TJ King: Favorites

Jan 2013 TJ King

Skylegs

Jan 2013 TJ King

CR

Skylegs

Nineteen forty four: A broad shoulder silhouette in the milkwhite skyscape.
Winged coy mortality whispers lovewords to his temple
touches fire to his inner thigh and he
pushes her aside and says Maybe tomorrow,
I'm working late tonight.

And he is cold and american but he tells himself
He is Cold! and American! And even in the
sandbag eyelid opal gray morning when his skylegs shake
he is cold and American and his copper girl's
thrilling reproach cannot warm him red
until he unzips his vest and invites her in.

but in forty nine he is twenty seven and American. in forty nine, to be American is to have no skylegs.
but baby death writes him letters while jean marie in her cap-sleeves looks pretty at his side.
and he likes jean marie, he tells himself he likes her better. she is pretty and she is sturdy.
she can make love without leaving burn marks.

but he wears slippers and housecoats and he has no skylegs.
and jean's cap-sleeves show no skin. fire hurt to touch but at least she let him.

and so twenty seven and scared, he reads baby death's neat tiny scrawl
and feels her breath on his earlobe
and winged
coy

he falls to forty four
and flying

Jan 2013 TJ King

tensing.

Jan 2013 TJ King

Filmore Townsend

tensing.

i find myself exhaust'd
without words to fill
the gaps between breathes
standing in a garage
scavenging ashtray for
more cigarette than ****.
feelings of a cut and run
history. always cyclical, always
flooding. again, repeating.
i may not be able to
tell the future, but
i will laugh should we make it
together. my memories
have been lost before, never
quite wiped clean.
i once could live.
these days writ of longings,
of fated desperations, writ
of corner'd separations
while eyes haze and lids droop.
while connections are made
between the breaks in
statements you had to say.
lemme be straight, i am done.
taken to apathy. absconding
with nil thought of leaving
negative remembrances behind.
leaving yellow-paged notebooks
of a past life.
days of the deifiers, days of their
fat-trimming inquisition. For
the flesh lusteth against Spirit,
and the Spirit against the flesh.
and those were scrawnier days.

Jan 2013 TJ King

Stains I cannot remember

Jan 2013 TJ King

JM

Stains I cannot remember

I am trying to remember your tattoos
and I cannot.
You had a goddess on your calf,
but which one?
There are the vines that started on your ankles,
I think,
and wound up your strong legs,
traveled the curve of your hip,
to where?
Or did they begin on your arms?

****, I should know this.

I remember the heart on your ***,
the mermaid on your chest,
the rocket ship, somewhere.

I spent so many hours looking at these tattoos
I should know them as well as my own body.

I don't though.

The edges blur away
into skin
and elbows
and smells
and sounds
and feelings.

When I try to think of your body
I feel my hand tracing the curve of your back.

I smell amber and wine.

A fertility goddess on the shoulder,
laughing and tumbling
out of bed together in a
breathless heap.

Crime scenes, willow leaves on your neck.
Drawings by Luke, a rocket, a cat, and was there a heart in there?

I should know this.

I tried to memorize them on so many nights.

I should ******* know this.

The lilies on your arm, I can taste your stomach.
I tried to look back at the captured moments.
Never once did I think,
take pictures of all her tattoos,
one day you wont be able to remember them.

One day you will not be welcome to look or touch.

I can remember every curve of your body.
I remember every fold,
every scar.
I can feel your soft feet and your stubble covered legs
I would not want any other way.

But...I can't see you baby,
I can't see you.

How many times
did my hands roam your canvas?
How many times did I long to be the ink
in your skin?
I wanted you to
take my pain and make it yours,
carry me around with you,
as you.
I wanted you to blend our pain
and make it something beautiful.

I can hear your voice,
the one I thought you
used
just for me.

The stain of you covers me and I just want this taste out of my mouth.

Jan 2013 TJ King

SHE THOUGHT IT THE RAIN

Jan 2013 TJ King

Tim Knight

SHE THOUGHT IT THE RAIN

This is a club scene poem, so
imagine classics from the nineties
and fearless girls drinking from beer tins-
this is that night you want to omit
and not remember,
this is every night you’ve had to dance
and not wanted to.*

He dropped his drink
for the red-bra-girl;
she thought it the rain,
but instead it were a wasted
drink down the cigarette drain.

Girls in Jack Daniels
who don’t like whiskey
nor dances,
nor the sting of alcohol
upon their tongue.

www.facebook.com/timknightpoetry

Jan 2013 TJ King

Reality has a funny way

Jan 2013 TJ King

Meka Boyle

Reality has a funny way

Reality has a funny way
Of wrapping itself into a tiny ball
And plummeting effortlessly into
Our wide, gaping mouths
As we raise our luminous faces
To the vast and forgiving skies.
Or spinning itself outward
Into the weightless shadows
Of the wind which beats down
Upon our pale, vibrating chests,
Creating a rhythm that swoons
And capsizes with the wavering
Translucent strokes of the ocean
Upon the pure, unfiltered sand.
Life is too much with us,
As we push our weary feet
Against the all encompassing ground,
Dragging ourselves across
Stormy sidewalks covered in
Old wrapping paper and chewing gum,
Bristling park lawns
Littered with budding clover and popsicle sticks,
Smooth, linoleum floors
Full of traces of the past
Kept real by shuffling feet and 104 degree fevers.
As we continue on,
Through city streets, childhood playgrounds
And hospital waiting rooms,
We carry a little bit of the world with us,
Hidden away beneath forgotten promises
And diluted memories full of
Passionate illusions.
Time is too real to face head on,
So instead we package it up
And ship it away to the future
In the form of 99 cent greeting cards,
Faded blue jeans full of pocket lint and sentiment,
And nine to five jobs that circle endlessly until we can no longer bear it.
It's only in the dark of the night
In between warm, downy comforters
And the slow steady glow of
A dull, canary street light
That it comes to us,
Sometimes only for a moment,
Before it evaporates again
Into the mundane complacent
Lilac and honey fairy tale
Which is life.

Dec 2012 TJ King

in a million years

Dec 2012 TJ King

Kelly Landis

in a million years

the truth came
tumbling in on a cold
winter wind
i was asleep,
the world became chaos
my grandmother told me to
face my eyes in
the mirror
i found after much
distress,
i couldn't

Dec 2012 TJ King

Time Travel

Dec 2012 TJ King

Ian Beckett

Time Travel

I was fifty-three this morning,
But I feel so much older now,
Having lived a lifetime in a day.

It started like a thousand others,
Time suddenly skipped a track,
Everyone I know is dead and gone-

I didn’t even get to say goodbye.
I never knew that time was precious,
This morning was a hundred years ago.

Nov 2012 TJ King

this is how it is

Nov 2012 TJ King

Madeline

this is how it is

i am not a ******* afterthought
and you are not my only option
and i should not feel this way.
i should not be looking at him
and i should not want anyone but you
but that's not the way it is.

the way it is is that i feel like
a burden
and i shouldn't.
the way it is is that i should be able to tell you this
and work it out
and i can't.

the way it is is that i don't know what to do
and i don't know who to love
and i don't know who it is that loves me.

and i should.