Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
unnamed Aug 2012
84:
i have discovered i am i have been attached somebody attached strings to me and often wrenches violently upon them,
Breton has strings too, and sometimes
he likes to twitch.
  

85:
dead space.
              i ca
                      n  ’t, i can't think,
everything is a mirror,
                             ym deah sdeen ot ehteabr,                
                            my head needs to breathe,                              
                        ­     ehtaebr ot sdeen daeh ym,  
im going  to make holes  with breton to   breathe so i can think,
i only need a nail
                           or some thorns and wire. Breton is probably hiding some wire. I am good at finding things.  

86:
when my kneecaps turn blue,
i know my health’s shot to ****.

Breton ran into Old Mathers              
in the basement              
and Mathers says Breton’s not coming up (for [quite!] a long time).  

Kat told me **** little Breton for his marrow,
never enough marrow,
Mathers says.            
I listen to Kat, always go by Kat,              
always by Kat, always:

*Death came too close to me,
  Almost seeing the eternal light.  
  Harder to feel when you’ve almost died,  
  Hopes and dreams never almost tried.
  In His eyes,  your time to go:  
  Having this purpose for me in life,
  Having this purpose for now,
  I do not know.
Seven stars in the still water,
And seven in the sky;
Seven sins on the King’s daughter,
Deep in her soul to lie.

Red roses are at her feet,
(Roses are red in her red-gold hair)
And O where her ***** and girdle meet
Red roses are hidden there.

Fair is the knight who lieth slain
Amid the rush and reed,
See the lean fishes that are fain
Upon dead men to feed.

Sweet is the page that lieth there,
(Cloth of gold is goodly prey,)
See the black ravens in the air,
Black, O black as the night are they.

What do they there so stark and dead?
(There is blood upon her hand)
Why are the lilies flecked with red?
(There is blood on the river sand.)

There are two that ride from the south and east,
And two from the north and west,
For the black raven a goodly feast,
For the King’s daughter rest.

There is one man who loves her true,
(Red, O red, is the stain of gore!)
He hath duggen a grave by the darksome yew,
(One grave will do for four.)

No moon in the still heaven,
In the black water none,
The sins on her soul are seven,
The sin upon his is one.
They sleep well here,
These fisher-folk who passed their anxious days
In fierce Atlantic ways;
And found not there,
Beneath the long curled wave,
So quiet a grave.

And they sleep well,
These peasant-folk, who told their lives away,
From day to market-day,
As one should tell,
With patient industry,
Some sad old rosary.

And now night falls,
Me, tempest-tost, and driven from pillar to post,
A poor worn ghost,
This quiet pasture calls;
And dear dead people with pale hands
Beckon me to their lands.
Mary Winslow Jan 2018
I feel the cold bites, mittened children yell
they’re sewing sky flowers as they run with yellow or red kites
ocean makes that great space with tides that linger over the rocks
we fashion nothing like the clouds and feel small

As storms build up I walk a coastal trail
where ashes of an old beach fire left roasted pinecones littered
an Osprey flies up above the shore’s edge  
and as I read your book, I feel the restless melody in your poems

Tides flap and slop against sand the color of worn concrete
ocean’s spoiled lives permeate everything, my skin tastes sea salt gargle
gulls and passersby all watch the waves moving towards us

I’m lingering here for too long and return to my car
clicking heels behind me in the parking lot
the castanets of other lives with their importance
arouse such unpleasant thoughts, I walk back down to the beach
hurrying until I no longer hear their rhythm

But now the fog rolls in and the ground is covered with wings
all the doors are locked when the sky drops down like this
thunder knocks in the distance saying ‘“celebrate!”
its echoes wake the clouds, rain gives an answer with applause

on the threshold of storm I turn away from the ocean and look east
a forested mountainside crowded with fading painted houses abandoned
a single car on the road with headlights, we have hundreds of days of rain here

in other words, most people forget anything but rainy weather
the chill from Alaska reaches down only in gusts but snow is distant

This Sunday when Netarts bay is full of kayaks and fishing boats
Oceanside’s patch of beach is strewn with sea grass, people with their dogs
walk amongst shed crab shells, a lone restaurant opens selling coffee and pies
none of the people in rain slickers and hoodies move off as the rain falls
©marywinslow 2017 all rights reserved. I submitted this one to Calyx magazine in October. They've apparently lost my submission and all record of my existence. I'm glad to be able to share it here.
unnamed Aug 2012

His soft neck.
Put wires
all the way around it
and           pull.

