Live Poets

 an auburn,
smoking slowly. 
she'll let me drift away cause
she does that 
sometimes.

but me, i'm still watching the 
horizon, waiting for
my mighty chance.
a millionaire's dear moment
cinematic 
worthy.

walking next to you.
i'd dive
head over feet
into thirsty
blue 

loving you
as always. 

unspun

They were in a truck
below the bridge, I on a catwalk
spanning the ignorant midsummer river,
only passing by, peering down.
I saw just hands, parts of clothes,
sticky white fingertips, her honeyed hem
dropping threads
like something loose in a tapestry.

They were the blood that hastened hot
to my cheeks, the dust I brushed
off my heels to march on; all afternoon,
the image clinging unctuously,
I pictured the faces of girls I knew
and tried to match them to
that sweet brown thigh,
dappled by a prism revolving in the light.

Infidelity is itself a machine
faithful to one thing, two -
an assailable need,
to moments enacted in a void, or
time outside the dial.

We were in a room, a chamber,
one of indistinguishable thousands within buildings
inside the city
and she was smoking thin import cigarettes, or
pretending to,
we all were.
And the TV was laughing, no-one else,
as the cat pulled
at my sweater with its teeth, unravelling it.
When she said Do you think God
can hear us right now?
and we held our breaths, sweaty,
waiting for the reply.

anyone still around?

Feedback welcome!


The Glassworks

Because bewildered we stood
when the natural synthesis occurred
and the future flowed out
soft and molten,
too hot to recieve with
our naked palms;
because with trepidation
our awe was tempered as
we watched it billow
at the end of the blower's pipe,
our hands went to our own crafts
with more care than before -

and suddenly under
the things we fashioned, our
towers of words, our houses rough-hewn,
something shone enigmatic - not terrible, yet,
that we could see,
but we whispered more, and when
we danced among ourselves in our spacious rooms
a certain fear clipped our movements, drew closer
our limbs:
we were thinking of what we had seen.

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I joined this community a long while back and then my school blocked livejournal..
So I think I'll reintroduce myself. I'm Finola, i'm 17, i'm in my last year of a somewhat hellish boarding school. My writings rather messy so critique and help are always appreciated, thanks.

( On Unquestioning Minds.Collapse )

( it is strange to see you, nowCollapse )

Any and all comments and criticisms are welcome and appreciated. :)

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Cross-posted

This group seems interesting, and I thought I'd try it out.
I'll try to comment on others', but I'm not completely sure I know what I'm doing...
Right, a poem then?

( Development of an IdentityCollapse )

I've written many transportation poems, but never one about a bus. Any comments you have would be greatly appreciated.

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Seek

Seek

The trains are soaring into the air
and crop circles are playing hide
and seek. Pleasure moments hang
before us- the giver, the taker; catch
them around. The lakes are cutting
through the mountains and the clouds
are whriling yelling. Our dreams
are whitering away if we don't catch
them soon.

Spin us around again as our eyes are
caught in orange tidal waves. Run into
the world as we hide and seek. Our walls
are clashing and speaking feeling
as hands fly out to reach. Our dreams
are withering away-hidden and sought.
Don't let the magic
die, we pray.


cuRRent...jer

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<cross-posted)

Hi everyone. I'm here on the advice of herb lehman, who said you guys give wonderful feedback.

This is a new one I really need comments on. I'm not comfortable with the end, but I don't know what to do about it.

I'm thinking of putting together a book of poems about my family, and calling it "in a small country". What do you think of the title? Is it blah?

In a Small Country

stars fall into our thatched roof
the fire burns for years
my family too stunned to move

we watch the stars burn us
one by one
and one by one we burn away

my brother’s sneakers catch fire
then his tube socks

he cries out
curls into a ball
on the living room carpet

my mother doesn’t want to draw attention
her robe bursts into bright ribbons
the plastic buttons melt into her chest
she silently disintegrates to ash

the dictator and the rebel
only two of us left
we start to waltz
our own private dance
known only in this small country

we trip through the remains of the kitchen
where pots and cups still smolder

over shards of window panes
my father is humming and twirling
as the ceiling caves in on him

soon there is only me
my eyelashes singed
my soles blistered

and now I can tell
this pen, too, burns



Any kind of comments at all are welcome.

Thick walls spiked with broken glass
fortress the urban enclave.
Inside: a fig tree, papyrus, macaws.
The lavish garden is tended
to like a favored grandchild.
Sturdy nineteenth century cedar
benches flank the inner halls.

