all of a sudden passion suddenly

[GuiltyPleasure]

Signs of Spring outside Tim Hortens (a sort of sonnet)
________________________________________
They’re smoking outside Timmy’s again
And colour appears in the planters,
The sky looks scoured clean by rain
And starlings do their best to enchant us
Before robins arrive with clear disdain.
We shed our outer layers like yaks
Feeling minted fresh and clean,
Shaking the winter blahs off our backs.
The flower count has come and gone
While easterly folk are still digging out.
The geese return and tundra swan
Looking for fresh grassy sprout
Arrive en mass to search below
And settle there like late spring snow​

 

[champagne1982]

The Inner Dancer

What if today was the one day when dancing
naked was duty and you are always dutiful?

Would you sway, slow and sinuous
in your mind even though your body
can't make those moves anymore?

Or how about shaking and shimmying?
Let the tremors move your folds
and quake your flesh until you ache
from unaccustomed inertial resistance.

Let's celebrate the glory of living
with no more judgement
or distaste at a person who sees life
differently than we do.

I can no more remove the ravages of time
from my skin. The folds, scars, and softness
mark me in ways I should be proud of bearing,
and not shamed by the ideas of a beauty industry
that tells me there is only one way to look.

My hair is not full of melanin and bounce,
this is the colour of maturity and is glamourous
in only the way an older woman carries glamour.

My face is not smooth and fresh
with the dew of new. These furrows and folds
explain the depth of emotion and reaction
that only a life of sorrow and happiness,
worry and relief, regret and accomplishment can draw.

Revel in your imperfections and enjoy life.
If that means you need to change to feel good,
make the changes! If you are glad and ok
being who you are, then explode with the joy
of knowing this is you. No matter what you seem
and what you show, just for today, dance.

Dance those steps that make you remember being human
and how lovely that humanity makes you.
Dance with all you are and embrace all you can be
and I will dance with you.

 

[29wordsforsnow]

and in my bathrobe, I swing
following the lines, you sing
of glory beneath cloth and skin.
Dancers, we are, by rhythm akin

inside
our homes
our hearts
hairbrushes, hear
our voices
our verses
tiles, feel
our feet
our fall

meeting you on the bathroom floor
laughing, loving the decades that passed
and shared in half a lifetime, showing
in the glamorous smile on your face

 

[4degrees]

Swooshing through a thick
Of close standing trees and thorns
I comb my fingerlings between
The branches, pet my hands
And leave bite marks
I'm projected towards the
Witch house
Mammatic clouds low overhead
Swirling slowly, churning
Casting a spell on the woods
And all that lay or run within
The door doesn't exist
But inside is where i next
Come to
They are memories worth repeating
Maybe I'll tell you
When you're older

 

[4degrees]

I smell like weed and bleach
I cry your mother's tears
By my smile, you'd never know
That my time is running out

Swooshing through a thick
Of close standing trees and thorns
I comb my fingerlings between
The branches, pet my hands
And leave bite marks
I'm projected towards the
Witch house
Mammatic clouds low overhead
Swirling slowly, churning
Casting a spell on the woods
And all that lay or run within
The door doesn't exist
But inside is where i next
Come to
They are memories worth repeating
Maybe I'll tell you
When you're older

 

[Piscator]

Putin’s Place

Put not Putin in a coffin
but toss his mortal remains
into the mouth of a fiery volcano
where they may join his twisted soul
in Hell.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Flamenco



Here are shady plane trees,
harlequin bark,
tables with those frosty jugs
sangria and good company
as the, achingly blue, sky darkens
to night, the stars and guitars come out.

Unseen, raucous night hawks call in the dark
above the dusty leaves,
then the first chords silence us all.

Expectation ripples the air,
an electric breeze
and suddenly she is here.
Poised, graceful castanet-hands
above her mantilla
before her head toss and staccato stamp.

Her body seems liquid,
flowing in passionate shapes
created by the strings
and we are captivated
by her sinuous movement
and the desire in the erotic measure.

