The sounds spill from my mouth.
"Aahhhghhshhhspliminohhhh"

I look for words,
wanting to make some kind of sense.

That day you took your life,
I remember standing in my kitchen,
Wondering what will I make for dinner tonight.  

It's a cruelty of life, this going on with the mundane.

My world crashes like some
Like some
<insert a favorite cliche here>
Like some
<worn out country song>
Like some
I don't know what the **** to call it,

<It just ends.>

But the crazy, sad, infuriating part is this:


It doesn't.

Life just goes on.

And yeah,  I  cry while  I'm chopping the onions.

I cry when I am folding the laundry and I  come across a sock that once cradled your foot, and I  think,  

"What the ****? It's only a sock!"
Not some shrine to the foot that was:

'I love the ground he walks on'

But that's what it becomes.

Then I  just make those sounds.

"Aahhhghhshhhspliminohhhh"
"Whatwereyouthinking? "
"Iloveyouforeverwhy?"

https://youtu.be/HXD3StsKCJk

What oozes out
                             (between the lines)
the scent of shaving,
your lean leg,
those dancing eyes,
waffles.

What can't escape
                                (the boldface type)
the door that slams,
your heavy feet,
dark eyes demanding
waffles.

What remains
                          (the words that blur)
a broken dish
your cracking wit,
my steady hand, now
waffles.

In the garden she digs furrows
with her broken clock hands,
plants time in fallow fields.

On hands and knees,
the moist crumbling soil
spills through determined fingers.

With watchful gaze
they wind,
they spin.

She repackages her purpose into
tiny tin boxes,
folds the brittle paper of years ticking by,

molds origami shapes:
the thousand cranes,
one croaking frog,

and stuffs them there.

Iamb, iamb, iamb, I plod along
in verse predicting I could write a song.
To call upon the muse of higher power
pour some wine, kick off your shoes and glower.

While putting best foot forward, don't forget:
cliches are lines that surely **** your wit.
Reality, you say, bears greener grass?
Abstraction always steps across as crass.

It's true you could walk on like this for days.
Your meter's tight, it rarely ever strays.
But what of clever feet and sounds succinct?
If images are dull, your verse will stink,

As blossoms dance upon the redbud tree
and oceans fill your squid with ink of glee,
remember what your mama always said:
mixed metaphors fill readership with dread!

Say: sonics surely sock a swelling swale,
Entwined, the twisted tongues tell not your tale.
Less is always more, the teachers say.
If tricks you train, then please just walk away!

I never knew how hard it really was
to write a poem that might parade a buzz.
I thank you moderators and big brass
for sticking yours so fully up my ***!

The great blue heron haunts the reedy bank,
and combs the midnight waves with razor eyes.
He trolls the river shoals on spindled shank
then beaks his prey with sudden, swift surprise.

In shadowed silhouette his figure begs
my mind to plumb the depths of darkened mire.
But diving there, I rise with naught but dregs,
no meal of meat, no answers to inspire.

The heron pauses thoughtfully mid-stride
to preen his dusky feathers in the glow.
He ***** his crested head to leeward side,
then darts, once more, with certainty, below.

Aloof to prying gaze of passersby,
he lifts majestic wings on moonlit sky.

His letters scatter loose upon the ground,
She clenches fists despite arthritic hands
that rail against the words she never found.
To spite the golden noose of tarnished bands,
she douses tomes and quick lets loose a flame.
A tendril's curling wisp of past desire
snakes toward the sky. Still the ash of blame
survives the ceremony's futile pyre.
What fire ever burns away the dross
or dulls the tempered edges of we're done?
Yet embers coax; they succor heat not lost
to years they burned together each alone.
The groan of ache sounds low within her hips.
One letter saved, pressed tightly to her lips.

Luis drives around the block once more;
his car zipping, ripping,
as his thoughts
are surely racing.

We don't know,
but Monica keeps his keys in her back pocket.
She waggles her peaches when he drives by.

"Juicy fruit", Luis murmurs, then
shifts it into high gear,
spins out,
comes again;
his gravel strikes her hard
between the knees. Monica spreads

her branches, two twigs waving.
She shouts,
"Hey old man, why don't you come perch on these?"

