Live Poets

jamcakes007 — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:23:15 GMT

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

ziarre — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:50:15 GMT

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.

therepublican — Fri, 30 May 2008 19:45:10 GMT

anyone still around?

Poem: The Glassworks

ziarre — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 05:23:59 GMT

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.

And they built factories
on the black hills just south
of the city,
and the sun rose in those windows: they
blazed orange in the mornings; from the thin stacks
steam blossomed like flowers
if the sky was a field.
Men came and tilled the earth -
they sowed beads of glass after them
and gleaming buildings rose
to puncture and scrape heaven -
we stood watching in our valley
and we didn't dance anymore.

Because trembling we stood
as factories built factories as
factories made men to
build pillars of light;
because on the hills to the south
our history was a postscript,
our present an interlude
before a brighter intercession;
because out of sand and heat
we watched our future
billow and bend,
we fell to our knees as factories built factories
turned out new ways of living,
and the things that we muttered
sounded distant
as prayer.

It's been a while.

irishandinsane — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 19:31:42 GMT

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.

Tock, tock, tock.
I spoke.
You asked if I could,
I can.
So maybe if I move my tongue quick enough
the stagnant taste of stepping
toe to toe
in an eye-less march
may fade
to simple boredom.

But trip me up again, your eyes
the colour of frozen fingertips,
near testy as your whippet words,
and I might find a quieter silence.

I chose to tick of nonsense
and twitch and spit the ways
that might illicit a cipher, splinter
to tempt a petty word from your sprite, strutting teeth.

So stop looking at me like I need pity.

Just keep doing what you're doing.
Spite yourself, nod along.
Totter along, nod along
to the tune you're not listening to

but someone else said was "fab".

Tock, tock, tock.
How long has that bloody watch been broken?
I'd miss the tick but your oblivion's tee-total.
Or did I finally blow out my own ears?

Maybe that's my brain tunelessly humming
your
talk, talk, talk.

The November Cantos

ziarre — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 08:06:58 GMT

The November Cantos

I. You
set my soul to jumping in
the night; you propped my heart ajar
and shouted your name down
those long, high corridors.
I felt you rumble in my sternum - I felt
you echo in my brain.
I missed you.
I felt you throb atomic
in my bones
your fingers tightening
against the skin of my arm
felt hot phantom breath on my cheek
as I slept and tried not to sleep,
an insomniac holding
vigil,
with every pulse
beat your breath,
every action
a part of the pantomime
of missing you.

II. Such groans and sniffles accompanied
your leaving;
you should have heard - well, you
should have heard our treaties first, but
never mind -
and then we felt you in our bodies
and your voice whispered to us as
we looked at each other.
Your memory
curved the blankets that we left between us,
so we held each other across that chasm,
spoke, did not speak
of the strangeness
of being far from you
though you were alive.

III. Though you were alive I
read you like a book,
perused your history for a clue,
an interesting gem of a story, some key
to unlock you when
our love could not. I conversed with your family,
hoping that the helix, the language of our
consternation, could decode
anger and misery twined;
it could not.
And then I mined my own offering, my selfish past
into which you entered
at one time
or another -
there was nothing.

IV. So I took to seeing you
in a black bird's wing, a puddle - in the new
fallen snow the morning
we missed you. It made no more sense
the more I saw,
but it was better
after that green cell with your
laughter on the walls. I knew then
that I could love you
beyond our hurt.

V. You got farther away
during another cold night,
but now it's only distance,
miles and mountain. They'll send you back to us,
your gregarious self,
and I'll see you and smile more and more.

VI. The sky holds
the orange sun
in her belly; the trees reach up,
rasp the clouds with knobby arms;
water freezes and touches everything - in the street a mother
goes by with
her baby.
It continues like this:
cars hiss
schools close and open
children go back
and forth -
things grow and die
and life -
life stutters forward and
goes on
with you
with you
and with you.

from beauty, onward

ziarre — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 18:41:20 GMT

it is strange to
see you, now,
so old grown from
sixteen

a pale woman of youth and
no colour

undressing at the window
undiminished and erotic
alcohol scented on
your skin
the very eagerness evident and ready
in the curve of your frame,
the slack of your

spine
the gaping maw and wound
of his need for you

i observe to you
how the purple flower blooms
so delicate
under your sill

those you planted yourself
pressing your thumbs
into the sharp still-damp
earth

and when his
jaw is open
he talks words
(but they are
not about me)
and you!
a woman of the sea
in both colour and
rapture.

