POEM ROUNDUP FOR NOVEMBER

POEM ROUNDUP FOR NOVEMBER

Number of poems written: 44
Average number per day: 1.5
Longest poem: I Tried (18 lines)
Shortest poem: Haiku (3 lines)
Total wordcount: 2,405

November

Cough fit, stagger sneeze,
Working life and student too;
Chil November air --
No smiles anywhere
Sniffing, snuffling, trying to please
- There's so much we have to do! -
Cold-clumped under cloudy skies,
Much to do before we die.

Wind Cutting

Wind breaking our words
Scattered cries over the ocean
Of vehicle noises, I wave
Promising to be faithful
As you leave the shore of my world
And I keep waving, even knowing
From your smile you will never return

Rainwords

Walking through the rain, writing
words bleeding off the pages;
there is nothing missing        slipping away
words we haven't found          are
floating through ruined paper,
falling bluer than the raindrops
        staying longer than the snow.

Love Story

I wrote my love in words you couldn't ignore
Sky writing in the air, soaring on love's dare.
I fell so hard from the sky, hit the cold dry ground
But it didn't seem to hurt when you were around.
Now my love is a cold hard thing, all green
With jealousy and hate; all my love has been
Just another lie, I saw you with her, and then
I became the first zombie to buy himself a gun.

Sky

The sky is dry tonight
bleached bone-pale, opal teeth
glittering in distance, flecking the stars.
We keep seeing strangers
we think we know, greeting breaking
on our lips, gull cries shrieked insults.
I am basked by the wind with new names.

Leavetakings

Our god departed from us
Down roads we'd wandered long ago.
There were foghorn bells whistling in his head
A tune upon his many lips and we ---
We had no word with which to hold,
No magic to bend and bind.
Our god left us; it's funny but
Most of us can't tell the difference
When we pray after all.

Set of Modern Poems

Set of Modern Poems

I

When we touch the falling water
We song with the laughing moon
Soft! a step over bridge stones,
The dirt road after ruins.

II

Open for lunch, hanging sign
desperate for attraction. Each night I
an too solid, the dark
figure beside your bed
waiting to eat your sins.

III

The world     dulled     grey, your
          touch
martian colours
          cold fire trailing.

IV

in times before this
rain soaked and bright-grinned
we could forget our names
open up spectral veins and write
right before the rains came up
from hollows in the earth.

Sleepover

You can all bring blankets
Before the stars are dead
We'll catch them as they're falling
Dancing just ahead.

My Fridge, written when my parents were living here

My fridge is now an alien, a stranger unto me:
Abrim with food and nutrients, no longer clean and free.
Time is lost each morning dispensing gold from dross,
Finding which is mine and which guests and gross --
They've filled a fridge with protein that once was passing clean;
If I am lucky this evening it may be as a dream --
My fridge dull and pedestrian, no stranger unto me.

Days of rain

Umbrella gridlock
On the sidewalk
Dogs yipping, yapping
      people
All we need is
Someone to blame
Tangled dancers, trying
To get past, soaked and
Kicking the dog:
Splatter of red washed
Away.

Haiku

Cold lapsed into silence
Dreaming frozen water
Forgetting secrets.

Bio

Dust-jacketed and past sculpted
By marketing strangers using key words.
("You have a pet, now. We could use a name
for her, if you please. You write; make it
something catchy.")
And immortality is
the author photo
decades old, but
never aging -- not even
when you pass on by.

Fame Walk

You ask how far I'd go
To be famous, walking
Through gala parties laughing.
I say: "The distance", that:
"Fame and infamy are book goods."
That is it better to be a star
Than hope for travel to one --
On borderlands between fear and love
I will go as far as I must
And bit care what prices are paid
By me and the world for this
And all the dreams come true.

Laughtersilent

Tickled to choking
Our eyes too filled with wonder
Reflections echo
In the rain.

Future Tensed

I'll come back to you
You know I will, only
It's not now, not today.
I don't know when, anyway.

But I'll come back, when
I forget just what you did,
The last fight we had
And who was good or was bad.

Finding

I am just trying to find my way.
Wishing for other things to say.
Remembering our first kiss.

Dreaming of a better world than this.
Wishing for more than shades of grey.
That we had tomorrow, not just today.