It's a dance of disaster, and no plaster cast protects
those alabaster bones she bares so well.

How clever is the subtle Stellar Jay
who clamors loud on swaying autumn's branch
and never sings of summer's fair embrace,
nor daydreams of the trysts of spring's last chance.

Yet eyes so sharp the jeweled beetle under bark;
snaps him up, pries her beak once more beneath the bark.

I crack the brickle bone and then carve back
through muscle taut with cell memory,
past tendons that could never teach us love.

We were bone on bone all the way.

I slice past ridges where my fingertips once danced,
filet the contours of youthful sighs, where repeated
good-byes were a chance to begin again.

This carcass is rotting, and the back and forth sawing
from a knife that's grown too dull for its mauling
has left my hands itching from the putrid remains.

Stand by, watch the blood congeal on the ground.

I guess you can never cleanly cleave the meat that's been
hanging so long in your backyard.
Just let it drop:
the roast,
the ****.

See how the bones settle into the soil.
Who knows what might grow there?

Mama's in the hospital again; this time she's a saint.

Seeing Jesus in the laundry,
she strung my little brother from red overalls,
pinned his palms to the clothesline.
Martin's small, bare feet kicked his dissent
until his weight brought him to ground.

Now Daddy's in the kitchen making waffles.
His wrinkled trousers wear yesterday's doubt.

All us kids at the table, hands pressed
on knees, trying our Sunday best to not see the images:
the glazed panes,
the way the butter slides and dips,
how the syrup pools.

My gaze falls out the window at white sheets snapping
on the wire. Disappointed angels, their great huffing
wings strain to flap away from here.

I want to say a prayer but my mouth is full
of statues. Fissured
words scrape across the plate. I swallow
each one, sticky-sweet, unyielding,
with eyes closed.

Who's getting ready for NaPo?  
Is anyone as giddy as me?

Thirty days of thirsty words,
I'll be on a drunken spree.

Are you ready for NaPo?
Do you even know what it is?

National Poetry Writer's Month
A veritable poetry writing crunch!

Join me, join me! This I plea
A poem a day from me, you'll see!

A poem a day from me, from you?!

Don't speak to me of those droughted days
when you reigned over me for twenty years.

Your dark clouds planted themselves
above my garden like seeds wanting
to rebirth a strangled youth.

I sickled down row after row:
your bindweed, your choke pear.

Purple flowers strung about my neck;
those bitter fruits, I swallowed whole:
a peck of yoke, two bushels of anguish.

'It'll get bad reviews, we should scrap the project before it breaks the budget.'*


We sit and talk art and beauty, love and fear,
my heart cracking open, and you,
rushing in.

We sit and talk,
play at this deadly game,
ignore the consequences,
shun the inconsistencies. The

words,
words,
words,
they swirl,
and
we slip,
we slip,
we slip.

It's a real cliffhanger.

Hearts on sleeves,
music weaves,
stories come to light.

Secrets, oozing out between
the well crafted lines of
our carefully scripted plot.

We sit and talk circles around
the herds of white elephants
that come to watch the show.
Mocking us, they laugh
as we tiptoe through fields of daffodils
under dark skies with rainbows.

(Scene change now)

In dark of night
I squeeze out hope
from my heart.
God ****** hope
twists up and knifes
me in the side,
leaves me bleeding on the floor.

And you,  fool you are,
rush to my aid.
If you're saving me,
who's saving you?

You, with your secret decoder ring
from your box of caramel corn, cracking
my heart, you peel my layers.

Your questions run deep but your feet will run faster, and

I'll fall,
I'll fall,
I'll fall.

Gravity's a real drag;
I've felt it's pull before.

Me, with my third eye see the pan and play.
This show will end leaving us all sitting in our seats
wanting another thirty minutes,
a tidier ending.

This ain't Disney.

We'll feel like we've been
ripped,
ripped,
ripped.

No refunds here,
go file your complaint with the man upstairs.

The audience stands, turns to go.

White elephants know there's no silver lining,
no *** of gold.
They threw popcorn at the screen, but you didn't notice.

I always hated white elephants;
I thought you did too.
Who invited them to the show?

We step outside,
no curtain call,
no applause.

Hail falls down on this sunny blue day.

