POEM ROUNDUP FOR MARCH

POEM ROUNDUP FOR MARCH

Number of Poems written: 39
Average number per day: 1.3
Days I didn't write a poem: Mar. 1,4,11,14,16,20,24
Revised average: 1.6
Longest poem: 31 Lines (Townhall Meeting )
Shortest poem: 7 lines (Her scar was)
Total wordcount: 3,438

Dream Stuffing

The stuff dreams are made of is
Things we cannot wishaway;
The only things we love are
Those we've never reallyowned;
The last wishing
In the silence of knowing
Is one word.

Nothing.

Victory

In voices demagogues envy
They told us on TV screens
That we had won.

The ground a morass of
Discarded limbs and broken worlds
Words cannot smile away.

Silenced by a kaleidoscope
Of happy people and tears if we
Wonder what was worth this.

I wish we were hollow.
It would be so much easier.

Butterflies in my soul

Butterflies dancing in my soul
Somehow, some way, some day
I woke up and I could see
Everyone else was just like me
But I -

I have butterflies in my soul
But darling they don't make me whole
And when I'm near you
By luck or chance
The ones in my stomach dance, it's true
But I -

There are people saying I am special
That there's miracles I can do
But I tell you, I tell you, I know I would
Give it all up right now, for you
And I -

I have butterflies in my soul, but I
Would rather have you instead
Just to be here by my side, and I
I don't need butterflies, just you
To make me whole I swear it's true
That I love only you.

Post Poem

Vorpal diarrhea a
wind in your hair
chasing selves the sky
mottled orange in
the dying of rainbows

and all you are
we are.

the word was so
there is - but
- not. Silence, and naked jeans

there is a canvas
of drying tears,
the frame mistaken
just misspeaking
silences.

i wish i knew you
i see     here
i hear
gloaming && split ends

Fragmentation

Held together with fire
         wire barbed with tears
       fears we dare not give a name
games we do not

Life	a
game	of
pong	bouncing
lost	.

SOC

Cradled addled, saddled with sadness
weeping sores - no more, no more - a
whisper and a prayer, petition
and curse drawn deep, reaching
from marrow to sorrow to woe.

All magic the solitary wave
grinding against stone alone:
nothing to give - less to save -
death a bread, bone to bone
grinding finding an unwinding.

Teotl

What is truth but a way
forced on others?

What is a path but a road
invented before it is found?

What is a high road save this:
a low one with scenery?

We see through veils when
there are only masks.

We see the phenomenal when
There is just the noumenal

We forget that the illusion
is no less than the real;

There is no duality, no worlds
of shadows and Forms

There is only the world, and
the balances we make.

Springtime

Spring is coming, and winter is gone,
And we don't know where - it's been so long.
Half the time the sky is grey anyway,
And the rain falls down and some people say
They miss the snow, and the cold, and the memories
And the ice and the slush, if you please - Oh!
I know it's so, what some people say of the snow
And it's easy to miss things once they're gone; you know
I miss you still even if winters done and there a thaw:
somehow the hurt just goes away, as if there's some kind of law
That says no hurting is here to stay, but it can't be wrong
I still think inside, in my place of hope, that we always belong
But I'm not strong enough, not man enough, to resist the changes
The seasons move and spring following winter and we're strangers
Now, to each other, and sometimes when I watch the dawn
Alone I wonder softly where the winter is and why it's gone
So far away; and then there's tears and a kind of wondering
And in the spring smells I think I know what summer just might bring.

Fragment

It is a rare person who knows their own limitations.
Rarer still are those who understand how ignorant
They really are, doomed to inaction by the futility
of their actions & the extent of all they don't know.

Importance

It is a hard but vital
thing, an necessary not an
evil, to hear what people do not
say, and often listening as
help: Understanding only
comes when we reach beyond
ourselves, to touch another's flame and
burn - desire or passion? - it's all the
same: The desperate quest to never
let hearts die with silence and
loss as their final words.

