"handclaps" poems - Hello Poetry

THE CHILD Margaret begins to write numbers on a Saturday morning, the first numbers formed under her wishing child fingers. All the numbers come well-born, shaped in figures assertive for a frieze in a child's room. Both 1 and 7 are straightforward, military, filled with lunge and attack, ***** in shoulder-straps. The 6 and 9 salute as dancing sisters, elder and younger, and 2 is a trapeze actor swinging to handclaps. All the numbers are well-born, only 3 has a **** on its back and 8 is knock-kneed. The child Margaret kisses all once and gives two kisses to 3 and 8. (Each number is a bran-new rag doll ... O in the wishing fingers ... millions of rag dolls, millions and millions of new rag dolls!!)

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Carl Sandburg

Child Margaret

THE CHILD Margaret begins to write numbers on a Saturday morning, the first numbers formed under her wishing child fingers. All the numbers come well-born, shaped in figures assertive for a frieze in a child's room. Both 1 and 7 are straightforward, military, filled with lunge and attack, ***** in shoulder-straps. The 6 and 9 salute as dancing sisters, elder and younger, and 2 is a trapeze actor swinging to handclaps. All the numbers are well-born, only 3 has a **** on its back and 8 is knock-kneed. The child Margaret kisses all once and gives two kisses to 3 and 8. (Each number is a bran-new rag doll ... O in the wishing fingers ... millions of rag dolls, millions and millions of new rag dolls!!)

7

Crushing out handclaps like cigarettes white noise whispering from each speaker song long over but the melody lingers codas in my mind, over the reports of car alarms and muffled conversation loose plastic groans of the office chair Another clean night viewed thru slanted blinds cold feet bare on ashy shadow carpet smoke in the air, streetlights slit in beams memory slips, hands type toward a dreamlike place, some lost day I set it straight crippling nonsense intense packed tight with grilled cheese and avocado Cazadores and cranberry push back sleep tiny cardboard boxes fill me ******* fluidity, one brown duck among the aggressive others that look on your face riding a rusted bike on your birthday your smile luminescent around the lake and then perhaps a beer and a hug potential tumescence grabbed and poked eating rusty water from an old brown glass leave a leather letter, a leather gun in hand garter belt memory, a trombone face a cardboard avocado, a lost refrain

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Jun 13, 2015

Jun 13, 2015 at 1:34 AM UTC

sb-stokes

Crushing nonsense cripples fluidity (Like Gokyo Lake breaking up in the sun.) For Andy Clausen.

Crushing out handclaps like cigarettes white noise whispering from each speaker song long over but the melody lingers codas in my mind, over the reports of car alarms and muffled conversation loose plastic groans of the office chair Another clean night viewed thru slanted blinds cold feet bare on ashy shadow carpet smoke in the air, streetlights slit in beams memory slips, hands type toward a dreamlike place, some lost day I set it straight crippling nonsense intense packed tight with grilled cheese and avocado Cazadores and cranberry push back sleep tiny cardboard boxes fill me ******* fluidity, one brown duck among the aggressive others that look on your face riding a rusted bike on your birthday your smile luminescent around the lake and then perhaps a beer and a hug potential tumescence grabbed and poked eating rusty water from an old brown glass leave a leather letter, a leather gun in hand garter belt memory, a trombone face a cardboard avocado, a lost refrain

28

Handclaps, trapped, you are another clapped out hasbeen fading on the subtle regret of a haunted dancefloor,that echoes to a trapdoor of your reflection ,deep on a stained echo of a fatigued stand up romance fall at the feet of saints part time actors on shadows of downbeat sadness ,that chance meeting fall out from insight to quicksand that pours on a sinking fragrence of pitiful sadness and tide tiredness of desert slipstream and fragile happiness to upturned madness ,undressed to a ****** round of applause that maps teach us to follow to a statue frozen and silent .

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Dec 19, 2012

Dec 19, 2012 at 4:22 PM UTC

harpo-rhum

Maps.

Handclaps, trapped, you are another clapped out hasbeen fading on the subtle regret of a haunted dancefloor,that echoes to a trapdoor of your reflection ,deep on a stained echo of a fatigued stand up romance fall at the feet of saints part time actors on shadows of downbeat sadness ,that chance meeting fall out from insight to quicksand that pours on a sinking fragrence of pitiful sadness and tide tiredness of desert slipstream and fragile happiness to upturned madness ,undressed to a ****** round of applause that maps teach us to follow to a statue frozen and silent .

1

I am afraid of what I've made myself. I am a Demon, you're beliefs 'n your loves are enemies. I've tried so hard to leave behind the memories of what once was so precious: emotion, wrathe, **** and wicked lit like wicks and taken through Daytona dark, the strip we marched, the palms looked like black fireworks. The ocean sang, the handclaps rang and waned, and Bobby talked to me for hours. But in the end I still felt alone, fell quiet, the handclaps rang and waned.

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Feb 17, 2012

Feb 17, 2012 at 7:00 AM UTC

wm-jones

Bobby

I am afraid of what I've made myself. I am a Demon, you're beliefs 'n your loves are enemies. I've tried so hard to leave behind the memories of what once was so precious: emotion, wrathe, **** and wicked lit like wicks and taken through Daytona dark, the strip we marched, the palms looked like black fireworks. The ocean sang, the handclaps rang and waned, and Bobby talked to me for hours. But in the end I still felt alone, fell quiet, the handclaps rang and waned.

13

i used to think i was "that girl" who was destined to live a life that only amounted to **** buddies and loves that i drove away because who the hell wants to get close to a person a human born imperfect and therefore unable to promise to never leave you or never hurt you or never let you get too far into something that they know will never be capable of lasting as long as you need it to. but here i am ****** up anxious irritable downright depressed but ready and prepared and on the way to not being such a ******* idiot who thinks another person another boy another mouth is going to make me happy. I'm already there.

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Mar 16, 2015

Mar 16, 2015 at 3:16 PM UTC

ford-prefect

handclaps & guitars

i used to think i was "that girl" who was destined to live a life that only amounted to **** buddies and loves that i drove away because who the hell wants to get close to a person a human born imperfect and therefore unable to promise to never leave you or never hurt you or never let you get too far into something that they know will never be capable of lasting as long as you need it to. but here i am ****** up anxious irritable downright depressed but ready and prepared and on the way to not being such a ******* idiot who thinks another person another boy another mouth is going to make me happy. I'm already there.

18