Afraid to touch you, but
I want to catch you in my mouth.

Would you please just go away,
before I end up with lumps
on my head,
in my throat?

My eyes blinded by the sun,
the hail,
this ill fated show.
​

You are not my children,
tender as you are.
You are not my lover,
though you cause my heart to yearn.
You are not my sun,
or my moon,
or my star.

I set you on this rock;
you will not make me burn.

You are simply sticks,
arranged upon the pyre.
You are clever tricks,
though you flaunt my clear desire.
You are not the match,
or the wick,
or the fire.

I set you on this rock;
To see what might transpire.

You will never be a pheasant's egg to be coddled.
You are only this: a calf led to the slaughter.

"Can Poetry Matter?"
by
Stephen Dobyns

Heart feels the time has come to compose lyric poetry.
No more storytelling for him. Oh, Moon, Heart writes,
sad wafer of the heart's distress. and then: Oh, Moon,
bright ******* of the heart's pleasure. Which is it,
is the moon happy or sad, ******* or wafer? He looks
from the window but the night is overcast. Oh, Cloud,
he writes, moody veil of the Moon's distress. And then,
Oh, Cloud, sweet scarf of the Moon's repose. Once more
Heart asks, Are clouds kindly or a bother, is the moon sad
or at rest? He calls scientists who tell him that the moon
is a dead piece of rock. He calls astrologers. One says
the moon means water. Another that it signifies oblivion.
The girl next door says the Moon means love. The nut
up the block says it proves Satan has us under his thumb.
Heart goes back to his notebooks. Oh, Moon,, he writes,
confusing orb meaning one thing or another. Heart feels
that his words lack conviction. Then he hits on a solution.
Oh, Moon, immense hyena of introverted motorboat.
Oh, Moon, upside down lamppost of barbershop quartet.
Heart takes his lines to a critic who tells him that the poet
is recounting a time as a toddler when he saw his father
kissing the baby-sitter at the family's cottage on a lake.
Obviously, the poem explains the poet's fear of water.
Heart is ecstatic. He rushes home to continue writing.
Oh, Cloud, raccoon cadaver of colored crayon, angel spittle
recast as foggy euphoria. Heart is swept up by the passion
of composition. Freed from the responsibility of content,
no nuance of nonsense can be denied him. Soon his poems
appear everywhere, while the critic writes essays elucidating
Heart's meaning. Jointly they form a sausage factory of poetry:
Heart supplying the pig snouts and ****** tissue of language
which the critic encloses in a thin membrane of explication.
Lyric poetry means teamwork, thinks Heart: a hog farm,
corn field, and two old dobbins pulling a buckboard of song.

(from Pallbearers Envying the One Who Rides, 1999)

She perches on the chair,
clink of ice croons in her ear;
a slippery gloss of memory froths her lips.

Here on dark waters
float glimmers of chance
while hope,
that slow gasping fish of dreams
slides near.

She raises her glass,
a spirited salute--
when the lights come on he swims clear.

Washed up, she spits,
and tugs her drink,
swallows scorn in one long gulp:

that bitter brine,
end of the line,
a barb,
stuck in her throat.

Of this, my heart so eagerly embraced
The plans of youth in dreams retraced
And in that song of once forgotten fire
A burning now of long quenched desire.

See the trees standing tall and austere?
The meadow grass with flowers appear.

Split rail fence
Winding path
Stone wall
Signs of a life,
Proof of it all

The poet seeks to recollect
Through phrases in earnest to reflect
But the pen, in solitude rejects

Through wasted years of hopeful dream
I've not set foot in a single stream

Of longing
Of bitterness
Of regret

These will be this poet's epitaph.

I spin plates on a stick to strike a balance,
But I become a stone that tips the scale.

Now mark the steady ticking of the clock,
How the hand is slower than the I.

The chiming of the bells at the Hour of None is a prayer whispered in my hurried chest:

Of desire,
That road is best travelled as a pilgrim.

Of fulfillment,
There are no shortcuts,

Only meandering paths of slow,
And you.

Oh fickle poet!
Your slippery heart is in your hand
Bind your mouth,
Persevere.

I got nothin.
It's sad, this aching to write and write,
But the words coming out sound so contrite.