Kindness

The kindness of strangers is
a terrible thing to bear;
the quiet certitude you failed, and
smug condensation masked as worry.
The honest scorn of friends is
far easier to bear - oh! if
there were no strangers anywhere

Fragmental

What does it take to teach
People kindness? What secret
To not answering hate with hate
And trading pain for pain?
It is not found in truth nor lies,
Merely kindness - loving kindness,
a voice whispers soft, low; but
there is no other kind.
It lies in respect, and honesty
And being sensible to the last:
So why have we made a world in
Which it is so damned hard?

I Did Not Write A Poem Today

I did not write a poem today:
I found I had no words to say.
But I know, had I written one,
It would have had no equal under the sun
Like a star it would have shone so bright!
In words, a wonder; In appearance, delight.
Indeed, it would have been so great a poem
I'd have devalued it to call it my own
Happier to confess, to say,
I did not write a poem - today.

The Great Game

The truths I said, so brave and bold
Were just lies, fool's tales for gold.
You could not trust but hired me
To ferret out secrets that could be
Dangerous and paid for tales well told.

Caught up in drama and the romance
Of the spy flirting death and chance
You thought me better than I could be:
Whose fault that you could not see
Dancers must invent their dance.

Flight

Flight
(March 2006)
Josh MacLeod

Teacher at the new school today was asking us to write a paragraph about childhood as the sun sang invitingly outside and we sat cramped in desks and a dull room. I asked my new father how long a paragraph was, if it could be a sentence. He said yes, puzzled, and I went upstairs, silent, and stared at the page.

On Childhood,

I wrote, then underlined it. Then I wrote:

Do you remember what it is like to be powerless, the helplessness of it? The lure of it?

I added, an afterthought, and signed my name, added the date as well, all neat and tidy and clear. I knew I shouldn't do this: I'd learned not to stand out, not when I was new. Don't call attention, don't be important: you'll move again soon enough, I heard, though no one ever said anything.

At the last place, they liked to watch cop shows. They'd cheer for the criminals, and I'd watch them in the prisons, being told to be silent, to fall in line, to be obedient; thinking, that's just this, me, now: it's all it is. being a child again. Maybe they want that. I couldn't understand why they would, but people forget how bad things are so easily. I know I have.

Except when I dream. I remember my mother when I dream.

*

It's snowing when I wake up, the world pristine and pure. There's a song inside my head, and I can almost feel words for it, a voice, but a car comes through, and another, carving through it like a giant Thanksgiving turkey, and the snow is flung about as I stand by the window, watching, held there by some helplessness I can't name. tugging at my heart.

I stand there, frozen, muscles tight and straining, as if I was a tuning fork. Thinking, when is the last time I watched it snow and wasn't afraid? Two years ago. The Vanderbilts. They were good people, but he got transferred, and they had to move to a smaller place, and I ended up in a different place.

I turned again, quickly, not wanting to see my eyes, burying the memory as I drove nails into my palms, staining another kind of snow.

"Are you up, dear?" my new mother asks from the door.

I freeze, but manage to say yes in a voice that gives away nothing, soft and low. I wonder what kind of people they really are, in the dark, with the blinds pulled, locked in by the snow. The wind batters the windows and I wave to a passing crow, old habit I've never lost, and dress. There's something comforting about a murder of crows. It's nice to know other things get misunderstood.

Or maybe they don't. Being pecked to death by enough crows would be fast. I grin, and the mirror returns it like a placid lake, my eyes giving nothing away. I wear long sleeves, even when they turn the heat up: it hides things. Me. Bruises. Cuts.

They must know about the cuts, but they've never said a word, never hid anything. Maybe they weren't told. Maybe someone just makes stuff up about me, and so I move, and move, and keep on moving. It's like the story about the girl who dances, telling tales, though all I have to offer are silences.

She starts when I sit at the table, surprised. "You're so light-footed. You need to eat more, boy."

I've never put down roots, I want to say, but I know they just want the money, not the problems. I offer up a shrug and accepts the cereal and toast. She asks if I'd like anything else, but I know not to actually ask, so I say it's okay and eat, even though the toast is dry and the milk is some odd goat stuff. It's probably illegal, which heartens me a little: it's the ones who think they're better than people, that are doing me a favour, who are scary.

