007 Challenge

[Piscator]

3-8

Sunday Morning

I carefully pour the final cup of
coffee from the six-cup press pot
we share, just avoiding the dregs.
A lazy morning, cinnamon buns
and grapefruit, with the sun
streaming in reminding us that the
apple tree should be sprayed with
Dormant oil before the buds break
(bit of an oxymoron there), last
year’s compost turned into the garden,
early seeds planted and my red Bianchi
taken for a ride if the tires will hold air.
Spring devotions and not a palm in sight.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

001

an entire tree was saved by silence
and possibly an orchard crosses roots to hush
lips of corpses buried in this place.

no prepositions give direction. no pronouns relieve
floating restless pursings of the lips
wherever they occur.

Trains. Sidewalks. Trees.
the corpse awakes
shields its eyes

and gasps into new green.

 

[todski28]

001

some mornings
were simply a flash of night
trying to learn what seedy actually means
by living it
grinding the grit of concrete
between my teeth
vanilla perfume
cheap
nasty
cloying
sickly to taste
as her nipples were rolled
by my tongue

and her hands were pinned to the bed head
and her fight
her
screams

were art
directed under
an aspirants eye

and now
she is this poem
seedy
direct
still cloying

 

[todski28]

002

smoke drifts lazily from his hand
as he leans in to take his shot
the dull thunk
sharp clack
and we were away

I down my beer and watch
him turn the angles
over in his mind
smalls
or
bigs

the girls eye us
sharp as predators
looking for a free feed
I smirk
I had been watching them hustle tables
all night
drinks on the suckers who didn't
know the danger
they were cockily laughing at

these two were cool customers
sinking shots then sinking shots
but we weren't fools
bout to give up our hard earned simply
for the hope of sinking
balls deep later

Jesse assessed
took the bigs
and the game was away
the women got
handsy
buttons seemed to pop
and distraction swayed
stroked
flesh was there ripe for
the drinking in
top shelf

the game was hard and fast
clack
and balls were rolling down to settle
in their glass cage waiting to be released
for the next game

I would like to say it was hard fought
but the girls had no chance
the rules dictate that if all
your balls are on the table you
have to lap it with your pants around your ankles

like true sports they did
later
those same panties
were left on my lamp shade
when she strutted out the door
she laughed

we let you win.....
as she blew me a kiss

 

[cherries_on_snow]

002

Fifteen years
of bile swallowed
became a communal bile

Jonestown style.
Townfolk took up torches
against breasts. Shameful
breasts. Lifegiving breasts.
Shame
women and their nipples.

Meanwhile, 15 years of words
were written, published, prayed.

Every word of every name I've worn
has been my own.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

003

Benches offer pause
between brambles,
useless as semicolons,
but this day has legs

unafraid of sidewalk
cracks and set to swerve
along the surfaces of transient tunes.

Warm squirrels duel
harmlessly. Grass palpably grows
stretching up a multitude of arms
and singing summer.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

004

A hundred thousand maps are still too few
to diary a journey 15 years
despite the snapshots saved, the chatty crew.
Cork pinpricks only hint where plans have queered.

The diarist writes "me" and "me" and "me"
Until rejected. Then resumes with "she"
as if the word proved culpability
for what eludes the grasp in that cold sea.

The sea is never calm. It rocks in sleep.
Within it only dead remains are fixed.
What treasures sunk stay sunk for none can keep
the little oxygen in deepest deep.

So pirates know no map remains for this
once hallelujah, now uncharted bliss.

 

[champagne1982]

001

A Message To The Weary

When I watched you sit comfortable
with the man I saw shadows
of what drew you together.

His smile and your laughter at jokes
poking fun at those people climbing
the status ladder and falling down.

That affable personality slowly melting
with every drop he consumed, a switch
thrown with every tip to the waiter.

He forgot how to have fun, when to quit,
and the importance of sharing with you.
I hate how lonely you've become.

 

[todski28]

003

seems as if the past is all I know
as if I don't know how to express
more than
what was
as if what is
is a dream
when did I become so hollow
so
lost in echoes
so wrapped up in how
it was
to not
feel the cold air on my skin
or live in the moments that are more
than they were

is the past more alluring that looking up and feeling the sun

 

[champagne1982]

002

On Blue Wings

The sultry light drips from fingertips
dyed blue with the soft taste of the music
delta and salt pans flavour the notes
we play with metaphor and method
in our artisanal forays into booze and sex

These are things lived by the elite
and masses alike as we cling
to the edges of reality forged
by angel wing flight feathers seared
painfully with the fire of injustice
while the seraph cries bound
to the stake of conformity

I will miss the flight of unusual
likelihoods and predictable
variations words can take us
on in a journey of enlightenment
from the far east to the near north
and come to rest where weather
warms struggling blood
and soothes pained brows

The blue dye paints delightful vignettes
and tints my lover's lips with poetry.
Songs sung of impatient passion, kisses
punctuate the phrases of a melody
only written in the fog of inspiration.