When / Telling

When I first told you I had
Another name, the sky
Was different, paler, and you
Were more beautiful than
All the things I'd forgotten.

On Crystal Meth

Conversations on the drug,
an evangelist caught with it, thinking
it makes a terrible sense -- heaven on earth,
one pure high. To some people
it would make more than sense.

I don't believe in Heaven.
But some days I really hope there is a Hell.
Learning more about Meth was one,
picturing people who could take
stuff under the kitchen sink, make a drug,
and then cheerfully sell it.
And a strange uplifting relief that there were
depths the human species could sink to
and still surprise me -- I worry that
eventually there won't be, but the call of money
and profit and Safety at any cost driving some
makes me think I'll never see that day.

Home Stretch of Nano....

Well, I haven't posted here in, uhm, over a month and change. Nano ate my life :) Not quite literally, but it felt like that. Still does.

To sum up (so far):

"My Cat Used To Be A Buddhist" finished at a little over 50,000 words in 10 days. I had hoped for seven, but I had Relatives here so it did not happen. After that, I began the novel that had started writing itself in my head 3 days into the FIRST nanowrimo.

As of now, over 40K into it, and hoping for 60-70K at the end, but will be happy with over 55K. "New Fires" is the title and it's a traditional fantasy style novel, more or less. If nothing else, it helps me realize that, much as I used to like reading them, I can't write well in this mode. Ah well.

Live and learn.

I Tried

I tried to tell you about that last time when
It seemed the world was sane and then
It all came tumbling down around me and you.

I tried to tell you that I wasn't sure at all
About where our love ended, the last time you called.
My thoughts are falling down and all I have is you.

I tried to tell you I'm not who I used to be
But I don't know if it's a madness you can see
Can't get up, I've fallen down, but for you

I tried to tell you that you're keeping me whole
But I can feel the collisions vibrating our souls
I've fallen down -- the only thing left that's true

I just can't tell you that I've gone and there's no way back
I can't explain; there's this language that words lack
My thoughts are tumbled down and forgetting you

I used to know you back in that other life I lived
But madness comes and takes and never gives
It all came tumbling down around me and you.

Flu

The long march, to
exhaustion, from health,
a battle we can never win.
Each soldier a carrier,
each weapon a blade, loss
in the war against sickness.
Falling into death we
light fires in the caverns
of our souls, but fire
consumes never enough.

O Muse, My Muse!

O Musette! O muset! our fearful count is done,
The PC has weather'd every block, the prize we sought is gone,
The goal is near, the tap I hear, the characters complaining.
While follow thoughts a slow wheel, the body slowly wearing.
           But O muse! muse! muse!
              O the bleeding count of word
                 Where on the page my wordcount rises
                      Of repetition assured.

           

Fragment

There are days when we fail to understand.
We are stumbling, blinded by
The light of things we never try
told to do or die, but it's just a lie
Never let them see you cry
Can anyone tell me why?

There are days wen we long to comprehend
We're told to seek out powers
No hippie-loving flowers
Watching minutes turn to hours
No singing in the showers
So why do we cower?

My Cat, No Longer A Buddhist

The mouse skitters across the floor,
claws clicking across tiles -- the sound
an echo of older fears. Once, I would
have leapt up at the sound, even swore.
Now I have Cat, who finally kills
them, no longer stuck with some
Garfield complex; not they are undone:
It runs some more, then is still.
Even old, my cat still hunts well,
though he is no longer Buddhist
he is no neutered as well, maybe that is
what changed him, but he'll never tell.

Tree Fort

There's this place I keep forgetting
That I always used to go.
There's this smile I keep remembering
But why that is I cannot say.
When time fails to the end of days
I just want to be able to know.

The place wasn't filled with laughter
But never sprinkled with tears
It wasn't cold come the dull winter
Just a small fort in the forest.
Did that darkness know me best
Preparing me for adult fears?

I huddled under the darkness
In the fort and in the night
My parents never thought me less
When I'd come home early
Sometimes from an angle I can see
The fort and all things seem so right.

But still and all I find I wonder
Just what it is I forget
Sometimes I hear it in the thunder
Sometimes underneath your words.
I think I once grew wings as a bird
But I all I know of are regrets.