Her husband comes down the stairs, drinking coffee, nodding to us. He's not big, but you don't have to be to wield a belt. She doesn't look mean, but it doesn't matter. I wish I knew how long this would last, how long I'd stay here, but it's not the kind of thing that can be asked, so I ask about school, am told it's on, catch the bus.

People are staring at me as I find a seat, but I say nothing, watching the trees we pass and losing myself in the wind blowing the leaves. There's a little magic everywhere, my gran told me before she died and I drifted between homes and lives, if we knew where to look. "Even in my mom?" I'd asked, because I was younger, and because she knew.

And gran had just smiled one of her sad smiles, and said that all magic wasn't good, but good came out of anything, if we looked deep enough. I've looked, and haven't found anything yet, but maybe I've looked in the wrong places. It's the snow that reminds me, when we get off the bus. It's still white, or thinks it is, no matter what we do. If I was snow, I'd always remember how I looked before anyone hurt me.

The kid across from me in the classroom asks me where I'm from. I say: Lots of places. He asks me if that's a joke. I say: No, and: Sorry. he asks if my parents are dead. I say: No. I do not say I wish, or anything else. Just no. He stares, searching, then just nods and goes back to reading something.

I try not to hear the whispers. I had in the page

*

Math is easy. It makes sense: addition, subtraction. I can put my life on both sides of the equal sign, getting memories as remainders. The teacher asks to talk to me, after class is over, as everyone vanishes to the lunch room. She is tall, friendly, and smiles a lot. I don't smile often; it's my way of not lying.

"Do you know my name?" she says, tapping her nails on the page I handed in.

"No."

"I told you it," she says, quiet, careful.

I say nothing. She stares at me, her expression sad.

"You should make friends," she says.

"I won't be here that long." It slips out, like the wind. "I never am," I add, meeting her gaze, knowing mine gives nothing away.

Hers breaks first. "It doesn't have to be that way. But if will be, if you think that."

I say nothing.

"Why did you write this?" she says.

I remain silent until she says I can go.

*

The wind is strong as I walk home, moving though snow no one else has touched for reasons I don't like to think about. It pushes me, as if trying to force me past the house, to the world over the hills. I could call it exploring; everyone else would call it running away. So I go inside, and up the stairs, and have a bath. After, I cut myself. Just once, small, on the leg.

It doesn't do anything. I wait, door closed - not locked, a kind of thrill - but there is just blood, and it stings a bit, and there is nothing else. I stand, staring at the mirror, trying to read my own eyes. Thinking, this is what it comes to? I cut my face, then, quick and hard, along the cheek, but there is only pain, and tears that surprise me.

I clean up slowly, fixing things, go downstairs. She is watching some talk show, sees me. Asks about the band-aid. I say: "I cut myself. Shaving." She stares, and there is pain in her eyes that almost brings me to a halt. I want to ask why she cares, why she pretends she does: I'm just some money for a spare room, a child who isn't even theirs.

"You don't have to," she says, and nothing more.

I am almost at the door when I turn, sudden, as if blown. "Why not?" I say, the words full of jagged edges. I can hear tears under them, surprising me, and everything is going distant and surreal.

"We don't want you to," she says. "You could talk to us."

"I have."

"Nothing that matters. Nothing that is you."

"Why should you care?" I say. "You get the money anyway."

"We don't need the money," she says, the TV continuing some drama in the background.

I want to go away. The wind tugs at me, the air does; like a bird, I always go away. But. "Why?"

"To help someone. You don't just hurt yourself. No one ever does that," she says, and there is a deep pain in her eyes.

"It doesn't matter."

"Everything matters."

"Can I go now?" I manage. I can feel other words under those, and an itching under my skin. I want to say something, but I can't. I want - but I won't., can't, shouldn't, don't.

She just nods. "You know the wind flies to," she says, and for a moment I hear my grans voice, and it's too much. The door bangs, sharp, as I spring into the yard, anger driving the cold from me, a scream muffled my the coppery taste of blood as I bite through my tongue. It's winter, and I could catch a cold, but I start running, and can't stop.