2.
I see glass in the road next to trash,
take a piece
and
make it hot over a running engine,
look for the sky in André's
stomach,
wear gloves
and hold the glass
and dig.

3.
André has
so many bones
under his skin,
make all of them come outside.

4.
See how much water he can breathe and don't stop.

5.
Put him on a sidewalk in the Pearl District,
paint him black or ******* or crack-addict
and leave him there,
watch the crowds watch him
away.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lgterrHO5T1qzrkvzo1_400.jpg
There are many cumbersome ways to **** a man.
You can make him carry a plank of wood
to the top of a hill and nail him to it. To do this
properly you require a crowd of people
wearing sandals, a **** that crows, a cloak
to dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one
man to hammer the nails home.

Or you can take a length of steel,
shaped and chased in a traditional way,
and attempt to pierce the metal cage he wears.
But for this you need white horses,
English trees, men with bows and arrows,
at least two flags, a prince, and a
castle to hold your banquet in.

Dispensing with nobility, you may, if the wind
allows, blow gas at him. But then you need
a mile of mud sliced through with ditches,
not to mention black boots, bomb craters,
more mud, a plague of rats, a dozen songs
and some round hats made of steel.

In an age of aeroplanes, you may fly
miles above your victim and dispose of him by
pressing one small switch. All you then
require is an ocean to separate you, two
systems of government, a nation’s scientists,
several factories, a psychopath and
land that no-one needs for several years.

These are, as I began, cumbersome ways
to **** a man. Simpler, direct, and much more neat
is to see that he is living somewhere in the middle
of the twentieth century, and leave him there.
TrAceY Jul 2014
Summer plays witness
to our salty footprints
the towers we crashed into
leaving only fragile things
to be collected or consumed
all the lives we created
exist shimmering
far below our reach
EP Robles Sep 2018
THE PRECIOUS terror is realizing
most adults are dead children
or like a day that folds itself into

a basket of reborn night.  That long-
necked geese and stiff necks are
either pretending giraffes or self

consumed souls; ignoring the mirror's
reflecting thoughts introspection
devours it's own mouth.  

  Surrealism is hickey upon my heart
that bests freezer burn sunlight any
now.  Kiss me you brilliant stupid
fool.

:: 08-30-2018 ::
Francie Lynch Mar 2016
Here's a few legitimate refugees:
political, poverty, drought, war, and religious.
They're right in the top drawer zone,
But who gives a flying Whoopi
That Miley will claim assylum in Bali Bali;
Or Rosie will fly over camps on her way to Switzerland.
I hope Cher,
Doesn't apply for residence on Cape Breton Island:
We don't want you, Babe.
These are the celebrity refugees,
Bailing out on the touted
Greatest Democracy on the planet.
****, if you don't like what you elect,
Look to history,
Stove pipe hats,
And the wonders to be achieved
Before the end of this decade.
They got enough cash for space,
For Mars!
I didn't mention all the others, like Stewart, Rosie, Samuel, etc. And please, don't send Bieber back.
In your mother's apple-orchard,
Just a year ago, last spring:
Do you remember, Yvonne!
The dear trees lavishing
Rain of their starry blossoms
To make you a coronet?
Do you ever remember, Yvonne,
As I remember yet?

In your mother's apple-orchard,
When the world was left behind:
You were shy, so shy, Yvonne!
But your eyes were calm and kind.
We spoke of the apple harvest,
When the cider press is set,
And such-like trifles, Yvonne,
That doubtless you forget.

In the still, soft Breton twilight,
We were silent; words were few,
Till your mother came out chiding,
For the grass was bright with dew:
But I know your heart was beating,
Like a fluttered, frightened dove.
Do you ever remember, Yvonne,
That first faint flush of love?

