writing live

[Tathagata]

.....

 

[Angeline]

Truman was human
such a comic
relief was never farther
away than a scotch or a pill
or a tattooed killer
all three could be
his next great novel
approach
to a life he both loved
and despised

little man
little man
you stopped too often
while gathering
just the ripest words
(like a dropsy cure
taught by gypsies)
letting them stew in your head
black aluminum brain
and now we shall never hear
words as perfect as
" Dollar bills, tightly rolled and green as May buds. Somber fifty-cent pieces, heavy enough to weight a dead man's eyes."
this is missed
this is truly missed

Daddy holds me
on his lap and sings
Many brave men are asleep in the deep, so beware. Beware.
His voice rumbles, basso profondo.
I hear it in his chest and fear
for the watery, skeletal men,
their waving hair and empty eyes.
I think they are soldiers, his friends,
and you can't blame them
for being asleep in the deep
which was probably safer
than Omaha Beach, safer
that splashing bullets
and cyclone waves that pull
down, down all those nice young men,
boys standing arms over shoulders,
barechested, grins and dogtags
fading to brown in the photos
I touch over and over until
Momma puts them away because
she says they scare me,
but I liked the young soldier ghosts
and I even liked the old man
in the threadbare stripes
with the shovel of bones. He stands
before an oven with more bones
inside and he looks watery and empty
before he is even dead. Now everyone
is asleep in the deep.
I wish I knew how
to beware.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

It is to be expected:
it's a country road, 65 miles an hour and
a mile of field and forest on either side.
I'm going to see the raccoon
sprawled at the shoulder,
the fox laid flat. Their tails
flutter in the breeze of cars.
I pray and grip the wheel
angry at my own tires.
I've gotten used to it
as much as I ever will.
But sometimes
there is no body
only the trail of blood marking
the rhythm of a rolling carcass
already dead and splashing
a pattern
of bang and roll on the road.
They're worse, somehow:
the paths of blood that follow tire tracks
the spatter marks of a bounce and hit
and I say
please
let it rain
please please
please let it rain.

 

[champagne1982]

Yesterday I drove through a smear on the highway that had to have been a deer,
no rodent could produce that much red, so much that it puddles in the frost heave cracks
that roadcrews sawed smooth and filled with tar, not enough to erase that depression,
but enough that only the lines are left to hold the redness of death.

 

[bronzeage]

The whooperwill call pierced the chill night air
like a needle through the weave of his mind.
Take me with you, Casey. Take me away

 

[tungtied2u]

I want the words to shine with color
like the turning leaves on a crisp autumn dawn
complex yet unified in a way so natural
they appear to have existed since time immemorial
waiting for someone to discover them
beneath the forest floor where they slept

But the sky has been gray day after day
the leaves curl into withered arthritic hands
useless appendages of tired limbs,
I resign myself to winter's onslaught
anemic, aged and alone, uncertain
what sentence awaits me come spring

 

[CicatrixESP]

Wind driven winter sighs frozen
On fingers seeking refuge
From thoughts that linger
Producing doubts that squeeze the triggers
That lessen verdicts yet make them bigger
That finally make you think
That the blood you pump is the blood you drink

But there's hope you see
Blood and love are truly the same
Both warm those fingers
And pump through hearts
And one serves to ease the others' pain

 

[sophieloves]

i have the perfect place
to thaw winter fingers

sighing thoughts linger then
m
e
l
t

triggering the pump of blood

warmed we take refuge
in the heat of thumping hearts

 

[sophieloves]

if i had to make a call
i'd call him a dark diamond,
carbon but no lumpen coal;
a stone of subtle facets;
just look a little closer -
see his darkly dancing flame

 

[CicatrixESP]

The time it takes to travel
From the lobe
To the canal,
Down to the drum
Through the brain
A salvo
Neurons jumping synapses
Senses firing
Is a wonder and as is
As wonder does
You little wonder
From my lips to ear
To your heart
May your wonders
Be as rich
As the wonders you impart

 

[sophieloves]

they say
"you are what you eat"
well i'm a bookworm
and i eat
and i eat
and i eat
and i eat

i wonder
what flavour i will be
today?

 

[vampiredust]

The Interior of Clouds

Someday I'll write you back,
answering your questions
with rain ink and a lightning
fork nib. The interior plans
of my skull will be laid bare
for you to inspect; to point
out each faultline, crack,
where it subsides. Walls
will be free for you to graffiti
with your breath (you left
words inside my chest,
remember) I won't need a reply
I might say at the end,
listening to the house being built
in a disused corner of my heart;
and your voice echoing,
mouthing instructions
on what needs to be refurbished,
what needs to be demolished.

 

[sophieloves]

oh wow!

 

[sophieloves]

if i placed one thought
one
thought
there - in the centre of that pin-head
set the pin to
s
p
i
n
what would happen
then?