I stumble a few times, but keep getting back up, moving on automatic. Thinking, I said too much: I lost secrets. Hiding places. And I'm scared. For the first time in a year, really scared. The knife didn't work, maybe because it's winter, maybe because I'm too cold not for it to help: I don't know. It's all moving inside me, like wings, beating, my heart pounding in the cage of my chest, the air icicles stabbing into me as I move, and move, and move.

The wind pummels me from the side as I stagger, no longer running, still moving. I want to stop. The band-aid flies from my face in one gust, the wind driving into the cut, and I'm crying, nose running, just some stupid little kid running in the snow like i ran from mum that last night and I've never stopped and it's

too much, and the wind catches me, carries me, embraces me. I let go of all of it, of everything holding me down, of me, and my hurt, and the love thrown at me like a common cold and the hole in my heart the cutting never healed, and I fall into the sky, catching it, gliding, and let the wind take me, and pull me, scattering me all over, because I know Life goes on, and I'll feed worms, and if it pulls me far enough, I might finally reach the

end

Prisoner of Social Conscience

It started out simple, just a circular saw
And cathode ray tubes behind the garden shed.
Now I don't mean to complain, but I must explain
The differences between justice and law
And why the police came, and my husband fled.

He was mad, though I don't love him less,
And his genius was of a most singular kind
And so the law came, not to praise but blame,
For you see, we rarely forgive true greatness
And seldom understand another's mind.

And so they came and they arrested me;
Put me in cells and destroyed my innocence
But like Germans near Dachau, I said I didn't know
And they asked how I could never see:
I just smiled, knowing love never makes sense.

Townhall Meeting

It started the day they banned the lightning
after the mess the boy caused in the windmill
making giants from bits of bodies and dreams.
The cats he began with lie scattered about
dead limbs twitching under watchful dog eyes.

At the town meeting, someone said: - though no one,
after, could say who. Just someone, who said -
"What about the children?" And the silence was
a horrified emptiness as eyes met eyes and
fears reflected each other. "No," someone said.
"We won't allow that. Not for children. There are laws."
"Yes, child protection laws!" someone else screamed.

And then it was old Mr. Tuck, who said: "It rains."
And everyone stared, blank-eyed and confused.
"Storms come with the rain," he said, slow, feeling
for words with his tongue. "The boy used a storm.
Lightning, from the sky." And eyes turned slowly
to the boy who sat, frozen under spotlight glares,
saying nothing, eyes dull slate grey. Because
they were older, and deserving of respect, he
did not laugh, only looked sad and solemn, like
a too young undertaker in his Sunday best suit his
mother had insisted he wear, three sizes too small,
his arms dangling out like long, monster things.

The banning was past, but like the one about clouds
on a summer day, it failed to appease nature, or be heard.
And the lightning came down, clear blue-white, blinding,
and the experiment repeated itself, because something
repeated is no longer unique, but merely common,
and the dead rose, lightning-spastic twitching shapes,
and came home hoping for a late afternoon tea.

Apologia

The only kind of sorry
You believe is the one
I'll never say
only

I thought I had to
Wanted to, needed,
But your eyes, they were
only

So hungry, and the words
Died, they died inside
So I smiled instead,
only

In the quiet I was laughing
to fill the holes
I wanted to say
only

only I can't apologize
For having done no wrong
Even if it would heal the
lonely places

tears do not water
and we are searching
for a wholeness that

we may never know
only by it's absence.

Lent

Hunger a dull throbbing of
unfulfilled desire, pulsing
Desperation as the will
gives way before the mouth
And guilt smiles full-lipped
self-loathing scouring tears

Power structures built by
self hate and guilt held
together with the lies
that make the world seem sane

Why do they need another one
voices wonder, lost in need
Does God need us to suffer
for no reason; Lent tells us
Yes and the sanctimonious
laugh their mean little smiles

Run.

I have run out of dreams to have
Just like I did long ago
When I ran out of words to say
And could only go away.

I think maybe I should
Give you a call today
And try to write and tell you
But what I do not know.

Only that's it's just my fault
That the well inside ran dry
And the hell of it is I love you
But there's heaven in that too.

And if you were to ask me
How deep the sorrow ran
I'd have to lie and tell you
It didn't run at all.

