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Chris Voss Nov 2012
This one's for me
and I'm gonna watch it burn.
Watch it flicker and pop and crackle and spit.
Gonna take lessons on how to dance with the draft,
also hoping she doesn't ******* out.
I'll make poems out of smoke and shadows
and fading, lonesome, sepia-tone summer photographs.
I want to make dusty picture frames feel like well-loved tuxedos.
I'm gonna see if candlelight can be all the company I need to keep.
Gonna sweep this floor clean,
like it's not what we say, it's what we mean
between the lines of
one too-polished table setting:
one knife,
one spoon,
but two forks for wishful thinking.
I'm gonna eat my fill
and fill my cup again and again,
to the point that I begin to make conversation
with my reflection in the bathroom mirror.
I'll tell that *******, "My friend, you are drunk."
and he'll tell me, "Kid, look who's talking."
Then it'll be back to a glass
that treats its brim like a suggestion.
Gonna have whisky and black lager and champagne
'til my toes and thumbs tingle.
Thin blooded and numbed;
Steeled by my father's novocain.
Come morning, this house couldn't get more hollow.

In these hallowed halls where I wallow in the way that
I only seem to appreciate the preciousness of days
Once they've passed,
here's what I'm gonna do:
I'm gonna write questions on one side of the wooden window blinds,
and write punchlines to completely unrelated jokes on the other.
I don't know why. Maybe just to **** with people.

I'm gonna reminisce with full streets of ghosts
That glow like kerosene lamp posts
all the while, stomping my feet, just to prove that I can.
Gonna make toasts to the isolated;
to the quarantined and the misanthropes.
I'll boast that lovers are not unlike poachers,
but I'm not gonna mention that in every other under-cover dream
I seem to swoon like ivory elephant tusks.
I'm gonna gamble on Dusk
because I think it's got a little less honesty,
but a little more promise than its
attention-*******, good-for-nothing, go-getter big sister Dawn does.
That flirtations *****.
Gonna give Christian names to half drawn caricatures
of people who only ever existed when the lights died out
and the snow fell heavy.

I'm gonna let the levies break.
I'll go insane, just ******* lose it--
do the Boot-Scoot-'n'-Boogie in a onesie
with the hind flap flying free and the Greek Theatre masks of
Comedy and Tragedy painted on my *** cheeks,
(because no one should ever take their art too seriously)
And I'm even not gonna even care who sees,
partially because there's no one around to watch anyway,
but mostly because I want,
more than anything, to just be me.
Or at least I want to want that.
See, I read somewhere that,
"You should always be yourself…
unless you can be a unicorn,
then always be a unicorn."
And that really struck home for me because,
even though I've never really ached to be
the ******* love child of a Narwhal and Zebra
(In my imagination, unicorns are
striped and impecable swimmers)
I truly believe that Men will always dream of being Titans
and Titans will always dream of being Gods
and Gods want nothing more than to be Wind--
to twist with lit candle sticks
and teach the lonesome how to dance.

A one-step waltz tip-toed to distract.