 

[sophieloves]

even though he's not so far away
as light-years go
still i miss his words
for all they shade, show

 

[sophieloves]

if i face into the breeze
open my mouth
will i catch thoughts like birdsong
swallow them
grow?

 

[sophieloves]

sometimes i think my skin forgets
it's meant to hold all me inside
sometimes i slip beyond my flesh
and slide into another's mind

 

[sophieloves]

both hands across my mouth
eyes wide
oops!
shouldn't have said that
i need to learn to
g a u g e the flow
not spill the thoughts
where thoughts aren't meant to go

 

[sophieloves]

sow your hot seeds inside her mouth
she'll gulp them down into the ground
the greenhouse soil of a fertile mind
where each will take on form and find
its roots and grow and
s p r o u t

 

[unpredictablebijou]

if i face into the breeze
open my mouth
will i catch thoughts like birdsong
swallow them
grow?

that's fabulous

bj

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Lecture on a painting which does not yet exist

The less observant viewer will interpret this painting
as a rape scene. On the surface it is a simple narrative:
her outstretched hand, gripping the rough wood, the position -
uncomfortable, to say the least - may indicate resistance,
and the fact that he is still completely clothed
will also lead to that conclusion. We might deduce
that the artist allows this interpretation, or even encourages it,
with the communication of force and tension in their poses.

But observe that the thick beams of this abandoned barn
lay at peaceful, symmetrical angles, and lead the viewer to notice
the way this door frame, weathered in these deep grays, echoes
the slant of his arm, stretched out to her face. His fingers
are not visible, and the viewer is led to wonder if he caresses her
or if the tension of the arm, the angle of his spine and the active
thrust of his hips indicate more force, especially when we notice
the way her thigh seems to be in motion, pressed up
at that awkward angle. Perhaps his hidden hand
grasps her hair, pulling her head back, or perhaps she leans in
toward his caress, urging him to continue.

And note the lush patch of grass in the foreground, there in
the doorway, how its shape is similar to the arch of her spine.
This connects her in symbology with the fertility of the earth
as the man's virility is echoed in the rhythm of the wooden beams.
His phallus, we must deduce, follows the angle
of the beam on which he has laid her back, and his foreground arm,
with its shadowed, ruddy tones, is angled to hold her hips to him
as if supporting her.

Let us examine the narrative element in the idea that he is clothed
while she wears nothing. The fabric draped underneath her,
along the beam, may be a dress, but its uneven quality and shape
suggest something ragged, a stray blanket from the barn
or perhaps something she was wearing that is now torn. We may
deduce from this that despite the extreme vigor in their poses,
this is not an attack - he has clearly taken care to protect her
from the rough wood on which he has positioned her.

There is a comment on class, perhaps, or on the unexpected
nature of this encounter. Notice his rather formal clothing,
the pressed trousers, the well-kept shoes. They contrast strongly
with her raw nudity, her unkempt hair, and indicate
that he had not planned to be in this environment, while she
seems quite at home in it. Her faded skin tones are echoes
of the colors of the barn, lending her a quality of belonging
as if she were part of the structure itself. It is as if she
embodies the building, the wild surroundings, as if she is
the spirit of the place. We are left, therefore, wondering
if she is even real, or if this is an image that the man
has created for himself in that isolated, foreign space. Their closed eyes
echo that distance and affirm
that this may be purely imagination,
perhaps his, or even hers.

 

[Sara Crewe]

In my first attempt at being human
I must have been a car salesman.
It would explain my odd attraction
to plaid and my lack of honesty
in picturing the vehicle of my life.
I sold myself a nice sports car,
fast and red with room for a few
others but with very little space
for baggage. Not one to complain
I was okay when reality sat me
instead in the driver’s seat of a bus
with a bunch of strangers
who all wanted to tell me their story
or just stare at me hard enough to stamp
their psychosis from their brain to mine
but when I realized the bus was getting poor
mileage I looked in my rear view mirror
and saw that it had reversed its butterfly
and my existence had become a train. A tapeworm
of cars full of faces pressed against the glass
memories, eating me to stay alive while ensuring
my hunger followed me around every bend.

There are no real turns inside a tunnel
and I cannot shake them even underground.

 

[CicatrixESP]

Jesus people...the last two are epic but so very good.

Sorry, I tried to quote some passages, but it just didn't work...but very nice work.

 

[CicatrixESP]

Johnny Cash begging not to die alone
As everything inanimate remains,
As if not to disappoint.
I wish they would be impetuous
And entertain me
Not superficially but engage me
But why when me is
the word me is the most me
That I am is me
And I did it to myself?

 

[sophieloves]

bijou!

i stand educated and enchanted

you have taken my eyes and shown me not only a painting, but the WHY's of a painting - until i see it all - as if i stood in front of that same work in a gallery, pondering it, for hours, drinking it in... and all this, in your words

HOW DO YOU DO THAT????????????



blown away