In the fulness of midsummer,
When the apple-bloom was shed,
Oh, brave was your surrender,
Though shy the words you said.
I was glad, so glad, Yvonne!
To have led you home at last;
Do you ever remember, Yvonne,
How swiftly the days passed?

In your mother's apple-orchard
It is grown too dark to stray,
There is none to chide you, Yvonne!
You are over far away.
There is dew on your grave grass, Yvonne!
But your feet it shall not wet:
No, you never remember, Yvonne!
And I shall soon forget.
Coleen Mzarriz Sep 2021
If dreams occur because reality shifts into sequences and give a human being series of the strange specific pathway to open the doors of truth over desires and fantasy over morality that sometimes predicts the future of someone, it may look like something out of a classic painting, or Van Gogh's, or Breton's manifesto surrealism or even the impressionist Claude Monet — or simply falling off a building.

Though in dreams, someone will say it is their escapade, their haven, their call of past, their deja vus and jamais vu — but the occurrence of dreams are a horror to someone. And that someone is me.

Nobodies are like masses of droplets of raindrops collapsing on the ground and vanishing like smoke; they lit as the fire and at the same time, water as it is called the rain. Nobodies are treated as no faces in a dream. They represent the being of a human in the realm of this world. Sometimes, they are the persona of our hidden self, sometimes, they are feelings, a place, or a person.

Although nobodies can have faces, it is often that they remain clueless and distinct faces. Faint like a whisper, their touch is almost as the ghostly one and in the gist of it, it is as if they never touch us.

And we forget about their existence. I wonder if nobodies are considered to exist in our realm but are used as a subject to define meanings behind our waking life?

I want to be somebody in someone's waking life. To escape the amenities of the horror the somebodies are facing. I want to be there to breathe a small fresh air and be like a little fairy guiding someone who lost their way.

I guess then in dreams, nobodies want to escape too.
After a month of being gone here, I am back with this piece. More like a thought for this day. I am glad I have a lot of drafts like this.
Caminas adentro de ti mismo y el tenue reflejo serpeante que te conduce
    no es la última mirada de tus ojos al cerrarse ni es el sol tímido golpeando tus párpados:
    es un arroyo secreto, no de agua sino de latidos: llamadas, respuestas, llamadas,
    hilo de claridades entre las altas yerbas y las bestias agazapadas de la conciencia a obscuras.
    Sigues el rumor de tu sangre por el país desconocido que inventan tus ojos
    y subes por una escalera de vidrio y agua hasta una terraza.
    Hecha de la misma materia impalpable de los ecos y los tintineos,
    la terraza, suspendida en el aire, es un cuadrilátero de luz, un ring magnético
    que se enrolla en sí mismo, se levanta, anda y se planta en el circo del ojo,
    géiser lunar, tallo de vapor, follaje de chispas, gran árbol que se enciende y apaga y enciende:
    estás en el interior de los reflejos, estás en la casa de la mirada,
    has cerrado los ojos y entras y sales de ti mismo a ti mismo por un puente de latidos:
                                  EL CORAZÓN ES UN OJO.

    Estás en la casa de la mirada, los espejos han escondido todos sus espectros,
    no hay nadie ni hay nada que ver, las cosas han abandonado sus cuerpos,
    no son cosas, no son ideas: son disparos verdes, rojos, amarillos, azules,
    enjambres que giran y giran, espirales de legiones desencarnadas,
    torbellino de las formas que todavía no alcanzan su forma,
    tu mirada es la hélice que impulsa y revuelve las muchedumbres incorpóreas,
    tu mirada es la idea fija que taladra el tiempo, la estatua inmóvil en la plaza del insomnio,
    tu mirada teje y desteje los hilos de la trama del espacio,
    tu mirada frota una idea contra otra y enciende una lámpara en la iglesia de tu cráneo,
    pasaje de la enunciación a la anunciación, de la concepción a la asunción,
    el ojo es una mano, la mano tiene cinco ojos, la mirada tiene dos manos,
    estamos en la casa de la mirada y no hay nada que ver, hay que poblar otra vez la casa del ojo,
    hay que poblar el mundo con ojos, hay que ser fieles a la vista, hay que
                  CREAR PARA VER.

