>literary fights – a Rondel

>

wild circling dots dance mad inside my head
whirl pirouetting ink into my night
like wack, black drizzling shade descends my flight
on thin-print, spill-tint letters overfed

and white gowned sheets, soaked blue and pink, drip dead
in copious and literary fights
while circling dots dance mad inside my head,
whirl pirouetting ink into my night

swarm life towards me, turn my broken sad -
tuned song, tie-dye those night knit writing plight
let broken warp threads glitter with delight,
twitch, groan and scream under the words i bled
while circling dots dance mad – inside my head

Rondel structure:
ABba
abAB
abbaA

Together with Samuel Peralta, I’ll be teaching Rondels on March 14th and 21st at One Stop Poetry Form – hope to see you there

This Rondel is my response to the One Stop Poetry Sunday Picture Prompt Challenge. The prompt was shot by photographer JackAZ, featured today on One Shoot Photography Sunday.

>you were Aragorn

>i called you Shakespeare, that’s roughly
what your name translates to.
we met in Munich for the weekend
some time after dead end summer love
‘cos letters never bridged the winter.

small village and you didn’t fit in,
dreamer, vagabond and Tolkien fan,
we sat talking books for hours,
smoking Camel, walking barefoot,
laughing summer into wings, glued tight to
country lanes and bloomed between
black printed sheets, Tubular bells and the
all-knowing smiles of small town gossip.
for a long time, i met no one
who could kiss like you.

we had no money and the room, we spent
the night was small, electric waves were
creeping up the walls like roaches.
i sometimes wondered how it would have
been, whispered rhymes into my ears while
tossing me towards the Shire. but you were
Aragorn and you had promised
not to touch me,

so nothing happened, yet everything changed,
i got lost in the eyes of the prince,
and for a long time didn’t find the exit.

this poem was inspired by some memories, hitting me like a rocket when reading Anton Gourman’s poem “In July 2003″

>you still hear the music

>

today, it lost
its adventurous smell, the kind you inhale
deep, smell again and again until
you’re drunk, excessively hungry or satisfied
and your nose gets dry from aspirating
the danger-soaked rifts of kilimanjaro 

where i danced, high from heights and
barefoot in heels, snow icing on skin,
pure thrill of holy moments running
the veins, doping me through the night
when we

ran out of snow, music stopped dead and
instead of dancing the ups, i mourn the lows,
touch my fear like alienated lovers in thin nights
and where shall we go from here? this child

was lost in its play, cherries in soft ice, hid beneath
piles ‘n piles of cream, dream and
keep on kid i say, don’t watch the night come close,
how it swallows your heart and you die
crimson, wet and lonely on the tops of your hills.

take this pen, write about fighting hard and
fish-like gasping dreams, soaked salty and slick
with your tears, spilled – like vomit now;
dig the snow girl and find those heels
cause you hear, you still hear
the music

i’m linking up with One Stop Poetry – come and join us, meet some crazy poets and spend some fantastic, poetic time together. Sign up opens today at 5 pm EST

>street summer

>

it was one of those street summers
when the heat of a perspiring city
robs you of your mind and glues
you to the pavements, when tons of
ice cream drip from children’s lips
and mingle with the lingering dust
on sun baked concrete.

we danced the fountains with
wet hair as i watched cheeky freckles
bloom – dots of love in your sunburnt
face; braille to be decoded
with my finger tips. your white shirt
was nothing but business and your
lips, smooth liquid in a thirsty land.

i sucked your coolness
on a planet of our own, touched only
peripherally by the barking of
summer-odd dogs and a mad, yearning
violin, played by the Darth Vaders on
the corners of our carefree now,
just when the rain set in and with the heat,

it swallowed our fountains, made your
freckles fade pale and cleaned damp
asphalt from the burning traces of your
salty lips on my neck.

This poem is my response to the One Stop Poetry Sunday Picture Prompt Challenge. The prompt was shot by photographer JackAZ, featured today on One Shoot Photography Sunday.

>fragility

>tonight
is about pages of unread books,
sparks left on busy streets

when i break
into fragments of what i am,
what i fear, want,
hide & hope

and you love me until morning,
until rays of light
split our pride into tiny stains,

until you no longer
call me a foe
and what stands between us
stays back on the floor,
scattered clothes.

breathing blue, drunken dreams,
soaked in kisses like wine
we drink greedily,
with love-rough lips,
from broken glasses.

.