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

Sixth Grade Education

roseross — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 20:52:49 GMT

Debbie was the first at our bus stop to wear hiphuggers.
Her black leather belt was wide as a handspan
and as the steel buckle winked beneath her bellybutton,
the boys held their books low. They looked stunned,
as if they had blown out birthday candles, then found
a playmate whisked from a sticky page to their front door.

Platform shoes that weighed five pounds each raised her
to heights beyond penny loafer feet. They made her flared
cuffs flap about her ankles, till she paused behind a bush
and asked for a light. Bold as her new breasts, the boys
fluttered close, flames raised, knocked dumbstruck
by her curly shag haircut and a scent they couldn't yet name.

She accepted Tom's match and the rest guttered out. Pale,
skinny, smart Tom who just last year passed a note to Vivian
that said he liked me. I thought we would speak this semester
but instead, I stood quiet with the other little girls,
our books held high and tight across our shallow chests
as we studied Debbie's eyeliner and the tilt of her red smile.

Cross-posted

During The Mi Lai Massacre

roseross — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 15:32:57 GMT

The days were painted yellow for me then:
the Disney sun, a schoolbus neatly trimmed
in black, my cedar pencil box that held
the sharpened Number Twos. Mrs. Feldman's
daisy dress was brightly golden-hued.
She drawled us through the mysteries
of writing on the line. Mocking little birds,
we traced her lead, copying the curves
of "B," the slants of "A," the down of "J."

When a brassy horn would cry, we'd crouch
beneath our laquered desks, practicing defense
should the Russians reach our shores.
Covering our ears, our foreheads on our knees,
we knew they'd never get here: Dan'l Boone
or Underdog would thwart their evil plan
and, sure enough, each week the siren
ceased on cue and math began afresh.

Safely home, hot cornbread on our plates
with steak, khaki draped the nightly news
and yellow turned to red. Mrs. Mikalichik
had a son gone overseas. We watched,
but Mr. Cronkite never showed him on TV.
My best friend's older brother tried to dodge the draft
but her father said he'd kill him first, so Kenny
took up heroin and soon became the first
we knew to go to jail. We thought he was so cool.

9/4 - minor revision

Well, you've got yourselves another newbie

bluefate — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 03:32:56 GMT

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 Identity

A dozen steps in
and I regret taking off my shoes.
You'll see me
when you
are ready
(and not a moment
made to seem sooner,
or sweeter, by elevator music).
What happened to the days
when we could sit back
and laugh at ourselves,
sipping iced something
and not worrying about
someone's "extra incentive"?
Now you're too sharp
for the world to get a hold of,
and you expect me
to recognize irritatingly
painful spots of naivety
with you?
I wouldn't ask, anymore,
but you don't expect questions.
You want answers, facts,
and self-relying
truths that keep appearing
from I don't know where.
So, I'll just slip out now
if you think
you can usher me under your wing
as if you were more
than eight months older than me.
I think it's safer to say, no,
you may not see me
into my future;
I'll go at it
without your help, thanks.

74

herb_lehman — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 13:13:06 GMT

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

74

At half past ten, celebrities
can’t buy a ticket here. This show’s
for the off-shift nurse, the waiter
who’s been stiffed on tips,
the carpenter, the chain-store clerk.
They grab onto the metal bars as tires
groan on north shore roads, taking in tenors
of wailing brakes, hot air hissing through rear-
door cracks, the insistent song
of the stop-request bell.
Gas stations and groceries blur outside
Broad Street windows; young boys wail
above the diesel drone.
Driver calls stops in a Springsteen
drawl, longing for a Greyhound
and an empty interstate. His riders
take peace in gate-drawn shops,
slouching in the sky-blue seats.

Seek

current_jer — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 08:23:35 GMT

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

The Magician

roseross — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 16:40:28 GMT

To pass my apprenticeship, I crossed an abyss
as if it was nothing. Child-cliff to man-cliff I walked,
east to west, moonshore to suncoast, never looking down.
So close and unfiltered by cloud, the sky

washed innocence from my eyes and gifts appeared
before me, made solid from bedazzled air. Keen sword,
green wand, glass cup, coin earned by the able:
I took them all up, mine by trial of craft and guile.