 

[butters]

when stage directing my dream characters
eyes from the outside
i can appreciate their nuances
but, damn,
it's so messed up
seeing them act

but there's a sandbag of blame
to drop on the script
and maybe the scriptwriter should stick to acting
not try to wear all hats at once

okay, no maybe about it

oh, for a night's respite from performances
the producer's left the building

 

[todski28]

004

I whisper things all day
nuzzling into her neck
calling her
filthy

asking
how she can think about
getting fucked while we are out
explaining
all those little
things she can't resist

until I know
she is a wreck
wracked with impulse desires
flipping switches that unleash damn walls
getting her to take her panties off
and put them in her bag

despite the years
the kids
her own self doubts and fears
she is still desire to me

 

[todski28]

005

I the rocks
face the first gentle blows
of southern breath

the first signs
are here

I turn my molecules
all the hardness I can summon
and wait as only rocks can

she won't be long in coming
she is going to lash and wail
shaking me to my core

I bury my strength deep
grounded to the bedrock
it builds
clouds swirl
small fipples
trough forming waves
white foam slick and wet
splashes against me

I stay hard
stand firm in the belief
that as a rock I will taste the
joy, the passion the ferocity
lashing against me

she builds
her low wail begging me to crumble
to release my rigidity
and spill over like sand
beneath a tempest
or lost in the wetness of waves
dragged into it's depths

I rail hold tight to her fury
riding the crests
and peaks
she crashes
again
again
again

she slows
at last her mettle
her pride and passion
thrown down
the last of her drizzled gently over me
I release
my own tension

and fall like sand
crumbling in the last vestiges of
hardness

and in this aftermath
my breathing heavy
she kisses me with sun

 

[cherries_on_snow]

shouldered

Guards at the well,
I am quenched. I will not disparage
your fine well. I believe your belief.
So deep it is.
One can count to the splash on two hands!
Cups are a different matter.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

offer

Carpenters, football refs
and morticians measure for us
what we could but for crumbs.

Blast! Another crumb falls to skirt
insisting in its crumby dialect
"campaign finance reform."

Then in my left ear
the whisper,
"let's do."

 

[cherries_on_snow]

007

No morning ever mourns the night it climbed.
Birds trumpet on the staircases, "today!"
Fresh pants. New pockets dollared. Purses dimed.
The sink drinks last night's chardonnay.

Sheets keep breathed alters safe away from skins
obliged to bones to stand and scrub and go.
One thousand threads of cotton vapor sin
today again. Tomorrow and its morrow.

The living day demands its sword, its shoes.
Fair play finds leg enough to walk the miles
that measure every life. The lives we choose
are lit again. Are lifted. Every child

becomes today a shape of hands and voice.
New day eclipses dream. Here, now. New choice.

 

[todski28]

006

the night hones senses on the whetstone
of dark
till she is keen
like a straight blade
a tanto
she wields with the stealth of an assassin

she clicks along on
bladed heels
laughing at gravity
as her calves mimic the cries
of la petite more

she reads men like books
picture
novel
stick

turns on the heat they need
to release their tension
her lovers
she smiles
as each thrust cuts like blades
and she is reborn
compassion

she gives for money
but loves as a woman

sometimes they cry

 

[todski28]

007

I've used my breath to make
the skin on your neck
spell out in braille my desires
your hand daintily raises up
to rub at that place that made you shudder
where our scents are as one
every inhalation intoxicates
I am drunk on lust
and want to delve into contorionistic realms
where we connect in the time space
of soul and skin

soul you ask incredulous as if I'm stark raving mad
as if the skin is as much as you can give
but I've plated up my
masculinity and offered every morsel
for consumption
taste
and touch these moments
between delusion and feeling
in phantasmal gaspings
and control
is thrown into disarray

how is there anything less than all in with us
naked, here
wanting
to see beyond
push the limits of bonds

until we crumble
against eachother
nothing more than fluids
and thoughs that drift

pondering Braille
and what breath can do to flesh

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Once

We learned about mirrors and fish tanks
while observing the fighting fish attack
glass and reflection.

Combing the part differently just
pauses one's charge
but sometimes that is enough to remember

water before.
It was counted in suns
and rains.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Two

Pockets, three hands. Too soon.
A pen! Saved. Scrawl a walk
atop the shared block
and sheath for the blocks to go

home. Home! Gratitudes
hum harmonies for keys.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

voicemail

Third word in still identical
to erased patter lofted on different
breath: this
important offer.

Three words again
launch from new old tongue
offers unheeded and unanswered.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

the rice sometimes

to be honest it is mostly Saroyan
diaries of soupy fail occasionally
better
tried again. Must by must.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

blue

Whatever gels survive baptism and freshmen
narrate no better than big box breakfast crayons
free to children and offered as a mercy

atop waffles and word search. Blue waxes sky
with the ladders afforded placemats. The table edges
the beginning of everything else.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

six

Wet city ionizes clean
new shoes. Zipper up
a stride into night

shine splash
against the light because
we look. We count
the seconds safe from impact.

Step quick and smart.
Don't look at them if they honk.
Keep forward.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Stapled to Tonight's Program

Ladies and Gentlemen
you will need your programs later
but not yet. Now we honor
eyes adjusting to darkness.
Let's look up at the light directing sight.
You can shut your eyes. We also honor
eyelids and lashes and the tiny batting
distraction necessary for those not comfortably
bathed in gloaming. As you, by now, all are.

We honor the breaths of lungs which fill
with oxygen mixed with the carbon dioxide
shared amongst us. Even skinny folks who never
utilize armrests are now exchanging tiny capsules
of essence and receiving the essences of others
so let us welcome one another aboard.

For those of you at home, we consult our programs.
Please everyone, mind the staples. Focus on the square inch of velvet
attached to page 2. At this time, with kind thumbs
or gentle fingertips, lips, brush the velvet lightly
outward. Absorb the sensation of pliant luxury. It is still yours.
No need to give that velvet to anyone.
Keep it in your pocket. It's free.
Just let the sensation settle then wrap it gently into a capsule.
Send it out. Send it several times. Launch this tiny love
into the universe. If you can afford it,
invest it with a little of your surplus love. Launch and enjoy
the treasure which can never be stolen from you:
your generosity.