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I ran out of oil so I went to find more
this is what happened when I opened the door

A gentle transition had welcomed my feet
I was now walking to the sound of a beat
The pulse made its way to the top of my head
readied my body as if stringing a thread
Stitched up together with hands at my side
the air I inhaled procreated my guide
Infancy spread throughout my whole being
and with eyes circumcised I began seeing 
Aged just enough by the end of each day
to comprehend that which no one could say 
Treading along as the hours threw clocks
it was time in the form of stumbling blocks  
Wearied I'd grow and I'd take up my rest 
on things to which only my soul could attest 
The process by which my flesh was restored
and freed of the ghosts that my temple would hoard 
Then finally lightness had sprung in my step  
and I returned home, to that one I had left 

What I'd forgotten was now all I  knew 
the oil I'd needed adorned my own room
Lincoln gave you
your official day
but I must say
I don’t suspect he saw
faux green fields
with helmeted gladiators
of a new age
playing for millions of eyes
and millions of bucks
while the thankful, and the stuffed,
sat
glued to the flat screen
hooting an hollering
for cheap victory
belying loyalty to brands
stamped on jerseys
that are valued more
than the grandest feast
This is a two minute poem--I introduced it the other day with "Removing Time". The only parameter for this form is that the poem be written in no more than two minutes. One may edit afterwards by omitting or erasing, changing number or tense, order of words, lines, correcting typos, etc, but nothing can be added.
the snow falls sincerely sorry,
like a pale yellow skirt at the foot of your bed-
i always said, "i didn't mean it".
but i meant it.
it's that time of the year,
where you'll wrap yourself in wool and leathers,
in hopes no one will feel just how cold you truly are,
but i can feel it.
you drink your whiskey straight,
yet feel too inhumane to rest your lips on the same bottle
as the only people who've ever loved you drink from.
your glass gets frosty.
you blow hot, pungent air between your teeth like steam,
in hopes we'll see you as some frightening machine,
instead of how you really are when you forget
that you should be holding up your fashionably unfashionable walls.
you're just another washed up actor,
who somehow lost the ability to differentiate between being on-set,
and being alive.
so you lie.
frantically,
frivolously,
and frusterated,
that nobody you trust can trust you to be you.
the scenes that you build get muddled and confused,
rendered too busy by your lack of attention
and over-use of the exact same hues.
you used to seem so beautiful,
until i found your pallet
under your worn-down mattress...
you only paint with grey.
oh, how you tried
to hide the colors that i am under a tweed cloak of comfort ability,
but i don't fade,
and i most certainly do not run.
i change every day,
and when i begin to hate the direction that my masterpiece is heading in,
i change course entirely.
i abandon the compass,
and the guide books,
and stampede across the pages,
until i become the new and improved version of who i was yesterday.
stop pretending,
and just be.
you wear your "fight" face everyday,
as if you may have to chase a pride of giggling hyenas away
at any given moment.
put down your knife and act right,
no one here wants to hurt you.
you hurt me,
you tried to hide me,
and you lied to me.
still, 
all i want to do is teach you.
teach you to let go of your charade,
to embrace the life you've made,
and how to paint the sunset as a sunset-
not a eulogy.
The admiral of the U.S. fleet
was staring towards the shore.
A mob of people jammed the wharf.
He thought we were at war.
The good Mayor Paulo, of Monterrey
was waving with the rest.
He saw our large Pacific fleet
And, doubtless, was impressed.
The commodore made cannons roar
The impact shook the ground
By miracle no townsfolk died
And not one sailor drowned.
“Perhaps they are saluting us!”
The puzzled mayor said.
But when we put marines ashore
Such thoughts soon left his head.
That day we captured Monterrey
It was quite the feat of arms
We lost just one or two marines
to some Senorita’s charms.
The State Department soon put an end
To the splendid little war
And erstwhile foes departed friends
from the Mexicali shore.
in 1842 commodore Thomas aps Jones, of the U.S. pacific Squadron, under the mistaken notion war had been declared, attacked and captured the Mexican Port of Monterrey.  the confusion was cleared up in 24 hours, the victors toasted their "hosts" and peace reigned- for a while.
Smooth, smooth, fringed by yellow smudged, hard plastic
smooth, left to right then a painterly inconclusive running
out, the stroke all 60” expires into the yellow, then a firm
vertical orange stripe, a bookend, a hot surface elevated
upon a warm yellow bed, exotic, turmeric, heated from
below, as though from another world, a future planet found
in Manga, gum wrappers, belonging to the wedding
wardrobes of older women, and those with impossible
shoes, maybe a scarf, definitely lipstick and small Japanese
cars, decorative paper, a can’t-miss logo, as when I close
my eyes in the act of love, holding your kneeling body to
me I lose myself in a pattern of flashes, the bright play of
light and colour, a sensual play of pigment, blue and red
wavelengths, fuchsine, electric, electric, and the aura of
artists, such latent energy, hidden passion, rich in ******
fragrance, edged with desire.