But the fact is, I'm bound to take a few back steps.
I'm gonna think about her.
Gonna harbor hard feelings towards back bedroom dealings
that I have no right knowing about.
Gonna pray like a desperate atheist
that they keep their knees locked in a one night stand.
I might break down.
Only once, just long enough to regain my strength.
Then I'll tame the earthquakes in my hands, like I always do.
Gonna find what it takes to move on.
Not just regenerate, but to grow stronger than I ever was before.
So I'm gonna meticulously straighten these place settings:
One knife.
One spoon.
A healthy dose of wishful thinking.
Gonna try my hand again at dancing with the back draft;
I heard she's been aching for a duet,
and with all the life of candlelight
I'm gonna ignite the coal shafts beneath my eyes.
Gonna finally see me as the man I am,
not the titan I wish to be,
because I heard somewhere that,
"You should always be yourself…
Especially when all you've known
all you've ever shown
is some mythology."
So raise your glass because this one?
This one's for me.
Yo que sólo canté de la exquisita
partitura del íntimo decoro,
alzo hoy la voz a la mitad del foro
a la manera del tenor que imita
la gutural modulación del bajo
para cortar a la epopeya un gajo.
Navegaré por las olas civiles
con remos que no pesan, porque van
como los brazos del correo chuan
que remaba la Mancha con fusiles.
Diré con una épica sordina:
la Patria es impecable y diamantina.
Suave Patria: permite que te envuelva
en la más honda música de selva
con que me modelaste por entero
al golpe cadencioso de las hachas,
entre risas y gritos de muchachas
y pájaros de oficio carpintero.Patria: tu superficie es el maíz,
tus minas el palacio del Rey de Oros,
y tu cielo, las garzas en desliz
y el relámpago verde de los loros.
El Niño Dios te escrituró un establo
y los veneros del petróleo el diablo.
Sobre tu Capital, cada hora vuela
ojerosa y pintada, en carretela;
y en tu provincia, del reloj en vela
que rondan los palomos colipavos,
las campanadas caen como centavos.
Patria: tu mutilado territorio
se viste de percal y de abalorio.
Suave Patria: tu casa todavía
es tan grande, que el tren va por la vía
como aguinaldo de juguetería.
Y en el barullo de las estaciones,
con tu mirada de mestiza, pones
la inmensidad sobre los corazones.
¿Quién, en la noche que asusta a la rana,
no miró, antes de saber del vicio,
del brazo de su novia, la galana
pólvora de los juegos de artificio?
Suave Patria: en tu tórrido festín
luces policromías de delfín,
y con tu pelo rubio se desposa
el alma, equilibrista chuparrosa,
y a tus dos trenzas de tabaco sabe
ofrendar aguamiel toda mi briosa
raza de bailadores de jarabe.
Tu barro suena a plata, y en tu puño
su sonora miseria es alcancía;
y por las madrugadas del terruño,
en calles como espejos se vacía
el santo olor de la panadería.
Cuando nacemos, nos regalas notas,
después, un paraíso de compotas,
y luego te regalas toda entera
suave Patria, alacena y pajarera.
Al triste y al feliz dices que sí,
que en tu lengua de amor prueben de ti
la picadura del ajonjolí.
¡Y tu cielo nupcial, que cuando truena
de deleites frenéticos nos llena!
Trueno de nuestras nubes, que nos baña
de locura, enloquece a la montaña,
requiebra a la mujer, sana al lunático,
incorpora a los muertos, pide el Viático,
y al fin derrumba las madererías
de Dios, sobre las tierras labrantías.
Trueno del temporal: oigo en tus quejas
crujir los esqueletos en parejas,
oigo lo que se fue, lo que aún no toco
y la hora actual con su vientre de coco.
Y oigo en el brinco de tu ida y venida,
oh trueno, la ruleta de mi vida.                (Cuauhtémoc)Joven abuelo: escúchame loarte,
único héroe a la altura del arte.
Anacrónicamente, absurdamente,
a tu nopal inclínase el rosal;
al idioma del blanco, tú lo imantas
y es surtidor de católica fuente
que de responsos llena el victorial
zócalo de cenizas de tus plantas.
No como a César el rubor patricio
te cubre el rostro en medio del suplicio;
tu cabeza desnuda se nos queda,
hemisféricamente de moneda.
Moneda espiritual en que se fragua
todo lo que sufriste: la piragua
prisionera , al azoro de tus crías,
el sollozar de tus mitologías,
la Malinche, los ídolos a nado,
y por encima, haberte desatado
del pecho curvo de la emperatriz
como del pecho de una codorniz.Suave Patria: tú vales por el río
de las virtudes de tu mujerío.
Tus hijas atraviesan como hadas,
o destilando un invisible alcohol,
vestidas con las redes de tu sol,
cruzan como botellas alambradas.
Suave Patria: te amo no cual mito,
sino por tu verdad de pan bendito;
como a niña que asoma por la reja
con la blusa corrida hasta la oreja
y la falda bajada hasta el huesito.
Inaccesible al deshonor, floreces;
creeré en ti, mientras una mejicana
en su tápalo lleve los dobleces
de la tienda, a las seis de la mañana,
y al estrenar su lujo, quede lleno