    La idea fija taladra cada minuto, el pensamiento teje y desteje la trama,
    vas y vienes entre el infinito de afuera y tu propio infinito,
    eres un hilo de la trama y un latido del minuto, el ojo que taladra y el ojo tejedor,
    al entrar en ti mismo no sales del mundo, hay
ríos y volcanes en tu cuerpo, planetas y hormigas,
    en tu sangre navegan imperios, turbinas, bibliotecas, jardines,
    también hay animales, plantas, seres de otros mundos, las galaxias circulan en tus neuronas,
    al entrar en ti mismo entras en este mundo y en los otros mundos,
    entras en lo que vio el astrónomo en su telescopio, el matemático en sus ecuaciones:
    el desorden y la simetría, el accidente y las rimas, las duplicaciones y las mutaciones,
    el mal de San Vito del átomo y sus partículas, las células reincidentes, las inscripciones estelares.

    Afuera es adentro, caminamos por donde nunca hemos estado,
    el lugar del encuentro entre esto y aquello está aquí mismo y ahora,
    somos la intersección, la X, el aspa maravillosa que nos multiplica y nos interroga,
    el aspa que al girar dibuja el cero, ideograma del mundo y de cada uno de nosotros.
    Como el cuerpo astral de Bruno y Cornelio Agripa, como las granes transparentes de André Breton,
    vehículos de materia sutil, cables entre éste y aquel lado,
    los hombres somos la bisagra entre el aquí el allá, el signo doble y uno, V y ^ ,
    pirámides superpuestas unidas en un ángulo para formar la X de la Cruz,
    cielo y tierra, aire y agua, llanura y monte, lago y volcán, hombre y mujer,
    el mapa del cielo se refleja en el espejo de la música,
    donde el ojo se anula nacen mundos:

    LA PINTURA TIENE UN PIE EN LA ARQUITECTURA Y OTRO EN EL SUEÑO.


    La tierra es un hombre, dijiste, pero el hombre no es la tierra,
    el hombre no es este mundo ni los otros mundos que hay en este mundo y en los otros,
    el hombre es la boca que empaña el espejo de las semejanzas y dice sí,
    el equilibrista vendado que baila sobre la cuerda floja de una sonrisa,
    el espejo universal que refleja otro mundo al repetir a éste, el que transfigura lo que copia,
    el hombre no es el que es, célula o dios, sino el que está sienpre más allá.
    Nuestras pasiones no son los ayuntamientos de las substancias ciegas pero los combate y los abrazos de los elementos riman con nuestros deseos y apetitos,
    pintar es buscar la rima secreta, dibujar al eco, pintar el eslabón:
    El Vértigo de Eros es el vahído de la rosa al mecerse sobre el osario,
    la aparición de la aleta del pez al caer la noche en el mar es el centelleo de la idea,
    tú has pintado al amor tras una cortina de agua llameante

    PARA CUBRIR LA TIERRA CON UN NUEVO ROCÍO.


    En el espejo de la música las constelaciones se miran antes de disiparse,
    el espejo se abisma en sí mismo anegado de claridad hasta anularse en un reflejo,
    los espacios fluyen y se despeñan bajo la mirada del tiempo petrificado,
    las presencias son llamas, las llamas son tigres, los tigres se han vuelto olas,
    cascada de transfiguraciones, cascada de repeticiones, trampas del tiempo:
    hay que darle su ración de lumbre a la naturaleza hambrienta,
    hay que agitar la sonaja de las rimas para engañar al tiempo y despertar al alma,
    hay que plantar ojos en la plaza, hay que regar los parques con risa solar y lunar,
    hay que aprender la tonada de Adán, el solo de la flauta del fémur,
    hay que construir sobre este espacio inestable la casa de la mirada,
    la casa de aire y de agua donde la música duerme, el fuego vela y pinta el poeta.

— The End —