The path of the brush now right to left yellow exposes a
yellow bookend at the left hand edge, there is a roughness
here in its covering of yellow, as though applied in haste or
in a single gesture with a large brush, it is thick, thick and
rough, but the yellow is almost present, a hint, a reflection,
as in the petals of the Bellis Perennis, you open your mouth
breathing, breathing your lips frame such perfect teeth as
day arrives,

Left to right, the paint thick then thinning to a broken
tailpiece revealing yellow on magenta, again, again, again, again,
how little I yet understand your body, the innerness,
the sheltered regions of your desire, I am afraid to harm this
preciousness, be disrespectful of the tapering valley where
love’s caress and kiss meet, are multi-dimensional, the
rectangle is not charcoal, but deflected, hesitant, to the left
the darkness of chocolate, to the right a greyness, a *****
grey, a dusty dark dog, loamed, a depth then play of
shadow, dark, textural as your maidenhair under the covers
above my right hand as it spreads my fingers across its
darkness into deeper darkness, a flat stone, its left end
washed by the cold tide, olived, clothed in mourning, there
is unpleasantness, some distaste, a little fear, the unknown,
the unknowable.

Daisy petals, opening in the morning light, the clapperboard
house on the Block Island beachside fresh-painted every
spring, immediately weathered, porcelained sea shell
textured, turned, tumbled, a dawn sky after rain,
ceramicised fungi, plain flour, acidic, taut, the moment
when the heart and breath seem to pause as we join each
other’s flesh as though this cannot be cannot really be.

Unrhymable this flower shade hued pigment deep saffron
vibrant, phoned, not quite of the fruit, a different tang,
sharper without sheen, magenta beneath its smoothed
surface up to left and right edge, (but for the yellow
frill beneath), lip covering, silk-scarfed, not autumnal yet, but oh
those Californian poppies, those desert landscapes as the
sun sets,

a single uneven gesture thrown left to right, an island
in silhouette with a rocky foreshore spreads into distance,

a bed of sylvan jade, an oasis, this an aerial view of tree
tops modulating to grassy pasture, a down-stroke western
boundary, an edge of surf on its northern border, perhaps
the brush formerly coloured has left its trace,

the main body of this Australian desert seen from the air,
Sidney Nolan’s bush, aboriginal earth, coloured mud,
unguent, the sense of liquid in your kiss, its warmth, the
very tip and corner of your lips, the brush of hair as you
move your head to my chest, the rubbing of hair on hair,
under your arms this play of sensation through the lips’
touch, then the shore, the sand no sand though, only in the
brochures, daffodilled perhaps, unsmudged, fresh,
vigorously golden, well-watered.
 Nov 2012 Chris D Aechtner
DM
I want to write about her,
But she lives in other dimensions,
Beyond what I perceive,
She soars high above this plane,
Searching for prey to feed upon,
Occasionally,
She swoops down,
When voracious hunger demands,
To find sustenance in bewildered and beleaguered and lost lambs,
Bleating going unheard and unrecognized cries,
She carries them aloft,
Like the lammergeir,
Dropping their bones,
On the rocks below,
To crack and expose the marrow,
Of which she sustains herself,
A devil indeed from above,
Yet for her flight,
I am envious,
And willingly give into night.
Catch the water dripping down
Like beads of glass, so small and round 
And as the sun comes out to shine
You'll see kaleidoscopes defined

Colors made anew each day
They're more than words can ever say
The lives we paint inside our heads
Will find some rest upon their beds

Sleep in dark to find the light 
Then use the day as wings for flight
Every moment leads to this
The seconds gone but not amiss  

How the dreamers build a world
For all who breathe to be unfurled 
Lungs release the filtered air 
And wake the souls with perfect care
For the dreamers, we are everyone.
It's in the eyes
It's in the eyes
Those soft and welcome eyes
What sweet illicit spies
That welcome with their sighs

How the pupils grow and stay
While the lids so softly lay
Casting shadows in the day
And dusk creeps where it may
The dark sweet shade of night
That beckons with its sight

It's in the eyes
It's in the eyes
It's in the black silk stranded lashes
That lift and swoop and how it crashes
Like heaving waves of strong desire
They break upon my shore
And leave me breathless,
Wishing still for more

It's in the eyes
It's in the eyes
They shout and scream and cry
They beg and plead, and loudly they imply
Please, touch, taste, put strong hands on smooth skin
They burn with hot blood, and hot breath, for hot sin

It's in the eyes
It's in the eyes
Those wet red lips and ivory teeth
Those warm blush cheeks and supple neck
That sweet sweat skin and tingling hand
Oh it's all in those dark fiery eyes
And in them

My demise
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