Like that.

I stand up, stare down at my page.
I see the lines, those imaginary borders
between my stubborn head,
and my bleeding heart.

I pray that the division will have a remainder.

That forgotten piece, the inconsequential.

Because the remainder is the thing-
That space between there and here,
Where time sits in a chair,
staring at its own hands.

That no man's land where eraser crumbs
become mountains worth climbing.

Where the fairy tales of our own beginnings gather breath,
Spreading wings over the valleys of our truth.

Pour it out,
that dis-ease of your remorse.

Lay your broken bones gently
into this cut crystal glass.

See how the light refracts?

I chase words and phrases
round and round inside my head.
My thoughts slide.
They are soft butter on a hot knife.

Dripping from the blade,
they slip, without pretense,
into my waiting hand.

I cup these thoughts in my palm,
and pour my melted butter words
onto your paper heart.

she wrings the morning
from her paint soaked dress, dreaming
dragonflies hover
becoming sunlight dancing
vast, her fields of flowers bloom

Wide mouth mason jar
To capture the loneliness,
Her hands remain still.

you, who are of my heart, you, who
still the breaking waves upon my shore

i am but a scratchy grain of sand,
yet i knit the pearl of your longing

crack the oyster shell you cling to
and know your beauty

see that your heart's desire
has been within you all along

My son runs, wrapping arms around
my nebulous waist.

"l love you, Mom!"  He squeezes tighter,
as if letting go would be his black hole.

"I love you, too, " I squeeze back, absent mindedly.  (Where is the cream? I need coffee.)

"I love you more!" he breathes, without pause.
He gazes into my eyes,
searching my planets.

"Oh no, that can't be true," I retort.
I forget the coffee, his eyes are starlight.

"I love you to infinity!" he exclaims,
staring harder.

He wants to sail the Milky Way with me.

"Me too," I reply, and remember oxygen tanks.

I'm speaking in light years, and I hope the sound waves will catch up to him.

His face cracks into a million years of forever, before he lets go,
dancing across the universe of our livingroom,
his solar system intact.

At least for now.

Red rusted radio flyer
rests in tall grass,
remembering laughter.

From the blue black alley of my worst night terror, you reappear.

I wake, sweating a gauzy film of so many lost years.

You were that nightmare I never wanted to wake up from.

I was your stolen piece of fiction,
You plagiarized my youth,
Writing your own broken inventions
Into the fabric of my innocence;
You ripped my seams
Until I was your blank canvas.

But as you came tearing your way up that alley I realized,
I've been rewriting history,
stitching together a past with crooked seams.

Because every nightmare begins with:

eyes closing,

breath slowing,

the sandman whispering,
"Sweet dreams."

You were not always a monster.

Bone shards of our imaginary life
break loose from time to time.
Shredding their way
through my bloodstream,
they rip and tear at the fabric of my carefully pieced together reality.

I loved a quieter version of you.
A place where broken hearts held true.
And hands were firm, but nice, though strong.
A place where voices could belong.

I loved you in a fairy tale, a place where laughter was strong and hale.  I loved you in a tiny place, where no one knew your splintered face.

I loved you once, in a country song,
I loved you, loved you, till the dawn,
When truth erupted from each pore.
Your fists broke through the bathroom door.

How many moments locked in time,
Pictures of,
"I am yours," and,
"You are mine."
A fairytale written inside my head.
Our love affair was always dead.

And if I could only separate
The you I loved
From the you I hate,
Would it smooth those shards
Of broken bone
Of twenty years together,
But always alone?

*I loved the quieter version of you.

I sit in this chair, reading words until my teeth become barbs piercing my clotted mouth,  leaving my tongue bloodied, and I'm waiting for the rain of inspiration-NO-

I'm waiting for a thunderstorm, a ******* hurricane, driving torrents, a monsoon of words and phrases to wash-NO-

to drench my mouth and fill my throat-my blood filled throat,

I've been choking on words for so long, I need a flash flood to come purge me clean.

So I can eat again.
So I can breathe again.
So I can write.

I cast my words into the sea.

You drop anchor,
retrieve them with your net,
And whisper, "*******,
You are not dead."

Your faith in me is a buoy
In the ocean of my disbelief.

