61 posts tagged “poetry?”

i think i want to go dancing
and take pictures
in the dresses my grandmother wore
while she was being courted
innocently.
there are corners in Asbury Park that make my knees shake
the way the street winds softly from the rainbow wealthy
to the Section 8
where the Merlot and Brie
start tasting like lead and speed
and the ghosts surround me

they are warm and comforting

one million shattered sounds
tile a mosaic
on my neck.
while whispered memories
travail a thin, androgenous death.
one million interpretations,
ways to read your lips
Cheshire, Judas,
Mary Magdalene.
one million scars i carry
beneath this floral dress
one million burns and stitches
my Love,
one million men.

i won't yawn
just because you did
stretch my lips in some pornographic twist
invite the outside
in. your breath
PB & J
and sunned milk
on an orange august afternoon
with those lids closed,
i wonder where you live
back in that summer
before we had history
before we printed memories
hang your sweater on my bare shoulders
hum the bass line
i've got the lyrics
lean in
lean in
the show begins

it's a slidinglaughingslippingfainting on crumbled bedsheets
dreaming
dripping wetlustandsensitivity
female sensing nativities
and birthplaces of melted skin
unification of man and woman
handfuls of fleshy hips
held together with your cagegrasp arrest of my ribs
a light breeze of caramelchocolate wisps 
dancing the hills and valleys of fragile shoulders,
rolled in
collarbone ravines
where fingers run rivers and nestle in my plush breasts
kneeling, eyes to lips
skin to skin
palm to heartchest

woke up with my cigarettes smoked
and a red wine sweater stuck in my throat
my heart had fallen
into the rot of my stomach
the acid burning holes in its rhythm
i reached down and set it on the nightstand
i couldn't even look at it
the pathetic random, rapid beats
slowed by the sludge of stomach contents
sped by the green gastric secretions
i no longer controlled it
i felt pathetic

i only cry in the shower
that way no one can hear me wailing
while the water boils on my shoulders
and steam fogs the broken mirrors

i only hurt in the morning
when it feels likes its just beginning
and i hear your words all over again
the first time my ears were bleeding

April Poem A Day Challenge: Day 12

For today's prompt, I want you to take the phrase "So we decided to (blank)" and fill in the blank. Make that your title and write a poem. Some possibilities include "So we decided to plant a tree" or "So we decided to burn a hole in the sky."

So we decided to fall in love
or I decided, rather
a long time ago.
I decided that you were my It
and I made you want it
and I made you try it
and you did
for awhile,
you were very good at It
We decided that we would laugh excitement
and challenge
and question
We decided that together we could conquer the evenings
and welcome new mornings
We decided that beds were better shared
and bodies, barnacled
We decided to handle each other with caution and care
and lace and feathers
We decided that there may come a moment
when It was no longer that easy to come by
but we decided to promise to keep trying.
We didn't.
Then we started deciding new things, too.
You decided that you weren't ready for this.
I decided you didn't love me like I needed.
You decided you were incapable of giving me what I deserved
I decided you didn't pay me enough attention
You decided that you no longer felt like trying
I decided I would continue to fight for this
You decided that you no longer wanted me
I decided to cry in private.

i woke with my fingers in my mouth
gnawing at each nail
releasing screeching tire sounds
and my head, compressed between crumb filled cushions
the couch, so comfortable during those final few moments
of open eyelids
right before we slip into consciousness
and truth
i woke with my left shoulder rolled
around my chest
and bent between flesh of breasts and sensitivity
my bicep tense
trapezius fibers tugged like taffy
now tender and sore
and in need of some therapy
this sunday morning i think about reading
skipping yoga
drinking coffee
and listening to the blue jay bully the finches at the feeder
that has been empty since last October
one side feels like fighting
cold and annoyed and in pain
the other feels like flying
and celebrating
life
a new way
on this sunday morning

a naked maple controls the ice's amplitude
tells which streams may run which way
and pokes stars in the January night
like placing pegs in a Lite Brite
Out the window
there is a crisp, familiar sadness
too cold to be comforting
too biting to be blanketing
so we race from door to door
and shiver questions inside the car
and smoke to warm our hallow bodies
and melt eachother's insecurities
with frigid fingers
on warm bellies

(a friend of mine wrote this and I absolutely love it, so even though he may not want it shared, I feel that it must be....
brilliant)

Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone
You stumbled through my door
with flowers in your hand and whiskey on your breath,
and i daredn't ask
how you found the place, or why this door appealed enough
for you to pick the lock.
But I'm excited to be excited about a soul
who keeps her courage private,
and I think you know I know that what I think you are
isn't truth so much as confluence
of the person you present and that which I would have you be.
But if history treated us differently
in my mind we'd be up talking until our heavy lids
could take no more. But no,
how much more apt to live on the cusp of one another's
imagination? How much more true?

I would write you a poem,
but I wouldn't want you to think me too forward.
It's really not like that.

From the poem a day challenge: Today, I want you to write a confessional poem
(aren't all my writings confessions?)

my bruised knees burn
kneeling on this wooden block
penance for the boys i led to warm waters
and drowned
in oceans of desire
the screen window slides open
He is waiting to judge my fantasies
tell me how i should breathe
without the images, pictures
and scarred skin
but i'll seduce him
with my elevated pitch
my chin drops to my chest
i bow my head
but these sunken eyes keep challenging heaven
"forgive me, Father
I have sinned"