 

[4degrees]

Yep

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Serial Cereal

Confronted with so many choices,
“Crispy, crunchy, honey coated”
Echoes of our parents’ voices
All those healthy meals promoted

“Crispy, crunchy, honey coated”
Were not words our mothers used
All those healthy meals promoted
Left us thoroughly confused

Where are the words our mothers used
“Warming, filling start of day”
Leave us thoroughly confused
Cereal now seems more like play

“Warming, filling, start the day”
Echoes of our mothers’ voices
Cereal now seems more like play
Confronted with so many choices

 

[4degrees]

Time tells me its time
Somewhere find a rhyme
Remind, why not rewind
Dismembered love-a mine

Your words were like feathers
That fell upon eyes
Tickling my heart
Longing to lie softly in a
Warm blanket of your sighs
My words Have no means
My love is deceased,
Forever to stay in
The belly of the beast

 

[OtherMan]

And there I am.
In your hands…
exposed
and posed
but vulnerable
to hurt and
worse…

L***


FUCK!


I’m as real
as anything
on your
mind…
in kind
with mine.

We need
never touch
flesh
if we exist
inside
this brief moment
of verbs
coupling nouns…

being
a thought…

that thing with which
universes are made
and here as long as there is light.

6/26/23

 

[4degrees]

Whiskers look like
Cigarette ashes in the basin
I look up and
Reflect
Realize
The way time shaves
Away
Days
Blows them like
Cigarette ashes in the wind
I wonder if I’ll shave again

 

[EllenMore]

Tod, as in Death

His poem was really there, the way
lightning is—a sudden flash,
then silence

as I mentally counted to ten

followed by the muffled, distant boom
of words burst into nothingness

I pawed through the scorched sand
but found nothing,
no shrapnel,
not even ash

and even my memory blurred
from the light of his over-bright sun

 

[4degrees]

Let the moon
Trace your form against
The pitch black trees
Over there, near the pine
Heavy with needles
Bending down to tickle
The ground
Smile in the moon
Let me see
A glint of light
When you open up
Exposing to me
Your magic and
Your mal-intent
Let the moon weave
The night spell
Around us both
As We drift away together

 

[EllenMore]

Three Poems Attempting the Style of Izumi Shikibu

1.
I straightened the sheets
after he left, and then knelt
to wait for the dawn.
I wanted the bed to look
unslept in, because it was.

2.
He has walked barefoot
over my floors. I will not
scrub them for two weeks.
By then, I hope I may lie
beneath his eager body.

3.
Alone tonight. Hands
are left wandering, as if
they have no purpose.
I try to read, but fingers
want to stroke each line, like arms.

 

[4degrees]

Be my fuck machine, baby
Pound me slowly in the dark
Hypnotic robotics connecting
Me with another lost soul

 

[4degrees]

inflamed again,
The void widens and
I can’t fit you in
The hole
The abstract shape
Resists against your form
Again I am torn
As I push the
Thoughts away

 

[4degrees]

Pass your words
Across to me
Across the table, the country
Each one exposing
Your mind a little more
Letting me see in
To your colorful world
And dark tales as well

 

[4degrees]

wolves whisper with
the pines
tonight the moon
turns blue
a circle of light
from outer space
and in the middle
is you

 

[4degrees]

It’s really not passion
When it’s medicated
When I can’t really feel
That deep pain in my gut
When it doesn’t exist
Neither do I

 

[4degrees]

The world looks like
A tv screen
All my favorites are
On the show
And I watch as they
Live and love
With this piece of glass
Between us

 

[4degrees]

Typing stark lines
is my fetish
remember when the lines
were like, two words
all
the
way
down
until whatever end it
came to.
playing with the words
i come to, my eyes flutter
and you are still, never there

 

[4degrees]

My cigarette
My cigarette
The way you hang
Onto my lips
And betwixt
My leather fingers
The smoke curls like
Waves of satin
Clouds of my addiction
You’re always there
To meet my need
And to give my hands
A distraction
Away from ripping
Out my guts

 

[4degrees]

Moving along now
It’s been so long
Since my heart was
Drowning in passion

 

[Angeline]

When I begin to cry
I remember your arms,
so strong and comforting,
how they'd encircle me,
draw me close enough to bask
in the scent of skin and patchouli--
my wild hippie boy, guitar, lost dreams
and battered birkenstocks.
You'd say don't cry baby, everything
is fine.

I'll never understand grief.
I only know it's like the tides, pulled
perhaps by phases of the moon,
waxing and waning as years
roll on.

I wish my heart were an engine.
Maybe it could be taken apart
and put back together
minus the ache that settles in
with song and memory. Maybe
a tune up would make me run
right again.