From the cobblestone street:
a barefoot woman balances a basket
on her head, an eight-year-old carries
her infant sibling in a sling, a bent man
shoulders a cart meant for a mule.
The afternoon torrents cleanse
nothing, the muddy rivulets
arise each day dusty and worn.

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I wrote this poem for a particular person, who happens to live in Brooklyn, NY, and there are a number of references to specific Brooklyn landmarks. Do you still think the meaning of the poem would come through for a non-New Yorker? I'm curious. Of course, all other comments are welcomed on this one. And roseross, sorry for yet another infusion of brand names and product placements.

( Flying Over FlatbushCollapse )

Have at it...

"Cullowhee Valley"

FALL
Saturday mornings at Camp Lab,
early rising for the marching band
practice at eight in the mountain stadium.

Nick, with his cigarette,
drove the long pit train from its coffin
storage house, puffing just like the
Smoky Mountain Railroad.

First morning I needed a jacket.
Wind stings my eyes, and the little tears
chase each other around to my ears.

The mountains' gold like the brilliant trumpets
played by college kids in pajamas and sweatshirts,
a sleepy cadre who drag themselves together,
horns up, and volley a two-hundred-fifty-man morning
wake-up call across the cold dewy valley,

crying aloud the sunrise morning grace,
until the sun is up and we are done,
tiny fog clouds of steam drawing
from our breathless mouths.


WINTER
Mrs. Addison told me the barren trees
that stained the mountains tobacco brown
were not the thorny bristles I'd imagined.
Soft, she said, like down on a goose,

each tree-feather strong, spine-like,
but topped with a delicate frill
that seemed an ocean of softness, rolling.
And if it were God's will, He could run

combs through every treetop, straightening
the forests like a mother grooms her daughter.
Yes, Elizabeth, I thought; how the winter
could on the trees freeze water, that crystal white

shimmer suddenly softer, like her husband's
snowy beard, trees with white locks
shaking in a runaway sun, the evening's beard
growing longer, laying cold each frozen pock
on the pitted rock-face mountain.


SUMMER
in the valley means climbing
onto the shoulders of the mountains
to catch any sunlight;
giants stretching to the horizon,
as if five dozen of them all
laid down to sleep at once,
their angled joints poking up,
great heaves of earth arising,
grown old and covered moss green.

Never a hot day that can't be escaped
under the canopy's umbrella,
the valley a deep cistern of shadows
where there are hidden rivers,
boiling water black with cold.

The college is empty,
Cullowhee valley quieter,
the volume in the river-shade low enough
to hear the mountains' hush:

"Quiet. Listen
so you may hear our humid song, so you
may know that here your soul resides, watching
where you are now."

How to Ask Out a Woman

Pretend you are a bowling ball
and her eyes are the seven-ten:
focus on nothing but your mark.
Take a breath if trepidation
quakes your knees; she’s a woman,
not a python, and unless she writes
for the New York Post, her venom
will be harmless against you.
Rehearse your lines as if you’re Macbeth
and Ken Branagh is watching. Open
your mouth and sell yourself
like Joe Isuzu hawking a car:
have faith in your product, even if
it’s a hopeless piece of junk.
There’s no need to try and be a Ferrari
when most of the cars on the road
are Fords. Even Pintos find a home:
women love the tangerine glow
when they crash and burst into flames.

I seem to have crossed the land
to you, in a dream - when
I walked I was full of you, like a bowl
full of swimming green light,
bowl full of water.
The bowers in your senate were dense
and tall -
when I hunched under them I hunched
under you, my body cupping your judgement
as the blossoms came
down, slick and clean. I
stretched, a sail to the wind (''Oh, how you move me,
you move me,"
I said, and you laughed) bright as
I unfurled

bright as the wind that swept
and tossed my limbs
to the four corners of you

and your towers
and your sky as tall as God.

I cannot look at your mouth now
without thinking of the voice it houses, that
shudders like thunder
in the temple of you. In some
countries - and men are countries, women countries
too - they push their sorrows down
rivers

in paper boats, burning,
their solemn wish.
Like I, when my shoulders rise up to meet your hands.
When my legs push against your fingers, or my
hair tangles itself on your thumb. When I lifted up
with the joy of you, bowl of water,
of light

and searched my skin to find you there.