Emily’s Note: I can relate to this, as I’m leaving for college at the end of August. The images are well-executed and made me think about the inherent strangeness of things we take for granted, like the moving of objects from one place to another.
My room is full of odds and ends,
Bottle caps and birthday cards.
The pages of last year’s calendar scattered across the floor with
yesterday’s work clothes and tomorrow’s socks,
And half finished crafts are always underfoot.My bookshelf is a dusty mess
With fourteen shotglasses never yet drank from,
Five porcelain dolls staring blankly out,
And tomes of comics I’ve yet to readI have a weasel who lives in the southwest corner
And fights my childhood stuffed animals
When he is not eating raw meat.My bed has blood red sheets-
Convenient, I suppose, if I am murdered in my sleep.And when I leave at summer’s end
None of this remains;
Just a twin sized bed, an empty closet, and the hooks where pictures used to hang.
Emily’s note: I don’t know why, but this reminds me a bit of a blend of EE Cummings’ styles. I love it!seems i’m wanted -missed-
west over water sure but mostly
over green, over fields, over forest
and so here i goes (again) that way.
thinking -maybe- is it ten
dll’rs for 75 int’rnat’n’l txts now
instead of for 100 which means
that many less reminders I am alive
and hope you don’t forget (how could you)
that i’ll be over east and you’ll hop across
the pond like not not a bug but a goddamn
jesus christ lizard, just hauling ass like that.
soon now, i am being paged by spires and
p’bl’c r’dio, p’bl’c/pr’vite tour’st m’rk’ts
and “did you hear it’s totally legal now?” so
i must answer again for maybe the last time,thinking maybe we’ll have more to talk about this time
to bridge the distance and to touch each other very
real, very real, very real, direct and intangible, “soft,”someone said sticky one they said it would be
This was fantastic and so clever. Please read ad libitum.i.
You are the only person I know
who uses the term per se
in the middle of an email exchange
about the dirty things we’d do to each other
if we were in the same city
for once.(I am the only person I know
who gets turned on by
Latin terminology.)ii.
(the direct translation of et cetera is
A list of places you have recently been:
Wellington, Sydney, London,
Berlin, Belfast, Boston,
my bed, her bed,
and her bed
and her bed
and her bed
etc.
“and the others” – used to describe
a list that could continue
ad infinitum.)iii.
You typed
“You, my dear, are a catch.
And a great writer.”I am easy prey.
All I do is fall. My magnum opus will be a bitter story
about boys who spin webs with their words
then scuttle out the door.iiii.
I’ve been having an argument
with myself
about you.It has continued ad nauseam
the same thoughts
over and over and over
almost to the point of
sickness.v.
I need one of two things:a deus ex machina
(a plot device whereby a confusing,
seemingly unsolvable problem is
suddenly and abruptly
resolved)or,
to become a tabula rasa>
(a clean slate, not affected by
impressions or
experiences.)
Emily’s note: Lovely imagery. To be felt rather than understood.
The yellow tinged cloud,
stained with city lights,
is louder than I’ve ever felt.All alone in the dark,
I disembark upon,
these roads, dark velvet.
Wolfie’s Note: As with any great poetry it is best to soak in one line at a time before moving on to the next. This piece does indeed take the mind for a very nice journey into something that is very easy to relate with.
A head full of fears has little space
for dreams. Anxiety breeds desperation
and populates the vacancy. Mechanical energy
of sound seems to bypass the ear
in the form of bricks, filling where potholes used
to rot in back roads with concrete. People wonder why
their faces point down, tilting sight to lip
above shoe tips as they march the way to Point B, too concerned
with tripping a wire to crack open a trap door or fall
into a manhole—the heaviness of stress luring
with indecision of a broken compass, flailing arms
bewilderingly. Perplexed inside a plexiglass perspective, the amount
of paranoia one permits to autopilot determines whether
a led zeppelin crashes or not. Keep your chin up and balance
hourglass sand inside the skull. It empties out in time, especially
when a knee-jerk revelation quakes by circumference to agitate
a sink hole. Worry not about disappointment—
shake well. Separation is natural.-RY
Wolfie’s Note: I reread that first line about eight times before moving on to the rest of this lovely write.