7 = 7

7 = 7
The secret alarm clock message,
the sound of telephones shrilling
heir damnation -- three rings
only, and silence into which
shadows flit, whispering names
telling us that A is A, tad etad,
7 = 7.

Kuba

Sky blue, a summer day
When I whispered out names
Lonely trying too hard
Hearing you sigh each time
There was just one reply:
"Don't let our baby die."

A Love Story

When we met last I told you things
Then that I swore were real and true
I told you that I loved you, that I needed you.
Sky so blue and I felt your laugh would give me wings
To fly that day. But I never forgot the other one,
Rued the day I'd said there'd been someone else at all.
If only I'd lied to you then, but I can still fix it in a
Jiff. I just need to make a mind control device for you, a
Way to make you forget and fall in love with me again.
Someday I swear it will happen when we meet again.

Phi Beta Trasher

We are the garbagemen
We empty out your bins.
From night to morn
Even when they're torn
We dirty up our hands,
Save you from your sins and ...

Theophagy

In time before the drowning
We scuttle to wakefulness.
Playing notes on the bones of the earth.

Above us feet move, pause;
Sure, or lost, we do not know.
Only that the gods up there made our home.

Sometimes they come down
Into our darkness, to rest.
They bring light, but it does not avail them.

We eat them, to honour,
Grind bones for bread,
Wonder if the word "Troll" is our name.

Initiation

You wanted magic, the child said, leading
The old man down into the quiet darkness.
Above them, soulscape stars glittered,
Each one a famous face, saying their pat lines.
Who doesn't? the old man asked, wondering
If he'd forgot his pills, if this was only a dream.
Nothing is only a dream, the child chided gently.
And to see dreams is magic, all the magic there was.
To make them real is art, all that magic can be.

They came, old man and young, in the manner
Of dreams, transitioning to another place without pause.
My old high school, the old man said strangely.
What's it doing in here? Why are we here?
For what - the child began, then: You did not mean
In the larger sense? This is your soul; you tell me.
I hated it here. Is this magic, then? Hate? he demanded.
The child smiled. But of course. Hate and fear and love
Are magic, but the kinds that do not that. They don't
Mean enough, to near deep enough as desire and intent.
To see things as they really were is magic, here, in you.
To make the future what is want is all magic should be.

Then who are you? the old man asked, not bitter but more sad.
No one real, the boy said. Just a guide to what waits inside you.
You look like I did, when I was a boy. Or how I wanted to look.
The children grinned, and thanked him, having looked
In other dreams and souls as many things, some of them
Best left unremembered. But this was magic, to walk into dark places
And Hold up a light. And this is all magic, all power, all wisdom:
Not looking away. Not from what you wanted, nor the prices
For getting it. Not looking back is only for those scared of the magic.

Thoughts You

I won't/can't read the papers     Your name
In tabloid type     trumpeting
Strumpets and moral outrage of those
Who hide the perversions in quieter places.
Not the wire pale metallic tattooing
And: "But I thought you were younger. A boy,"
A clock Captain Hook ticking in the background,
You angry and hurt     Me     wanting to say, only:
"Shut up. Don't say more. Don't damn yourself.
You were          Nice enough.
Just digging yourself deeper now."
And your eyes that knew past point of caring.

Hyena journalists, paparazzi capturing soul pains,
"He wasn't a bad person," I said, them stunned
Silent, veering away in search of tamer game.
     Congratulated for confusing them a breath
     and the second advice on shrinks, perhaps
To make my head smaller, or a different shape with
Their psyiogomical ways, trying to understand him.
And through him, me. "I've always looked young."
"Why do you do this?" "Someone has to," I say.
"Why does anyone     do anything.     Looking away
is harder," and they just look away.

And your name is bigger now          almost a war
Older scandals come to light and hard-eyed confessions.
     I wonder if any of them
     Found him kind, or
     gentle.
There is no one to ask Sadness heavy in
the silence. I see you on the TV; I yet wonder still:
How do your eyes still look kind     and forgiving?

Song

We'll meet again in the oceans of our dreaming.
It's all I can do to hold you in a world grown stale and cold.
I lost your love. I saw it die inside your eyes;
Outside them your words were full of words I did not name.

