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 Oct 2017 b
iva
Salmon Run
 Oct 2017 b
iva
i. before this the trees were alight & the hardwood was tracked with mud. down at the riverbank i embrace a golem made living flesh. her skin when she touches me leaves silt & grief. i grab both of her hands and call this the world. i grab both of her hands and drown them in the river.

ii. this softest horror that creeps in my bones, it begs of me to listen
& i do -

cause: you call me pretty. you beg me to sit in your open palm. you cover my eyes. sloppily, with your fingers. you tell me to be still. you hold me still. you hold my breath. you hold a knife to my throat. it’s not a knife. i’ve told this story before. it’s not a knife.

effect: you call me pretty.
you gut me like a fish.

iii. the stone-girl who lives inside the mirror & begs for scraps asks me how to go home. the showerhead screams. the girl has my eyes but only when i’m not blinking. she has no hands. i say nothing. someone is screaming. she hangs her head in her hands. the water is too hot. the lights keep blinking. i feel everything & nothing. she says nothing, and somehow it is worse.
nausea.
nausea.
nausea.

ad nauseaum.

iv. the house does not fall apart but it is a close thing. the roof is leaking. everything is covered in dust. i fill my cupped hands to overflowing & the first layers of dirt chip away. i pry them apart & open. i put my wrists on right-side up. i excavate. i perform with or without anaesthesia. the girl claps. i take a bow.

v. the wind smells clean & of wet earth. i dig up the body in the front yard. my/her hands tug dandelions out of the grass.

we lay in silence.

our hands touch,
flinchless.
look ma, i'm coping!
 Oct 2017 b
Dakota
The Cord
 Oct 2017 b
Dakota
i can’t remember the sound
of his voice when he
told me to stop crying.
i know it was angry
but i can no longer hear
the inflection that made my heart
drop, my pulse speed up
because in that moment
he was my father.
in that moment i was scared
and shrunk away from him,
but his arm acted as an apology
around my shaking shoulders.
my dad never apologizes
after he makes me cry.
He stayed up with me that night
and i cried in his arms until six am.
the pack of cigarettes we had been sharing
was gone by sunrise.
i no longer remember how
that display of love made me feel wanted
because now i am left with a benzo haze
over the fulfilling moments, and a
clear recollection of the times i was hurt.
but i cut our cord and buried it in the sand
and i no longer feel the burden of love.
i no longer feel the burden of loving
and am back to shake alone at the thought
of my dad raising his voice.
 Oct 2017 b
anon
i think my best friend
is dead

no joke
no lie
i think she has died

we haven't talked in
5 years
and i miss her like you miss
sleeping
after you've been up all day

like you miss seeing
while your eyes are closed

like you miss smiling
when you're sad out of your mind

i miss her like you miss
your best friend
who has gone

i miss her like
the other half

of me
I just needed to talk about this
 Oct 2017 b
False Poets
does the moon get tired?

~for the children who never tire of moon gazing upon the dock,
by the light of the fireflies,
till the angels are dispatched by Nana,
to sprinkle sleepy dust in their eyelashes so long and fine~


<•>
while walking the dog I no longer have,
a happenstance glanceable up over the River East,
there you were, mr. moon, in all your fulsomeness ,
surrounded by a potpourri of courtier clouds,
all deferentially bowing, waving,
passing past you at a demure royal speed on their way
perhaps,
to Rebecca's northern London,
of was it south to grace of  v V v's Texas^,
in any event,
the cloudy ladies, all bustling and curvaceous,  
all high stepping in recognition of your exalted place,
Master of the Night Sky

We,
the word careless, poets excessive,
sometimes called silly poppies, old men,
left footed, still crazy after many years,
most assuredly poets false all of us,
without a proper prior organized thought train,
outed,
bludgeon blurted,
an inquiry preposterous and strange,
strait directed to the sombre face,
to mister moon himself!

tell me moon, do you ever tire?*

the obeisant clouds shocked
as that face we all uniform know,
unchanged anywhere you might go  to gaze, be looking upon it,
watched the moon's face turn askew.