She used to collect skeleton keys and called them little souls. The rusty instruments that once shone gold and silver and in betweens were kept in the drawer of a small chest that smelled like cigars and burnt wood; each with a velvet or satin ribbon on it. She preferred Victorian keys over those of the Nifty Fifties or Swingin’ Sixties. She thought: the older, the better.
She imagined that a soul would be very similar to a key. You pass down a key from one person to the next and with time, the key gains rust. Much like a key, souls are passed down, gaining sagacity from those who’ve been there to unlock doors and close them.
She was a little soul, an intricately detailed key. She was held tightly with fingertips that let her bronze and tarnish them with time.
Wolfie’s Note: I really enjoyed the celebratory confidence of this write it was indeed refreshing.
(I was not going to post this but what the heck, I’m 40)
Today I commemorate my freedom
my libidinous
I shed who I’ve either programmed myself to be
or have allowed others to make out of me
Today, I will drink heavily
I will laugh
I will cry
and remember
the brimstone I’ve walked on
the scars I’ve gained
while fighting in battles
that were not of my making
I planned on writing something very profound
but alas, words escape me
I’m enjoying myself
I’ve been on a birthday high since this past Saturday
when friends and family got together
in secret
to say that they loved me
to say that I made significant marks on their lives
This meant so much
it snapped me into a reality
I never wanted to admit
That 40 years ago, no matter what was to come
I was born out of love
and love festered in me
and grew
out of every pore
and corner
crevice
beauty mark
through my ears
and out of my mouth-
love was born
when I came into being
40 years ago
the day I screamed
the first time I was smacked
right on my ass
when I was extracted
out of my mother’s womb forcibly
and lived
to tell about it-
God had plans for me
but sacrifices had to be made
and now I understand
that real beauty comes at a heavy price
and that those who are favored
rise
they soar
like a phoenix
over the horizon
nothing can stop me
Because I’m 40
This whole city is a revolving door,
everybody thinks if we walk fast enough
we’ll pull each other open.Stay anonymous long enough,
and everything starts to feel
like an out of body experience.
I can’t even tell if I need a to share a taxi
or if I need someone to zip me back
into this achy frame, like trying to pin
wind against lonely scaffolding.I need to find somewhere sleepy
before a stranger brushes past me like headlights
on a four-lane highway and leaves me
pulled apart, left to rot like old fruit
in the street gutter. I need to find
lazy hands and sedated spines
or someone’s going to open their mouth
to tell me to watch my step
and I’m going to fall dreadfully in love
and I’ll be all guts on the sidewalk,
wondering why I can never give someone
the small pieces, wondering why I’m
a megalopolis without a subway map, why no one
has ever bothered to get lost underground.
Wolfie’s Note: I really enjoyed the pace of the write.
When we get old -
We’ll sit under a walnut tree at dusk
Cats on your lap
The world will continue to crumble
When we get old -
We’ll BBQ on Sundays
Children and grandchildren will come
When the night falls we’ll watch the family movie
When we get old -
We’ll get our stash
Watch the South Park season with freinds
And eat apple pie
When we get old -
We will sit down in an old car
And on the way to the sea
Listening to loud music
When we dive
We’ll open our eyes
And smiling
Listen to a faint hum(prompted)
Beautiful words, every time… inatoms.How do you infix poetry into a simple man? My mother once said to me, with a hairpin between her teeth and a golden curl pinched between her wanton fingers, that a good rouge and eau de parfum was all the poetry a man could ever need. ”Pass me that brush, sweetie and wake up your brother. Your father’ll be home soon.” From the corner of my timid eye, I watched the way my father looked at her whenever she laughed. He smiled a different kind of smile - dulce and velveteen. On sticky summer days, when she’d knot her shirt beneath her breasts, I imagined that if I artfully brushed past my father, I’d hear him purring against the leg of a quiet fantasy, so I believed my mother and at fourteen, pouted my carmine lips to the gawking mirror and sat impatiently by a window waiting for the rest of me to grow. I was going to be a poem, recited over and over again until I was someone’s favourite. At twenty eight now, I can tell you that I am no Lolita, that all red lips ever bought me were brutes who’d leave in the middle of my sentences and hike up my dress without the token of a single flower or recited poem.