It may be that you loved me
And could feel something still
But I ran out of that life and
Out of songs and dreams and hope.

Cuz your life's moved on
And we can't go home again
Or be the ones we used to know
Or hold the dreams we used to have.

Innocent confusion

I'm running down the hallway
Towards my parents room
Even though it's very scary
And leads me to my doom.

Dad was away for two long weeks
And mom was left alone.
They're here tonight but I fear
Some monster makes them moan.

Mummy's screaming Daddy's name
And it seems to shake the house
And I creep bravely to the door
As quiet as a mouse.

And what I saw I dare not say:
Oh! It was so very weird:
I was seen and the door closed -
Minnie and Mickey looked so afeard!

Mummy came out and she explained
That they'd been dressing up
I asked why Mickey was in chains
And she told me to shut up.

Wordplay

And the meek they meeped their mating calls
Ran amok whelmed by the writing on the walls
Irredundant, irrefragable, irresponsible, irresponsive.
And the strong whooped their branding calls
Stumblinded naked through foreign walls
Exoteric, esoteric, hysteric, climacteric.
And the remainder, who did not fit, called
Numbers on xylophones written on bathroom walls.

Wordpaint

I tried to paint a picture,
A seaside so very fine.
But all I have are words
And they are only mine.

I keep on failing language
Unable to find a way:
Like describing the sunset
At the closing of the day.

I handed you a crumpled page;
It said all I had to say.
Filled with crossed out scribbles
You couldn't read anyway.

Tales Told

Have you climbed a lonely mountain
Just to say you've reached the top?
Have you walked across a crowded street
Because you could not bear to stop?

In all the story telling
Of things that never were
There's buying and there's selling
And all the way things blur.

Have you said you'd done a deed you'd never done
Just to pretend that you were someone?
Have you told so many lies that the disguise
Is all you are and all you've ever done?

In all the story telling
Of dreams and fancy things
There's buying and there's selling
But no one flies with wings.

Have you wished you could be someone better
So hard that you had to hate yourself?
Have you looked outside at the world you've made
And only seen another lonely cell?

In all the story telling
There is some kind of mending
There's buying and there's selling
And always those sad endings.
And only the sad endings
Ever seem to be real

Fret

When the last star has set, and love is remembered as regrets:
There is nothing left to get and the air smells of cigarettes
And corroded dreams and sweat and the things you aid and abet.

I remember when we met, the way the sun caught your silhouette:
And ever since I've been in debt to you; alone I sang our duet
And felt better and yet I feel there's something that I forget.

On Snow

Victoria
snowing in march
must be like
brushfires
in Eden.

There is little more
terrible than the
death of expecations

yearning for a pure
salvation that no one
will ever see.

Reckless Desires Unchained With Carnival Lust

You tried to tell her how
you felt
couldn't find words.

Just the knife
          It made - oh! -
such succulent sounds!
as you told her again & again & again.

Next morning, woken
from memory, you
stared at your hands, but
felt no urge to wash.

She came home as you
Made breakfast, saying
She'd been out all night,
Acting as nothing had changed,
As if she didn't remember,
As if you hadn't killed her.

But there are holes
in her jacket
the knife is
very cold still   in
your pocket
frozen
waiting.

Bonding

I thought we'd stopped playing
The games when we said "I do".
(Even though you said, "Do what?"
And I laughed along with you)
But now you say: "For better or worse?"
I recall our private room, and whether
We'd ever have one again, and you
Crack whips and smile through the leather.

This Is Important

A Small Knowing

The choices we make shape
Us form and formless both.
        And the illusions fail us
        Only as we fail ourselves.
How glorious failure can be!

The dreams we never share
Die small forlorn deaths.
        And everything we cling to
        Clings more deeply in return.
Only thus do we unlearn.

Private Viewing

Sex is to synchronized swimming
as porn flicks are to drowning.
The spasms of bodily functions
hiccuping towards a final scene.
Perhaps it would last if this had
a bigger budget, better lighting,
and I was not so sober, and you
still not so very hammered.

But even so the need for love
that bards and liars alone make true
comes out of me and into you
(and vice and versa and all is well).
We come to together and enfold
The unpossibilities of yearning dreams.
Our mouths meet, twin souls sucking
each other for our griefs, so sweet!