He looking down at our rude puzzlement,
with a Most Parisian askance,
a look of French ahem moustacheoed disbelief,
while we watched as the moon cherubic cheeks
filled with airy atmosphere,
then he sighed

so windy winding, was it,
so mountain high and river deep,
that those chubby clouds were blown off course,
from a starless NYC sky
all the way past Victoria Station,
only to stop at Pradip and Bala's
mysterious land of
bolly-dancing India,
on their way to Sally's Bay of Manila,
magic places all!

Mr. Moon looked down at this one tremulous fool representative  
(me) and in a voice
basso beaming and starry sonorous,
befitting its stellar positioning,
squinting to get a closer look at the
who in whom
dare address him in such an emboldened manner!

Mmmmm, recognize you, you are among those
who use my presence, steal my lighted beams, my silver aura,
my supermoon powered light, borrow my eclipses,
reveal my changeling shaped mystery without permission,
only mine to give, you tiny borrowers who write that thing,
p o e t r y

head and kneed, bowed and bent,
I confessed
(on y'alls behalf)

we take your luminosity and don't spare you
even a tuppence, a lonely rupee, no royalties paid
to you-up-so-highness,
and we hereby apologize for all the poets
without exception,
especially those moon besotted,
only love poem writing,
vraiment misbegotten scoundrels....

with another sigh equality powerful,
mr moon pushed those clouds across the Pacifica,
all the way to the  US's West Coast,
up to Colorado,
where moon-takings from the lake's reflecting light
so perfect for rhyming, kayaking,
and moonlight overthrowing,
once more, the moon taken and begotten,
nightly,
as heaven- freely-granted

yes, I tire
and though  here I am much beloved,
usually admired though sometimes even blackened cursed,
seen in every school child's drawing,
in Nasa's calculations,
of my influential gravitational pull,
moving human hearts
to love and giving Leonard a musical compositional hint,
and while this admirable devotion is most delighting,
would it upset some vast eternal plan,
if but one of you once asked,
you fiddler scribblers
my prior permission,
even by just, a lowly
mesmerizing evening tide's tenderizing glance?

yes, I tire,
even though my cycles are variable,
my shape shifting unique, my names so at variance
in all your many musical sing-song dialectical languages,
my sway, my tidal currents so powerful a deterrence,
unlike my boring older sunny cousine  who just cannot get over
how hot looking she is,
I,  so more personally interesting,
yet you use me as if I were a fixture,
on and off with
a tug of the chain string,
never failing to appear,
even when feeling pale yellow and orange wan,
and worse,
mocked as an amore pizza pie,
do you ever ask how I am doing?

yes, I tire,
of my constant circuitous route that changes ever so slowly,
but yet, too fast for me to make some nice human acquaintances, especially those young adoring children
who give me their morn pleasurable squeals when they awake and my presence still there,
a shining ghost of a guardianship protector still
watching over them

how oft in life do we presume,
take for granted
grants so extra-ordinary
that we forget to remember
the extra
and see only the ordinary

how oft in life do we assume,
the every day is always every,
until it is not,
only an only
a now and then,
till then,
is no longer a
now*

<>
oh moon, oh moon,
our richest apologies
we hereby tender and surrender,
our arrogance beyond belief,
what can we offer in relief?

silence heard loud and clear,
mr. moon was gone,
a satellite in motion,
so our words burnt up in the atmosphere
unheard

we did not weep
nor huff and puff,
blow those clouds back to us,
for we knew
the extraordinary
would return tomorrow,
we will be ready,
better another day,
to prepare
a lunar composition,
a psalm of hallelujah praise,
for mr. moon
of which
mr moon will never tire,
for filled with the perma-warmth
of our affection
for the one we call mr.moon
False Poets is a collective of different poets who write here, in a single voice,
hence the confusing interchangeable switching of the pronouns.    sorry bout that.


^ HP - give them back the claimed  V name!
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