a butterbean.

Your crepe soles
creep ungrounded.
Your long black coat
is woven from the loom
of my sleepless night.
Your flathat protects
nothing, not yourself
or me but who else
sees you so it matters

less than beans
that you're not even
a dearly departed anyone
I ever knew,

just some old cat
used up all his lives
20 years before he died.

Don't mean a thing
you tell me
from the backseat
of my car where you sit
nipping wind
from an empty bag.

[4degrees]

impromptu
improper to some
but i drag myself again
across two thousand miles
on my belly, like
the snake that i am
and lay raw and bloody
at your stoop
too close to dying
to knock
open up, baby
and bring me back
to life.

[DeepAsleep]

Washing dishes
requires soap,
bitches.

[sandspike]

ladies of rhythm
passion and laughter
maturing like swans
winging their way across
my oceans with silent sounds

lazy days and purple haze
this valentine's day

[DeepAsleep]

I have forgotten things
and I have memories
I wish I had forgotten
and forgetting that memory
fades, I wish I had a memory
like an old kodachrome,
sepia toned and serious.

[flyguy69]

Fly 1:3

And the Lord said “do all those wonders
before Pharaoh which I have put in thine hand: but
I will harden his heart” and so we hate
him, the stone in his chest. Why Pharaoh cannot love
the Jew is unknown, but we cast him
with monsters into a pit. With Hitler, with
deadbeats, with the mother
who drives her children into a lake.

In grade school I hung
a string in sweet water, watched it bristle
with spikes. I felt the fear
of a crystal’s grip.

The cost of caring
is a ragged edge, a softness
that offers concrete seed. To love
the monster is to risk
a drowning weight. We cut
the string and free our hearts
to float, even as the ground trembles
with our heavy tread.

[Sabina_Tolchovsky]

Abby's Grave

Timeless mud becomes arched stone
in the belly of red earth
Sandpaper rough in silent places
sculpted by water and wind
where man is not welcome to penetrate.

Juniper gives directions
with a monkey wrench
he points southwest towards solitude.


Voices echo here;
so I cut out my tongue
and leave it for the ants.

My thoughts
are loud enough
to follow the bull snakes path
down into the canyon.

[Sara Crewe]

The Coral King

I sat with you and laughed
while you wrapped
your spineless body
around me with a smile
that promised you were
harmless and made me
think you were the king.

But then you turned
and bit into my breast
with fangs that pumped
coral poison through me
and left me too cold
and blind to see the black
ring around your throat.

I thought dying would be
special but it seemed
just like life. Time waved
goodbye while I cursed
myself for trying to read
someone’s stripes in the dark
and wondered why

you had to kill me.

[wildsweetone]

The Angry Sand

There are scuff marks on the sand
where the driftwood settles
in a curved wave; footprints

of toes and heels, a wanderer
searching among the broken
shells and rolled green glass

for a forgotten gem, or
a perfectly formed shell
to carry home and place
on the mantel where grains

of sand will trickle
and sit on the polished wood,
with the dust that’s settled

over days. A shell
to remind of sultry days
with salty breezes
and white foam waves
under gulls in flight.

Summer's sun
caresses the black sand
goading tiny sparkles
as if the sand is angry
at being walked upon.

[Liar]

Wrote you a hermit's
half-assed Hallmark holler,
wrote you down form the sky
to a quaint ditty, framed in
spring flowers and Hersey kisses,
but oh hubba how witty.
I scribed a Valentine's verse,
pathos excellence fluffystickycute
but still faux artictically advanced
enough to make it look like
I made it look like
I might have made
an effort
to give
a rat's
ass..

What a fucking insult. Here,
read this instead.

[The_Fool]

I know why he gets all the girls.
His surrealism is more illuminating than mine.

Humble, I offered her my hubris,
She laughed and said she had already dined.
In a way I was relieved,
Seeing how her canines clashed with her naivety.

She was only a figment of my imagination,
But God was she good, best I’ve had in awhile.
She was gone when I woke up,
No need for extended goodbyes.

I practiced being translucent this morning,
But her acrimony colored me green.
Sharp witticisms laid on
Using the most delicate of strokes.

I’m looking forward to twilight,
I’m running out of deep purple for my passion.

[Selena_Kitt]

purring
a rough kitty tongue
thank you
in the crook of your elbow,
through the salty treasure
of your lower belly,
and rubbing soft ears
over your knees,
I am a fortunate kitten.

[champagne1982]

Savage, Mine

Why do you run from me? Just as I
think I have you in my grasp
you slip out of my mind to hover
outside my cognizance.

Don't tease! It's cruel to know
that I once could have you, bend
you, pliant to the form I've built
for you inside my thoughts.

Come back, sweet memory and kiss
me like you once did, hungry
and savage, mine. I understand
all is not as it used to be.