Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
 Feb 2013 Sub Rosa
J Patrick H
What is that reality that appears to me in dreams,
chock-full of misgivings and doubt. I counteract my fear of life
with my fears of slumber,
dust in my eyes and stiff as lumber.

In truth - I'm not stiffened
by fear,
by nausea,
post-pubescent sacrilege,
or all of the above.
I'm not up-kept,
grizzly with ennui;
I'm dizzy, confiding my loss.

I feel the lips that kiss
but can't be drawn: from mind,
stencil
paper
pen,
on sheets of thick
pale and
cellulose,
for the heart to mend.

My unsteady hand
is my fearful friend

A soft embrace
from a warm mind

Somber
and so full of Life
clung to by the scent of Death

Endowed
with an eternal promise and regret
from veins of plants
or the glow of stars.
Cold, mechanical debt.

(my heart, so full of...)

(my mind, so hot with...)

(my body, trembling in...)

I am gulf-like
a stream full of trees and glass
echoing a promise of shattering wind.

Will I be published
after my death,
asleep predating, a life conceived.
Will I live to see myself alone,
and to discover
that which I'm not?
Or will I stutter
and wallow a curse,
Up towards the sky,
Until the final verse.
On a boast
or chasing the Rail,
pale as dirt, and shallow still.

Will my true love abandon,  break, strain,
Burn away the wax,
or hurry to blame?

Omit my evils from the star-charts,
then just to vacate the void.
From the half-broken corridors of rocks,
nooks, crannies.
Carry laughter through the night
burn the effigy bowed-down,
before dawn's courageous,
ever-splaying light

Angels,
of Carlo and Marx,
plenty by noon
festoon,
again by day
thus replay,
Endeavor to infinity, fair child.
Remold the light by Day
and remold the Day
by Night.
 Feb 2013 Sub Rosa
Morgan
You've got a pair of strong hips
That pull me in with muffled lies
I've got a pair of soft lips
That you lean into with tired sighs

You've got a pair of bright eyes
That adjust to mine too seamlessly
I've got a pair of dark eyes
That are lost inside your scenery 

You always know just what to say
I fall apart a dozen times a day
We're just living in this dizzy game
Three years later, I still haven't
figured out how to play
You cracked my foundation every which way
But you're the one constantly reshaping the clay
I know that everything I touch is left in disarray
*But I won't sleep
if you don't stay
I was in love with anatomy
the symmetry of my body
poised for flight,
the heights it would take
over parents, lovers, a keen
riding over truth and detail.
I thought growing up would be
this rising from everything
old and earthly,
not these faltering steps out the door
every day, then back again.
 Feb 2013 Sub Rosa
Yosa Buson
Old well,
a fish leaps--
    dark sound.
I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek.)

How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin:
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing did we make.)

Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved.)

Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I'm martyr to a motion not my own;
What's freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways.)
Next page