Our eyes meet and in desperation
we see more than a fellow zombie.
Our voices meet and we give meaning
to chance meetings and one night stands.
You say you will not remember me,
but I promise to upload it to the 'net
as a kind of collective immortality -
in the afterglow you never think to say no.

The War

We have fought in the war for generations
Upon generations, years piled on years,
And there is no end in sight, no end.

Every day we waken to new weapons deployed.
To new terrors awaiting us; subliminal messages
In out text mail, our e-mail, our TV shows.

They do not know when to stop, and the war was lost
Long ago, when it barely began, because people were fools,
Yea, and made it profitable for the spammers.

We want to fight back, now, but they are everywhere
They have subsumed everything, destroyed everyone,
Turned us into click monkeys and ad readers.

We are no longer people, now, even to the legit sites.
We are sources of revenue, to follow a trail of bytes to the ads.
I fear for what will come next. I fear for us all.

I asked God to help us, in a prayer, and got back a reply:
"Become a Jew now! 6 easy payments of 299.99 to be Chosen!"
I laughed, and I cried, and I - I - I - I signed up. I am sorry.

Shoes. Falling. And Bare feet.

I tried to tell you that there are better uses of life
Then waiting, like that, for the other shoe to drop.
There is living each day as one eternity, the moment
Stretching on, the day never fading even if we think
It will never come again.
                                                     And you asked me if anything
Ever did, and yet again when I hesitated, lost for words.
I found them to say that the moment is everything and nothing:
We hold only the moment, I said, and your face scrunched up and cried.
You cried worse when I asked what the matter was.

A Poem

And the things we forget are
The only ones that are real.

And all the things forsaken
Were never ours to hold.

And every time I see you
I remember how to feel

And with every wish that dies
The world's a bit more cold.


There are dreams worth living for
And I think you know that's true.

There's the laughter of the children
And the growth that comes from pain.

There's everything and nothing,
And there's always more to do

There is you and me and what we be
And the smell after the rain.

Faking Deaths.....

Woman fakes own death over tickets. (via Neil Gaima's blog)

The interesting part, to me, is how easy it is.

I want to fake someone else's death now. And maybe not let them know. Or send a card in the mail to their widow.

Story

Grandpa told me a secret,
when I was younger and he found me
huddled under bed sheets, frozen
as he opened the door.

I must have looked so afraid.

He did not laugh at me,
only smiled, and said gently:
"Every time you masturbate, an angel
gets something a LOT better
than some silly wings."

A Poem of Revelation

The moment is a standing
Wind fading, dropping of voices;
There are words without sounds
Huddled in emptiness, soft putter
Of pattering and some           things.
Falling into boundaries we    I
Tasting of despair sour-sweet
In frozen muscles thrumming.
Language a personal ad of fnords,
Arms fall useless - gesticulating,
Undulating, tentacles unable to convey;
Meaning a peeling back of fancies -
And then I sit. Again. For the
First time, and movement is
Not moving at all.

Why I don't Return Your Calls Now

In the fading of the afternoon
Towards the shores of night
I wondered why you didn't call
And how to make things right.

Your answering machine said
You probably weren't dead,
So I tried to say I loved you
When really I just needed you.

In the twilight of the gloaming
I crept up to your window
And what I saw I will not say
But God I wish it wasn't so.

Catku, Revisited

3.
Nothing frightened me
Until I heard
My babies screaming.

2.
And you wonder why
I do not play
In cardboard bags?

1.
He drowned them
And came in
And you never asked
If they went
To good homes, and I
Waited, but he
Never washes his hands.

0.
I never fear death
By drowning, only by
Not hearing them
When they call my name
From so far away
Over the waves
And under
emptiness.

POEM ROUNDUP FOR FEBRUARY

Number of Poems written: 41
Average number per day: 1.46
Days I didn't write a poem: Jan. 8,11,14,18,19,22,
Revised average: 1.86
Longest poem: 55 lines (Drinkin’ With The Mates, Feb 17)
Shortest poem: 6 lines (Fragment, Feb 16)
Total wordcount: 4,160