[x]

SaltwaterTo wake up in a single's bed;
to drink the ocean from a cup.

WildYou could never be strangers again
in that void of charged space
between the eyes and the air.
And the other people, who are
less than faces in the crowd.

Maybe it was a true dream of
dark times, always walking,
you are thief protected by gloss
that they could break
if only they knew how.

The lion at the zoo could
jump the fence, the wolves
could dig beneath the glass.

Safety is a mutual ignorance,
and it is something to be reminded
through wilds of the woods,
that she has fangs
and so do you.

lower_casei have not read enough poetry
and i am not one to muse
or maybe think
but i do have
a question
i am one student in a freshman course
who wonders
why so many poets use only
lower case

is it artistic
is it sexy
to write as if
you do nothing but whisper

i want to be loud
i want
the survivors of death
to remember me

i will not mutter
like a fetus
trapped
undeveloped

perhaps there is
nothing to this
technicality

but there is value
in knowing how to yell
and in absolute
silence.

Butterfly/RavenSo we are sitting on one of those
uncomfortably tight bus stop benches
and we've just met,
but she's rather pretty
with her artificially dark hair
and naturally dark eyes.
I tell her a story about my past
and a joke about drugs
and she's laughing-
she says: you sound like you want
a girlfriend,
my boyfriend says he would never
leave me;
wouldn't you want a girlfriend
like me?
And I say no, I would rather
have a butterfly's proboscus
that I could unravel and slide down your throat
in order to better taste your nectar.
The little bench is suddenly too uncomfortable
for her and my laughing
probably doesn't help either.

BoxcutterWe are
in her hardwood apartment,
that we bought
because of the neighbors
and the windows
that light up
the dust on the floor.

She is kneeling
in front of
cardboard boxes,
sliding the knife
down the sides
with a paper sound.

And I am staring
into the empty rooms.

If she pushed
that boxcutter
into my lungs
the air would rush out
and say:

When you look at me
and bite your lip,
I see brown hair
and darker eyes.

And I would let her too
if it didn't
make such a mess
for the dust
and the neighbors
and the hardwood floor.

(nothing)Sitting on this bus,
I know that I am distinctly
separate.
I am the absence of this bus,
and the other passengers
as well.
There is some sort
of truth to this;
some sort of credence
that I can't
place my hands on.

(I am not the paper, only the folds
made by my fingers.
I am not the blankets,
only the indent left behind.
I am not the rain,
only the dry spots
marking the pavement.)

Even when I'm standing still,
I am not the air.

(I can only hold it in.)

Paperback SpineIn stories,
the lucky ones
have their lives changed
by one little moment-
one dandelion puff
between your palms.

And the author stresses
this moment, how tiny,
that seemingly unimportant
sentence, breaking
into a novel.

You have to be
always ready.

My eyes have gone dry
and my lungs are about to pop,
and my tongue is oversaturated-
and burning.

Glossi.

This is a poem
for lip gloss
and the pre-teen
who wears it
and the old woman
who tried.

This is for
sparkle and stick.
For bodies like
candle wax.
For all the boys and girls
who would breath in
those scents
when the wick turned black.

Before their hair
turned grey with ash,
and their eyes fogged over
from the naked heat.

Before young love dies
and is buried in a shoebox,
with a little pile of rocks
to mark where it was.

ii.

This is for
the scared little boy
who spent all his time
sniffing candles.
While pretty girls
lay on autumn hills,
and even the crickets play
in major key.

With their noses
face down in

Only NaturalSome would call this evil, but I find it entirely human to discover yourself alone with a stranger in the
supermarket isle and ponder how easy it would be to grab that glass jar of peanut butter with the blue
twist-off lid two shelves above you and mash their brains into jelly; only a psychopath would consider scraping up the resulting slurry with a saltine cracker as a souvenir.

An interesting case for the criminal justice department and the more visceral section
of the sociology department. Is it human to have such a fascination for the live feed snuff films that you seek
them out, that you search for their producers so you can intervi

PeakShirtless in bed,
on a lonely
saturday night.

An impatient man
writes impatient
poetry.

Drink DeepWe are not yet
dead, but the
scientists and
philosophers would
have you believe
that we are dying.
We have rehearsed
the methods of our
creation.
We make muses
from nature and
from each other.
We assume, like the
canyon's high-water mark,
that the floods
will not come.

Who am I
to say that
this is false,
that we have
little particles
that hold us apart-
(we are ever so slightly
levitating off the ground
and from each other.)

And the streets protest
by rehearsing the methods
of our end.

When our blood
turns to alcohol
and the first thing
they see of us
is the white
of our bones.