Now, I stand on solid ground and farmers throw corn
and fat daughters at my feet. Servants do my will
and if I ever want, I reach above and squeeze red wine
from the fiery grapevines that bind the gate to heaven.

I planted the staff of The Fool. It rooted
and grew to smother my walls with roses
and unruly lilies: blooms with no purpose
crowding my stage with wasps and cloying perfume.

No matter. I've mastered the mountains, split atoms,
called lightning -- if flowers surround me,
I'll brew them in love draughts or boil them in stew
for all things are tools in the conjuror's room.

<cross-posted)

newbie

dead_kitty — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 15:22:31 GMT

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.

katherine_carla — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 18:17:01 GMT

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.

Edit #1

Thick walls spiked with glass
fortress an urban enclave.
Inside: a fig tree, papyrus, macaws.
The garden is tended
like a favored grandchild.
Cedar benches flank the inner halls.

From the cobblestones: a barefoot woman
balances a basket, an eight-year-old carries
her baby sister in a sling, a bent man
shoulders a cart meant for a mule.
The afternoon torrents cleanse
nothing. The streets, now muddy rivulets,
emerge each day dusty and worn.

Flying Over Flatbush

herb_lehman — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 04:58:00 GMT

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 Flatbush

I hover above the late-night bodegas,
cruising in an eggshell haze of fast-food
joints and drugstores. Sears drones linger
outside Kings Mall, Newports glowing
orange dots. Green lights clear to the Rockaways
and we’re flying, two hundred miles per hour,
as the cartoon giraffe of Toys ‘R’ Us salutes
a quarter-mile below.
I rocket with you in the shotgun seat
above the barren Bennett Field, to the grey-
white lights of the Hodges Bridge.
Nobody told me Saturns could fly.
I wander in cosmic overdrive, driving to find
the meaning of love, concealed behind your birch-
bark eyes. In time the journey will come
to its end, but now I’m going to kiss you
and let the car sort it all out.

cullowhee valley

therepublican — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 00:45:45 GMT

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."

a bit of comic relief

herb_lehman — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 02:06:17 GMT

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.

Asunder (We Are)

ziarre — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 02:26:53 GMT

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.

Donald Hall

roseross — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 01:24:02 GMT

Outspoken New Englander Is New Poet Laureate

Beyond

current_jer — Thu, 11 May 2006 02:25:24 GMT

Friday, May 05, 2006

Beyond

I need to run into the sunset, into those arrulent
hues that melts my heart from palpitating to
dripping caramel at the corner; then grazing
across the hinterland of my mind, a hand
would pick me up and send me soaring
into the sky, with winds sweeping my hair-
and then with a scream of palpable elation

fall onto the devil's trident with a splat,
embracing the life beyond.

cuRRent...jer

its been a long time anyone posted :)

katherine_carla — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 12:50:35 GMT

Slow as glacier drift,
steady as a tributary seeking the ocean,
laden with gently gathered debris,
melancholia overtakes its surroundings.

I walk the moraine's sharp valley,
unearth loose stones, spot
tiny, spined flowers surfacing.

Time Morph

luckycee — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 10:05:21 GMT

When I turned the volume up
for "Tuesday Afternoon"
my cigarette morphed
into a roach-clipped joint.
Out of nowhere Peter Max
swirled paisly
on my windshield.
The Moody Blues
on a country road...

I checked the mirror,
and it was still me:
a middle-aged boomer
working for the county.

But until the last chord,
I was sneaking butts
and smiling black-light
bright teeth, chugging
Boone's Farm Apple wine
for a dollar a bottle
at a secret party
in a basement,
safely seventeen.

yll — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 06:34:02 GMT

mint-petaled orchid
its avarice for breath, mist:
tryst of thirst and death.

APRIL FOOL!

herb_lehman — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 03:18:41 GMT

That's right, I'm posting a poem.

My main question is this: Does it make sense?

The $12 Martini

The glass fits in your open palm,
tinted like a velvet rope. It smells vaguely
like perfume, and not the sort you'd buy your wife.
The olive is so small you need a microscope
to make it out. This is not a martini.
You can't guess what it is, but for twelve dollars
it must be good. Raising the shot to your arid lips,
you toast the New York night--and taste nothing
but the air of the room: failed pick-up lines
and stale cigarettes. The black-shirt crowd
all drink the same drink;
they don't seem to mind the fallow glass.
You call for the waitress, ask for another,
wonder if you missed the point.