Still, I flail against the waves
Of disconcerted effort.

"My talent has drowned," I cry.

Yet you pull it from the depths,
Pump your own warm current
Into these collapsed lungs.

I gasp, and spew salt water verses
From my sea foam mouth.

http://carrothers.com/rilke1.htm

Because it is so good.  And we all need a mentor, especially, posthumously.

She wrung the morning
From her paint soaked dress,
And watched sunlight
Dance across her fields.

Plastic,
plastic covers my natural voice.

I am neoprene, with gasoline undertones.
So peel the layers, find my truth.

You never were one to find
beauty in modern art,

Acrylic man.

On this night,
my heart forgot to stop loving you.

With star dusted verse and milky way melody,
I sang to you a jasmine scented lullaby.
Through crescent waves of moonbeam,
I breathed my lavender love into your dream.

In the morning when you wake, will you feel me there,
as sunlight, streaming through your sleep damp hair?


Mine is the heart that forgot to stop loving you.
Yours, the heart that could not remember to begin.

the reticent bard sits,
strung on a fence.

his fear of leaping
one side or t'other
has given him a sore ***;
he's sat there for years.

his songs, sung to the birds
of the field, fly softly through
the air.

and not a one hears him
and not a one cares,
the reticent bard reflects

his contemplation lost
to an audience unhearing

the birds of the field,
hearing his sighs,
wing their flight
to places unknown.

our dear bard,
in solitude laments
his yearning

the reticent bard has forgotten
the majestic ministration of words.

that mysterious music
which sings into the air,
and returns magic,
far and near.

--bruised orange

Stop.

Your over the top brand of loving
has me breathing too quickly, and I cannot

Stop.

I look up at the full moon shining,
as your mouth
quivers down my neck,
and I don't want to

Stop.

My limbs are quaking and the
moon is glorious and tomorrow,
there will be dishes and children
and you really need to

Stop.

I think to send you home,
our bodies heaving,
My mouth forming 'oh's
and you really need to

Stop.

Just stop, park that car,
look up at that moon,
so still, so far,
so here, so near,

Just stop.*

And 'Oh'

Can we just 'Oh?'

For a while?

You set the table just so,
with candle light's warm glow,
musical notes drifting on air
with the wine you serve,

I'm there.

But then the meal arrives,
with bones for my throat,
bitter poison,
leg of goat!

I notice the wine has lost its clarity.
Now you laugh at the perceived disparity.
You rise to leave, say you've lost your appetite;
I've ruined your supper, your planned delight.

You! who so carefully arrange brutality,
crafting my demise with skillful hand,
I won't be served by you again!

I finally found my own clarity,

I'm sweetest champagne, well chilled;

Now, I realize it was your own disparity
once your evil brew was distilled:

Never mine, never mine
I'm sweetest wine, sweetest wine.


*a toast to the ex

This silence is of the other sort.

Not that silence of stillness born;
That meditative calm that washes you
when morning's light shyly peeks
through your curtains.

No, this is the *malignant sort,
an out of control cellular growth,

(A Growth!)
that pushes out other thought
and claims the territories
of your mind all for
himself.

for himself.

This silence screams at you, "Listen to me!",

"Listen, now, lover!

And you can't do anything
but hear his absent,
his vacant,

that vacant,

that Voice!

This is the silence that shoves his way into your brain
and demands attention.
He stamps his foot and shouts
"Look at me!"

Are you looking?

And all you can do is stare at his
invisible,

His implacable

Face.

You wonder,
"Who are you, to invade

"my sanctuary?!"

But then it comes to you,
in that moment of

Reckoning:

You left your key laying

casually

on the window sill outside your door,
red ribbon tied on,
an exclamation point,

That mocking point!

No, you can't blame this silence.

You are the one who left the light burning brightly,
in your window,

that small, indescript window,

all night long.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE_l1hLps1g&feature;=shareice.

A poet falls in love much too easily,
But it is never easy to love a poet.

Songbirds enjoy a diet of variation;
Beetles and worms rarely make good friends.

But seeds spring up where they will.

Oh muse, you are an unfaithful lover!
I gave my heart to you.
You've taken, it and skipped town.