el país, del aroma del estreno.
Como la sota moza, Patria mía,
en piso de metal, vives al día,
de milagros, como la lotería.
Tu imagen, el Palacio Nacional,
con tu misma grandeza y con tu igual
estatura de niño y de dedal.
Te dará, frente al hambre y al obús,
un higo San Felipe de Jesús.
Suave Patria, vendedora de chía:
quiero raptarte en la cuaresma opaca,
sobre un garañón, y con matraca,
y entre los tiros de la policía.
Tus entrañas no niegan un asilo
para el ave que el párvulo sepulta
en una caja de carretes de hilo,
y nuestra juventud, llorando, oculta
dentro de ti el cadáver hecho poma
de aves que hablan nuestro mismo idioma.
Si me ahogo en tus julios, a mí baja
desde el vergel de tu peinado denso
frescura de rebozo y de tinaja,
y si tirito, dejas que me arrope
en tu respiración azul de incienso
y en tus carnosos labios de rompope.
Por tu balcón de palmas bendecidas
el Domingo de Ramos, yo desfilo
lleno de sombra, porque tú trepidas.
Quieren morir tu ánima y tu estilo,
cual muriéndose van las cantadoras
que en las ferias, con el bravío pecho
empitonando la camisa, han hecho
la lujuria y el ritmo de las horas.
Patria, te doy de tu dicha la clave:
sé siempre igual, fiel a tu espejo diario;
cincuenta veces es igual el AVE
taladrada en el hilo del rosario,
y es más feliz que tú, Patria suave.
Sé igual y fiel; pupilas de abandono;
sedienta voz, la trigarante faja
en tus pechugas al vapor; y un trono
a la intemperie, cual una sonaja:
la carretera alegórica de paja.
Emily Kauffman Mar 2014
I was just learning to forget about you.
I had found someone.
A great someone.
Now all of a sudden you want me and I don't know what to do.
Who to choose.
Your timing is
impecable.
RAMLIGHT Jul 2014
Ive met most of my ancestors.. I've seen them come alive in spirit
through the eyes of a dog
i have begun to think that dogs come from heaven
a loveblasting spirit with impecable karma
a pure soul
a guiding spirit for us all
from a very early age i understood compassion and unconditional love from my dog luna
the years have past and have found that love grows forever
Shady Teddy Jul 2015
I probably don't remember everything
about my first day in college
or the fisrt time that we met
sometimes i even forget
the date my birth is celebrated
.
but for that day i rember everything
from your low heel black strap shoes
sounding the beat everytime your
feet touched the ground
as you walked towards me
and there was the glowing white
emanating from your blouse
the matching was impecable
and although
they call me color blind
but even then i saw it
.
then there was your voice
soft and articulate in speech
yet still firm and stern
accompanied by a contageous laughter
.
at first i thought you
were about to cry
that was when i noticed
that natural glitter in your eyes
you had just plaited your hair
it was sprayed and shiny
holding to a pony behind
.
thats when u spoke to me
then i kept saying "ati"
not because you were unclear
but the sound of your voice
was so soothing and comforting
somewhere between opera singing
and a choral verse recital
.
you were still a young girl
but thats when your wings grew
somewhere the july cold
and you flew away from us
we still miss you every august
.
i wish you were here to see
how she has grown since
she nolonger plays with small
dolls like she used to
but i know you are looking
from up above you see us
alot has happend between
and some day i will tell you all about it.
She talks about you sometimes
but i am still unable to explain it all
i dont know if she will understand
i even dont know what to tell her
but if you were here
you would know exactly what to tell her
like you she is perfect
.
sometimes i cry alone
and preffer to be left alone
not because i like being alone
but because its easier
to immagine by myself
what you would do or say in such situations.
fly safe my friend.
and keep passing by
dont be gone too long.
Sarah May 2017
***** paws
Mud scorn
Hearts wrenched by faces who brought memories surfaced
pushed back into your head
So far they shouldn't be called memories anymore
Sorrowful songs
Clenched teeth
Lungs collapsed by impecable dreams
Words spoken in ways they only make sense in a state of sleep
Imaginary hands grasp round your throat  
Legs without bones
Sink down to the kitchen floor
Eyes dry from staring into the past trying to understand what you could've done
Should've done
To change the unchangeable events
Ya desde Singapur olía a opio.
El buen inglés sabía lo que hacía.
En Ginebra tronaba
contra los mercaderes clandestinos
y en las Colonias cada puerto
echaba un tufo de humo autorizado
con numero oficia! y licencia jugosa.
El gentleman oficial de Londres
vestido de impecable ruiseñor
(con pantalón rayado y almidón de armadura)
trinaba contra el vendedor de sombras,
pero aquí en el Oriente
se desenmascaraba
y vendía el letargo en cada esquina.