>blackbird

>

he chirps into my day’s gray,
black charcoaled wings
against the fade-out
of an azure sky, dripping
ebony into my lunch break.

dim eyes sink softly
into darkest gowns, rest blanc beneath
smooth feather pools, dive deep until
i quiver – synchronize our hearts
and soothing feathers
wrapping me, stirred hungry

for blue mountain tops, i disappear
without a trace in sable patches “call it freedom”,
melting – melting with the sky.

stopped talking long ago,
dying of hunger 
from the food on my plate

what was it about flying?  
on pale days,
a pulsing body next to mine,
without fearing the storm’s sway,
singin’ voiceless songs, cascade into
the sun’s bright heart, ride stormy breezes
into emptiness and color-drunk, we mock
the paleness of a fading now, he chirps

into the gray of my day,
black charcoaled wings against the 
wash-out of an azure soul and

when he flew away, i hid
beneath his wings;

and left in the canteen – behind

some lonely crumbs
on a half empty plate

(if you wanna hear me read it, click on the above player)

i have the pleasure to be the host of this weeks fantastic One Stop Poetry – party – put on you swim suit and join us for a deep dive into poetry…sign up opens today at 5 pm EST

>drip – drip – dreamless

>

it’s not about framing us in you said, it’s
about shelter and staying focused, about
listening to whispers of grain and staring

blue skies even bluer until smooth, endless
azure floats, like medical infusions, silently 
into your veins, so drip – drip – dreamless,

coloring your red blood featherlight and
make white clouds sway on your soul. you
know, i trade love to split you open, to

make you feel the vastness of the land,
tumble drunken on the brink of the moon,
balancing piled rocks with scratched toes and

that’s bullshit you say with clouded eyes,
sweat soaking your clothes with streams
of defeat & you water drowned gardens while

she’s playing the piano in her night gown
inside – always – inside and none of us
ever looked back.

this poem is my response to the One Stop Poetry Sunday Picture Prompt Challenge. One Shoot Photography Sunday, shot by photographer Sean McCormick 

 

>lost on your lips – an octain

>i’m lost in softness on your lips
it’s never more than just a light
and tender touch which holds the night

from secret wells where silence drips
i touch the seams of pillowed dreams
behind the veil this moment fits

and like a moth i stir your flight
i’m lost – in softness on your lips

The Octain is a new poem form, just recently created by Luke Prater

Structure of an Octain is:
eight lines as two tercets and a couplet, eight syllables per line with the first line repeated (as much as possible) as the last. Meter is iambic or trochaic tetrameter, but fine to just count eight syllables per line for those who prefer that.

Rhyme scheme:

A-b-b
a-c/c-a
b-A

(A = repeated refrain line. ‘c/c’ refers to line five having midline (internal) rhyme, which is different to the a- and b-rhymes)

…and i’m linking up with One Stop Poetry’s – St. Valentines celebration. join us and share your love poems..

>sleepwalker

>your steps on the floor
make me count minutes,
heartbeats and years, gone by
like rush hour trains. fighting sleep
and listening to your late night
sound – the music, microwave
and beeping of your phone.

i peel out of bed like
an orange to sleepwalk upstairs
where you smell of metal, pizza
and the lavish warmth of youth,
kiss your astonished smile and
just hold you close for a while.
next morning

i will read on facebook,
there’s nothing better than
returning late & tired from a
hard day’s work and sleepy mom
creeps out of bed just so, to kiss
and say she loves you.. and nine
of your cool friends will have
pressed the “like” button

>poets

>hunting words to fit a viscous,
fragile mood – fragmented sky and
messy clouds, we’re tastin’

ink, touch my skin – tornado,
cobweb or a twinkling eye, the
artist’s brush, wet oil, alone – we
fly, dark dancer on an empty

stage, crave, make ‘em love us, no
regret, so tear my flesh, press heavy
on my soul and move
inside the turbine of my breath

these verse will win us, tear
our seam and spark; ejaculate
into our heart, splash torrents, lust-
washed cries, we scream the words
that toss and flood our aisles -
whitewater – clingin’, squirmin’ – short

of breath we close this bleeding gap
of unreached stars
to shattered smallprint
amongst rumpled sheets

A special request of all tweeting readers…we are in the running for a Shorty Award over at One Stop Poetry…only some days left to go. So if you tweet, please tweet a vote for us in the #art category…matter of fact, go HERE and vote for…
@OneStopPoetry in #art because…(you must give a reason) we create community in art, we promote youth poetry or whatever you think we do well…

i’m linking up with One Stop Poetry – come and join us, meet some fantastic people over there, dive deep and get breathlessly poetic. Sign up opens today at 5 pm EST