concrete description, anti cliché

May 2020

Me

How
Today
Time stands
Absolutely
Still

Apr 2020

Ishudhi Dahal

I am imprisoned in a big ZERO
No doors to get out though

I can see my future closer
And I run and it feels like more closer

And I run , more closer
Reached 18 , more closer

But it’s the same as I saw before
So again I started from Zero

And I realized
I was zero in the big Zero !

#helpmegrow #nepal

Nov 2016

david badgerow

wrapped in heat-foil

there's a secret place i found to keep my fear
to hide my tenderness & be vulnerable --
it's next to the smallest bones in your inner ear
the fluid skin blanket of your swooping neckline
lily-soft & somehow stiff enough to break
open my seed-pod heart

the one i thought no one could pry apart
but with rosebud ******* -- lips --
the figure of biblical magdala takes me
away from a lone satsuma tree raising its
shriveled offering from the crippled earth
on sunday strolls through duckpond parks
kicking cobbled streets of augusta block
or scooping water at me smiling in cutoffs
on a hot hometown riverbank

you came to me on barefeet out of the smoke
& rain silence where i was invisibly sobbing
where heat-lightning waltzed
sneaky-pete over the prairie
& what are you if not a rain -- a zephyr
flowing through stone temple
just as the dry-mouth dog days of summer
brought hell's fire across the southern field

so i've abandoned the hermetic existence
& buried my old dead shell with a
harp song hail glory to the contortionist god
vaulting off the balance beam in the
back of my mind beneath the
rain soaked topsoil of dawn
among the mound palaces
of ants & mourning mud hornets
while the gray shadows of the magpie
dance & writhe on the mosaic faces of
the trespassed lupine forest

& the sun still comes up on time big
gold fluttering like a delusional cicada
over the empty pink street
i'm still fidgeting because
clouds with tails like jellyfish sting
with rooted memories of azaleas but
you kiss away my all my latent
restless gypsy fears & keep the harsh
light dimmed or wrapped in heat-foil
in your front dress pocket & you only
give it back to me in brief drips --
pinches -- wet tongue kisses --
we talk with our eyes as only animals
can our butts in the damp sand
beside the breathless sea where streaked
clouds seem free to finger the horizon
but are cut by the city skyline --
a switchblade

Aug 2016

Riq Schwartz

Resolute

So many things to say.
Between the floods and raindrops,
pain and heartthrobs,
living for better, for worse,
for now,
for following through
on the sins we commit to.
Somehow
we expect to see light.
I can feel with my skin
but it's blistering,
I can't hear,
but I know you're not listening.
You'd be here
anon and otherwise
punctual.
Instead you're a societal gut-punch
who makes me puke.
Truthfully, I'd set camp come the dusk
where I knew I could feel the warmth
from your bridges burned.
Feel the light, dried and cracked.
Tell me what you learned.

May 2016

ryn

Basslines

.

estrate the
orc-                       opus
ong•                                  of right
     of s-                                            and wr-
      gh power                                        ong•k-       ⚫️
    tales throu-                                       eep me
tell me...                                           ground-      ⚫️
                                                           ed throu-
                                                         gh lyrics
                                                     worded
                                                strong•
                                          embed
                                       solid b-
                                 assline-
                       s that
              guide
    me a-
lon-
     g...
•

.

The soundtrack to life deserves the most wicked of baselines.
.

#life #concretepoetry #hellopoetry107 #baselines #basslines #bassclef

May 2016

Paul Anthony Hutchinson

Picnic Kisses Tasting of Smoked Oysters and Beer

St. Catharines light in the afternoon: lead oxide, pink white, dry mud shadows.
They lay on her living room carpet and Anthony gloated over Milly
Her cotton nightgown, her long back, and round shoulders: proof at last.
"So this is gloating. It is better to gloat than to doubt. It took me a long time."

Her clean faded quilt brought from the balcony rail: it
Smells of clean laundry and cold air and the thrill of their power.
He’s proud to be the lover of a heroine,
And happy that he can see her this way.”

Picnic kisses tasting of smoked oysters and beer.
There were never friendly kisses of love before?
"Milly, I love hearing how you defied the adults."

He told Hansel and Gretel to her child, who had strep throat,
And told it again, knowing it would work,

Seeing the bookshelves, seeing her notebooks,
Knowing that he would have his life after all:

                      The mispronounced words of a solitary reader,
                       The red skirt on the chair, the gold necklace of coins.

                   Paul Anthony Hutchinson
www.paulanthonyhutchinson.com
Copyright Paul Anthony Hutchinson

#love #happiness

Apr 2016

spysgrandson

alone, on the mountain

your Colorado village was freezing,
even the eve of May

the bus dropped me there
you weren't waiting

I toted my duffel bag, now turned sixty,
to your place

you didn't answer for an hour; when you did,
it was not sleep in your eyes

we didn't fight--it was too cold in your apartment
for heated arguments

you didn't bother to say you were busy, or forgot
your father's only son had agreed to this visit

you had only stale bread, stingy swirls of peanut butter
in a cold jar

you left with a promise to get food,
and my last seven dollars

I waited for you until dusk, then dragged my bag
to a locked church

I put an extra ancient sweater under my coat, leaned
against the chapel's small west wall

I watched the sky turn from mauve to black,
until I fell asleep

and dreamed of a time I carried you on my shoulders,
under a warm sun

Apr 2016

Sam Temple

brand new family

skin slightly paler and just trusting enough
the younger twin by two minutes explained
sometimes mom gets this way
standing at the open trunk of the ‘84 Mazda 626
feeding the feral dog old bologna
somewhere in the deepest humid South
late summer, two-thousand two –
driving her home from school
the oldest sits double uncomfortable
with cramps and an upset stomach
while watching me
doing the strangest dance of delicacy
as who knows the mystery of the first moon cycle
…safe! –
tromping through the stream bed
string-less sneakers barely remembered
against all odds and laws of physics
face still ***** with a sugary ring
smiles fly as the biggest agate of day
lay in stubby strong fingers –
strange prompt without limits
on this second day of poetry month
two-thousand sixteen
invoke old memories of strangers
becoming a family….

one day their children will call me Grandpa,
and Sam will quietly slip away –

poetry month prompt 2

Apr 2016

John Edward Smallshaw

Cut glass

See in sixteen shades of blue
how it could be
what you could do
in
sixteen shades of..

...you could be acetylene,
dream in the torchlight, a
blue shade of midnight...

..or..

..a
leader, lightning fast,
read the riot act to me and lastly
tell of
what you see
how it was for you,
for me,
sixteen shades of blue and
she
wants red.