Quise saber. Entré. Cada tarima
tenía su yacente,
nadie hablaba, nadie reía, creí
que fumaban en silencio,
Pero chasqueaba junto a mí la pipa
al cruzarse la llama con la aguja
y en esa aspiración de la tibieza
con el humo lechoso entraba al hombre
una estática dicha, alguna puerta lejos
se abría hacia un vacío suculento:
era el opio la flor de la pereza,
el goce inmóvil,
la pura actividad sin movimiento.

Todo era puro o parecía puro,
todo en aceite y gozne resbalaba
hasta llegar a ser sólo existencia,
no ardía nada, ni lloraba nadie,
no había espacio para los tormentos
y no había carbón para la cólera.

Miré: pobres caídos,
peones, coolies de ricksha o plantación,
desmedrados trotantes,
perros de calle,
pobres maltratados.
Aquí, después de heridos,
después de ser no seres sino pies,
después de no ser hombres sino brutos de carga,
después de andar y andar y sudar y sudar
y sudar sangre y ya no tener alma,
aquí estaban ahora,
solitarios,
tendidos,
los yacentes por fin, los pata dura:
cada uno con hambre había comprado
un oscuro derecho a la delicia,
y bajo la corola del letargo,
sueño o mentira, dicha o muerte, estaban
por fin en el reposo que busca toda vida,
respetados, por fin, en una estrella.
Steph Portuguez Jan 2020
A minimal interaction merely coincidental took her to the sentimental, yet quiet lightly, semi-permanent fire, the affection for the imperishable. A minimal corporal translation, a dance towards a portal, a fervor to pair and properly resurrect.

The compost has been added, the fecundation has begun, the methodical development goes against the unfolding and beyond. The maturing is inconceivable, an initiation determined to dilate, jag and stain. A gamma of sentiments, a commotion with skills to afflict, an opening with a phantasmagoric impatient and tone deaf.

A parallel black hole, a wooly, scruffy, disheveled globe. With absentia of her specific use she'll roam. A drowsy critter, greater for its sluggishness and loneliness, unquiet for the incubation, the heat and the certainty of your motherly protection.

Medically oppressed to the obligation of live on, welcomed by a sublime lukewarm. A unique lullaby from the impecable chanter and so on.

That's how you nourish and exalt the delicacy, the consciousness slightly expands to the magnificence. This universe with billions of new galaxies, it expands with minor steps of your new innocence.

This apprentice with exceptional obtuseness, her leader replete with sageness and discreetness. The trail scatters its roots towards the rude plot. The captain aims with firmness to a rational outlet.

An enduring labyrinth you must traverse, a map with invisible lines and a myopic with no sanity nor quandary to march. Her compass does not fatigue with the disdain of the repugnant, unawared, insolent vagrant with no prosperity.


The pink portrait lays in an imaginary castle once dreamed by a dragon. This enclosed a precious legend, her bravery prevails and the growth of a rotten embryo, this **** with no significant phases, with dull patience. An ancient savant donkey, engendered with tender.

That tenderness was not her only role, her exuberant potencial to vastness and to the raw venture she accustomed herself. To the darkest and unimaginable brutes she dared to conquer, a non-existent God, she dedicated to redeem and master.