Blow, winds, blow

He wanders in and out of dream scapes,
Seeking refuge from the nameless ache,
The burn of a thousand cloudless days.

The tumbleweed of his joy blows in the dunes of neglect,
Vaguely rooted in the sands of discontent.

Blow, winds, blow!
Shift the sand beneath his feet,
Tumble him to the river of rejoice,
Where his seeds can bury deep
In the fertile soil of complete.


Walk on, Lonely Pilgrim

Would that you would go a spell further,
Fight a round harder, walk a mile longer,
Perhaps you will see the clear waters,
The soaring vistas, the spring flowers.

Sandstorms blind your eyes and sting your throat,
Your music lost into the wind.

Walk on, lonely pilgrim,
Walk on, and meet me
In the green valley,

It's just 'round the bend.

I've a song to play for you!



Welcome Song for the Weary Traveler


With unsure steps, tread the ground,
Gaze out with open eyes.
Cast away all fear and doubt.
Let the music sing your soul!

This river will wash your bedrock,
Polish the rough stones of your longing,
Flow away your worried mind.

When this love-seed settles in the soil of your heart,
Your rose will bloom, in fertile field,
Where nightingale warbles its melodious tune.

Lay down your head upon alfalfa pillow,
Let the music take you high,
Where daffodil dreams and mystic streams
Sing you sweetest lullaby.

Now close your eyes and feel the pull
This song, the lodestone to your heart,
Drawing out your own sweet tune.

Hear gentle clouds that roll on by,
Smell sweet the scented breeze in sky,

Feel the love,
                  
                      Let go,
                              
                                   *Now fly


Lonely Pilgrim Dreams


The lonely pilgrim fell asleep on his pillow of dreams,
As minstrel sung songs that floated on air.
He struggled to wake from his trance like state,
As he found himself deep in the quagmire of regret,
Wondering how he had found himself
Wandering in green valleys,
How he had been so easily lulled to sleep.

He wondered, too, if dreams are ever real,
And what he would see at morning's light.

Minstrel sang on, into the night,
Singing all good things into his heart,
Breathing love into his pillow,
Playing for light,
Playing the tune of her heart strings that night.

She was not sure what song she sang anymore,
But wanted to sing,
And sing some more.

No, I have failed at this.
Failed, at loving you.

Your twice remembered lines,
So precious, the first time,
Have grown still.

I won't be loving you again.
Won't be loving you.

Up we got, morning still,
Breath fogged over,
Deep night's chill.

Sunrise brightening,
Day arising.

Embers stoked,
Fire lighting.

Smoky air,
Disheveled hair.

Coffee, on to brew.

Sometimes, I feel I will implode!
I want to make myself so small.

Invisible.

I want to tick tock my way into oblivion,
thinking small thoughts.

But words explode from my lips,
Little bombs, they lick their way through the air.

And I think, "These words will

Do you ever think that life could be more?  
That we are sitting,
doing nothing,
that life is passing us by?

Sometimes,
I feel remorse
for having had children so young,
for not having adventured

beforehand.  

I want some adventure!
But all I see ahead of me is

Tameness.

I wish I had had a chance to go out into the

Wilderness

and just lived,
moment by moment.
  
I'm afraid I will die,
regretting that I never once lived.  

(If I were a wealthy man, this might be the beginning of my mid life crisis.)  

What is it called when a woman feels the panic of settledness coming upon her?

There is no name.
  
There is only the feeling of the sameness of days going by,
the aloneness of standing here,
surrounded by routine,
by repetition.

While the desire to jump,
to plunge, into the unknown,
beats steady on in my chest,

and the knowing that

That moment,

That chance,

Has passed me by.

Lately, I have been afraid to write.

**** words.

I watched a video.

and I thought,

"Oh!  I can relate to that!:

I wrote a poem about that once!

Oh! Oh!

(Does this ever happen to you? or is this just a ME thing?)

Once, I loved a man, who never once loved me.
I pined for him both day and night,
But he never once loved me.

He played his song for anyone,
For anyone but me,
And I pined for him both day and night
But he never once loved me.
.
His lips were moist, like ripened peach
And his arms were meant for me,

But he played his song both day and night
For anyone,

Anyone, but me.