Second SphereI found part of me by accident
in a Parisian cardboard box
with satin rags; purple ink
depicting people and clouds.
Tungsten from the wires
of lightbulb husks.

He kicked my hand when I pulled him out,
my fingers caught up in the blonde.

Here there are boys who count
the golden rings of Saturn,
and retinas that lick up the sunset.

Pictures of Japanese lanterns on the sea-crest
and swarms of orange fireflies.

Girls who do not dot
their I's with hearts,
and wait for iodine skies
with slow, dripping
thunder.

Lean Over The RailA wood and steel bench on a pier
where the tourists have no reason
to go (that makes it home, that
makes it mine). It is chained to
the boards with seafoam rust
as if someone expects it to collapse
in the wind-
or to somehow preserve
all those pale carved hearts.

Like the one on the underside
of its leg, kept out of
sight (someone bent over
for this, someone wanted
this secret and forever).

(A tattoo, kept
from the family).

I can't read it anymore,
I can only touch it with
the top of my hand
and wonder if the ocean I'm
watching extends past
my eyes.

Ignore AdviceWrite ten bad poems.

Write one hundred
bad poems.

Write profoundly.

Write and drink.

Keep a notebook with you,
write in public
and make sure that others
know that you are, in fact,
writing.

Write a love poem,
then throw it away
because all the good ones
have already been read.

Ignore advice,
write about the decision
instead of the feeling.

Write one sentence
-make indents,
say to yourself that
this is it, THIS is IT.

Then delete,
and tell yourself that again.

OhFingers in front of
your eyes,
laced in light.

The arid, shifting
desert of your palms.

Sand in the beachgrass,
dancing.

Listen to the shell:
it will teach
what is alive.

Tell your children it was the ocean.

The whole world
can hear you breathe.

Are you innocent yet?

Fishnet stockings
and long, dark hair.

That empty
moment.

May she never hear the name
that you whisper through the dark.

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ExtinguishedI have met some girls, a few
in particular, in my
past who have had what you
would consider to be
strange habits.

Like, a blonde who kept me warm
and always smoked but
hardly ate. I guess
her stomach was always
filled to burst with smoke,
so there was no place for
food or much else.

She was always so
funny and
so easy to talk to
that it was hard
not to like her.

It was like staring
into a fire.

When she and I both died
for someone else, it
was okay and I left
without any tears (they had
burned up). But I
didn't have to search long;
I trip and spark like any other
hopeful loner.

This one stood on glowing
coals, push

God, Give Me A SirenI get up out of
bed and walk calmly
to the bathroom. Then,
get a glass of water
and momentarily
examine my scarlet
cerulean eyes before
trying to piss, but
nothing is coming out.

It's so quiet.
There are no sirens to
warn me that tomorrow
morning I could lose
another friend to
prison or
a hospital or,
or...
-None of my neighbors
are fighting; no plates
shattering into knives
against the wall. It
is so damn quiet.

Nothing is coming out,
so I go back to bed,
pull the blankets over my head
and can't sleep.

New Age FaithHave you ever been
lost?
I can lie naked
eyes shut
in my bed
with my head under
the covers and
sometimes
forget where I
am.

I can stare at
auburn streetlights or
raindrops floating down
glass and tell you:
this moment is
more beautiful than
he or she
wil ever be.

People do not glow,
streetlights do.

People do not shimmer,
raindrops can,
in the right light.

I am beginning to
believe this, I
wonder if you
will believe
me
too.

You Have No Need To RegretDo not regret your actions,
because at one point,
it was exactly what
you wanted to do.

-but if it wasn't what
you wanted,
then I guess you should
regret that too.

My AnnabelOh my dear, my Annabel Lee,
some days I wish,
there was never you and me-
and I'd disappear alone,
in the frothy sea.

Learn To BiteThere are people out there
who will take your
haphazard romance,
and your fragile
everything.
They will take it in
like a stray animal
or a five dollar bill
and keep it in their
pocket;
until you are spent-
starved.

Some homicides are not recorded
as they should be.

Next time someone
picks you up
and holds you close,
I want you to
(I need you to)
BITE.
-Then look them in the eyes and say:
"I will learn what you
taste like; either from a kiss
or by
eating you alive."

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by *FallingAsleepTonight, Sep 19, 2012, 7:04:15 PM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

When I walk on the curbs
of downtown, I can turn my head
and see my reflection
in the glass.
In the windows that stand guard
against the smoke
and the rain
and the winds.
I can see myself,
flickering between panes
as I move down the streets.
I can see myself,
wrinkling
wisening
waiting to grow old
and learning how to remember.