We'll meet again Just one last time I swear
The person I used to be just isn't there anymore you see.
I'm waiting for compassion, for another chance to say
All the words that fall apart exposed to the light of day.

That we'll meet once more I can't help believing
You can't have forgot so quickly the words your heart used to say.
I wrote you a letter. From the context of my dreams.
When I'm with you I need you: nothing ever feels the same.

A Story

Tired of paying prices
For these dreams we never had
Out wandering between the sun setting
and the night.

I'm scared to hear your voice
Calling me like it used to
Everyone else has gone away
Followed you to some place.

People who say they saw
Your blood stain the snow
Well, they just don't know
I tried to explain but it's like the rain
I just keep falling, falling yet again.

I can hear you calling
Through air and silence
I can here your voice
Whispering my name.

I want to tell you
But I just can't find the words
The reason that I killed you
Is who you have become.

I know you wan to blame me
You'll never let yourself see
The curse that only I saw
I wish you could see through your pain
The dreams washed out by your rain

It was out of love I spared you
The ghosts after the dawn
Huddled here alone I
Only wish to be warm.

Hoping for a newer world
I recite the oldest prayers
Hoping for another chance
I rise to meet your stare.

Coda

I can't explain where I've gone
From all these roads I started down
I swear to you that I never knew
And never believed in them anymore

But it's all over now, done and gone:
The UFO came, spoke, and has flown.
I swear to you that I loved you
I always meant to come back to you again.

But someone else answered your door
And I could not bear that pain
So I've gone seeking another kind of dawn
It's a new life I've started down.

Doctrines

Full of instructions,
Warnings most dire.
I read the writing,
Doctrine of Signature,
Wonderingly puzzled.
It gives warnings:
Heat, Time, Ingredients.
Time to rest after cooked.
Hot! In bright red.
But in all the instructions
It never says: Eat me.
This is food. Perhaps
Alice sued, or they are
Merely cautious, but
The directions do not say
When to eat the food,
Perhaps we are to let
It cool for hours, or
Stare at it and starve.
They must have a number
We can call, to ask.

You

You taste just like
fresh sawdust in
the stable, your lips
like hay bales,
and I feel my lips
swelling with my allergies.

Holding On

Of late I have taken to wishing
That love had another name --
On my heart there is a stain
As when my fist impacted the wall.

I am too full of hopes and wishes
But my future seems the same --
Maybe love is not assigning blame
And staying through another's fall.

To see is to see

To see is to paint
Images in our heads
Deeper than knowing.

Nothing destroyed, only
Transformed. Sometimes when
The light strikes your face
It melts to nothing.

The completeness of being
With you, love making
Cannot match -- we only see
What matters to us.

I paint with clumsy words
Comforted only that no one
understands.

I'm Up

Staggering out the door feeling
Like an extra in a zombie movie,
Wondering is the grey world
Might seem a trifle brighter
After more sleep.
But there is only waking
And the worship of caffeine.

[And boy, does this feel prophetic today...]

First Kiss

I smile, tell you you're nice
Shy, not looking up, you
Barely hearing my mumbled words;
I stand, cringing, the butterflies
Like I imagine love to be,
Six years old and waiting
For your lawsuit in fear.

Parable of the Boy on Red Bull

The evening is a pale wash;
bleached seen screen colours
And burning eyes twitching
Under the influence of drink:
Cans and vodka scattered as
Offering to some forgotten god.

He smiles, slack lipped, abusing;
Pushing and making strange noises
That no one is around to hear.
As he croons praises to machines
Twin monitors flickering with colour
Like seizure-inducing eyes, and he
Overclocks, and does it again, the
Grating drone of his computer the
Proof that he is Powerful.

Parable of the Drunken Man

Coming home hither, staggering
Through a door that isn't his
Into another life, left open, seeing
His daughter and the boy next door
Melting like obscene snow men
(One pale white, the other dog-piss yellow,
and himself red, flushed with rage)
Falling apart, no longer an
Unique snowflake in the melding,
Just flesh sundered, the moment
Passed and gone, and the drunk man
Throwing up over them and the bed,
The only statement that night that he
Remains proud of years later.