[x]

Foam OverI know her secret:
she has no bile
or sweat or blood.
She's just cloth draped over
soft cloth, it is what
the edges of my hands remember,
recanting dreamily to each other.

I have made her dirty with affection.
We both are waiting for sunshine
to foam over the hills.

If you lay down in the park long enough,
someone will pick you up. Even without hope,
someone will pick you up. Even without hope,
someone will not let you lie there and burn.

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.

InsectThat man
at the
corner

does not
watch the
light-

instead,
he smashes
a bug

who had
somewhere
to go.

A Liquid StateIt's raining
hard,
just outside
the window,
pleading
to get in
as the people
on the
roads are
soaking
running
covering
their heads;
protecting
the water
in their bodies
from the water
in the rain.

Are You Missing"Are you missing
anything?",
she sighed

-as she watched
the snow-ghosts
at night
with her hands
on the frozen
glass, leaving
fog prints
that pressed
and reached.

-as he sat quietly,
breathing in
that summer
rain.

UndercurrentPeople hang lightbulbs,
made from wire
and amber bottles,
out their windows
and beneath flowerpots.

You can almost see
the animals
swimming just below
the streets.

We are watching
for shipwrecks.

We are watching
for tattoos
on the heart and lungs;
for ink that drifts
through your veins.

We are watching
young men build rafts
from fliers
and telephone poles.

Waiting for a
blue-gray wave
of asphalt
to carry them
out to sea.

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.

ClenchGood movements and
warm light
from a second story
window.
Oil from the fingers
tilted head
staring contests
with the walls-
words that break up
easily, calmly and
without argument or
pulling out the muscle fibers
in your wrists,
worse than handcuffs
and innocence
in a concrete room.

Now listen to this:

I want you calm and
enraptured-
a timid spider
touches the edge of
a sugary cola drop
from the lips parting for light.

I want you without predation.
I want you with forgiveness
and angerless,
the mountains have gone dry
and sleepy from
watching over the hills.

And cold
so very cold.

I want you broken
and untouched by man.
Without faith. Un

Ghost StoryWhat is this
on the next horizon
holding strong against the wind,
it is a figment,
it is an oil stain,
it is something
less than a blur
and more than a photograph.

I Woke Up Like HeliumI woke up like helium,
all teeth and nails
and sunshine. Breath
that could move the waves, eyes
all over the crowd
looking for one to
latch onto.
Searching for that person who
is an island-
skin like sand
fists like rocks
palms like palms,
brushing against
the light
catching air.
Maybe they will get good, maybe
they will get
far away.
You need a place to stand
that will move the earth.
You need to
lay down like an animal,
and like
the other pretty things on the shores,
I say,
wait until you are pretty too.

Words For WordsI know for a fact
that when I'm no longer sick
the words will stop coming.

I will stop becoming
close to a writer.

But you don't want that,
and neither do I.

Holding Onto The Sharp SideI sent three poems
just like you asked
and after a long pause,
you said they were beautiful
and I said nothing.

If I had a knife
I would cut holes in the paper,
If I had a gun
I would string it up by the corners
and pull triggers with my eyes closed.
bang bang bang
click click click

And if I had a match
I would douse myself in gasoline
then touch the pages,
and you.

I never loved you
and you told me the same,
we held hands
kissed hard
not in love, together.

You told me
terrible stories.

Oh, and another thing:
at 44.145447 N, 120.583402 W
you showed me what humans
are blessed to hold.

(or maybe just deserved)

The Mountains Past ChinaTibet is still a part
of China.
But we forgot about
all that.

Now the kids have guns
in Africa,

and I hardly have the energy
to even save
myself.

WhitewashI am buying some tea
in a glass bottle
on a college campus.

Nobody is here after
7pm, not even the
monsters.

Me,
them-
our collective
loneliness.

Everyone wants to
get in their cars
and find home.

There is
lots of waiting.

An old friend passes me
on the stairs.
We make jokes
about our
disappointment.

Hell is a quiet place.

The silver token bottle cap
clings,
then bends.

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.

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More from *FallingAsleepTonight

CaleaShe's brewing that tea
from the island
that grabs your hair
and pulls you into
the street. I'd drink
it to get rid of
my wild dogs; all that
lonely guilt and
happy memories,
with more in my year
before the steam catches
our senses. Time is less
of a straight line
and more of a blowtorch.
It seals us up before
we can flaunt our disease.
A paranoid schizophrenic
doesn't know he's sick; the junkie
believes what he says.
We nakedly trust our eyes
we nakedly trust our bodies.
It's all enough to kill a storm
and make a coat
from its hair.
My blue-green iris
grows with my mouth
on tiny strings
and tiny thoughts
as my body drinks,
and drinks,
and dri

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.

We Can Make Reams From The TreesIt is
waiting
for newspaper

to turn
crisp,
and yellow

then red.

Autumn
novelized,
no more

stories
of winter
and

dying.

How about
we
circle our

favorite
words,

I chose

blush and
brunette
and
roof,

goodnight,
twice

just to
make

sure.

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Submitted: August 3, 2012
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by *FallingAsleepTonight, Aug 3, 2012, 12:25:19 AM
Literature / Poetry / Romantic / General / Free Verse

There was no
life in
danger, but
she pressed her
lips to his

and breathed
into him
all the
same.

Gaspby *FallingAsleepTonight

Literature / Poetry / Romantic / General / Free Verse

Continuing with this same minimalist style that I'm honing, but widening the subject matter. Comments, criticisms, suggestions, etc are always welcome.

Submitting this to #Live-Love-Write for their The Best Of You contest, which can be found here: [link]

love 4 4

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wow 2 2

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*LORD-OF-JUSTICE May 2, 2013 Student Writer

It's amazing how so few words can paint a mental picture so vast

*FallingAsleepTonight May 2, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Thank you!

~VShaw Sep 23, 2012

I like this. Simple, but very effective.

~ricken4003 Sep 21, 2012

I'm all about minimalist; I'm too distracted to read anything longer.
Seriously, though, and I know everyone has their own opinion on this, but I think with most poems/poetry, less is more.

*FallingAsleepTonight Sep 21, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Agreed, I have to get hooked pretty quickly in order to read long works. And I believe that being able to say a bunch with a little is a skill worth refining.

~Seykloren Aug 11, 2012

Wonderfull,I really liked this, its short but very emotionaly power-fused.

~Mr-Black-Bird Aug 10, 2012

Even though this is very short (minimalist) I enjoyed it.

Someone embracing danger and the wrong decision, I can definitely relate to this.

My only critique would be to maybe re-work the second stanza a bit, I felt it didn't give me as great of an impact as the first. But I cant put my finger on why... perhaps it was the wording? "and breathed into him". Maybe switch breathed with a different word, or just re-work it a bit. Sorry :/

*FallingAsleepTonight Aug 10, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

It's all good, I love good criticism, thank you!

~isitdarkenoughx Aug 10, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

I absolutely adore this. It feels so private, so intimate. Very good job at the writing style and wording.

*FallingAsleepTonight Aug 10, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Lovely, thanks!

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