Her royalty and infinitude, this benevolence administrated my chemical sensitivity, always in me will entail. A kingdom without entrance to those venturesome to tumble. The iconicity of the most notorious infinity and empress, in the pink portrait will forever rest.
NiTSUDD Feb 2017
You may escape me tomorrow
but I've got you now

When our tyrant sun awakens from its dubious slumber as it does each day with impecable reliability, i may once again find myself in solitude.
   And as i lay still and naked on my big brass bed. My room as the only exsistence with any meaning to me. I will wear that same smile once broke and never repaired. For I shall have you framed forever.
   In a lonesome gallery I have your potrait of memoriam. Your innocent pedestrian voice on blissfully hydrated lips, hiding your sultry pleasured toungue and eyes that are a shade of blue too cold to describe.
I am too frightened to consider what could've made eyes like that, yet I could stare for a thousand years.
   And I plan to do just that, for a thousand days like tomorrow when I need a glimpse of a reminder of what artistry there is in this world. I know when you wake in the morning your eyes may shut on this life. But you have opened mine for infinity in this moment.
¡Mi soledad sin descanso!
Ojos chicos de mi cuerpo
y grandes de mi caballo,
no se cierran por la noche
ni miran al otro lado,
donde se aleja tranquilo
un sueño de trece barcos.
Sino que, limpios y duros
escuderos desvelados,
mis ojos miran un norte
de metales y peñascos,
donde mi cuerpo sin venas
consulta naipes helados.Los densos bueyes del agua
embisten a los muchachos
que se bañan en las lunas
de sus cuernos ondulados.
Y los martillos cantaban
sobre los yunques sonámbulos,
el insomnio del jinete
y el insomnio del caballo.El veinticinco de junio
le dijeron a el Amargo:
Ya puedes cortar si gustas
las adelfas de tu patio.
Pinta una cruz en la puerta
y pon tu nombre debajo,
porque cicutas y ortigas
nacerán en tu costado,
y agujas de cal mojada
te morderán los zapatos.Será de noche, en lo oscuro,
por los montes imantados,
donde los bueyes del agua
beben los juncos soñando.
Pide luces y campanas.
Aprende a cruzar las manos,
y gusta los aires fríos
de metales y peñascos.
Porque dentro de dos meses
yacerás amortajado.Espadón de nebulosa
mueve en el aire Santiago.
Grave silencio, de espalda,
manaba el cielo combado.El veinticinco de junio
abrió sus ojos Amargo,
y el veinticinco de agosto
se tendió para cerrarlos.
Hombres bajaban la calle
para ver al emplazado,
que fijaba sobre el muro
su soledad con descanso.
Y la sábana impecable,
de duro acento romano,
daba equilibrio a la muerte
con las rectas de sus paños.
Steph Portuguez Jan 2020
She persuaded the curvature of the seam. A dressmaking utterly agonizing, to reach the smoothness one must perceive, it has a regret with the difficulty of repetition of a trend.

Her foul purport carbonated the clear intent. But an impecable illustration did provide them with the warmth they intend.
The cycle lacked precision but their pliancy was a treasure so **** filled with her preciousness.


Velveted silk portrait embraces and confines a cause within a retrospective, a muse divides with a major uproar, one with the furor of nature uncontrolled.

The spell of glamor enchanted the failed dorks. They daydreamed fuzzy temptations to achieve their doomed ******. Of their antagonised exchange was born an incurable rage. The vexed source became cursedly recruitable for their loveable tremors, she had no knowledge of their cultivated adoration.

This will be our temple to our redemption and acceleration. It has consumed us all, encased conscious with translucent locked up doors.

The excitation has endure the incommensurable, the deluge did occur in the future. The scorn we throw to each other is acceptable if I desire to engorge her, it'll wear off your vile will, it'll grant me her savoury thrill.

Velveted silk portrait I beg you not to demise and ascend. We'll ravage the essence of your pure command, although, our adoration is the realest love spell.

I was snarling when I saw you embosom him, it felt like you were entering something delightful and never ******* ending. What was behind the blinds it wasn't supposed to be appreciated, we were always stood in a horizontal line and pulling harsh, all acts performed were a praying for your preference.

Velveted silk portrait, we encouraged you to revoke your beauteous den, to an addictive merriment. We'll howl with devotion to this new founding arts, her paint sparkled in the now dusky lane. A palace never menacing to our welcoming, an unfair entrance to the terribly but tender embodiment.

The gladness finally dragged us to our unfair refinement.
Heliza Rose May 2014
I have an impecable memory
But has love forgotten me?
Fiction
Cesar Botetano May 2020
Salute
for those people touched by the gods
transforming images into words
poetry
fresh dew in decaying cities
Salute
for those people touched by the gods
impecable words
like furious machine guns
lightnings in the middle of the night

— The End —