in the dead of the night/ jaywalking the moon

while you were sleeping,
i moved on,
filled bits of sunshine
into tiny bottles
and squished some
of the spring ’11 rain
into my trenchcoat pockets

find me sitting on a bench
i’ll pour you wine from
new blown glasses
my walls will soon be
smeared with ink

between my teeth the graphite
of a well worn pencil
when poetry’s invading me

i’m spraying graffiti on you
and watch the wet paint
running down your neck and

from my tongue drip words,
form puddles on new spaces and -
whistling with color blotted lips
i’m jaywalking the moon

you’re in…?

helicopters

falling from the trees,
we let them spin and drift
like sailors, drunk with gin,
watched them circling
towards the tongue of the river,
then.. disappear

faces hot with sweat
and dreams of the real ones,
smelling of big adventure,
Platoon - Apocalypse Now
and named Cobra,
Black Shark or Mangusta

They would take us
to places we saw on tv with
bold men fighting for what
we hoped was right and
all afternoon, dirty hands and

scratched hearts we let them
fall and fall until the sun came down
and our knees started bleeding

until the rotors spun in our heads
until we were almost there and
until the trees had lost all their seeds

linking up with emily at imperfect prose..

no winners left

they say War Will Die
left bleeding
on the side of the street;

dust on blind men’s blades,
still warm and
lips in sneers

They want to sing rosy cheeked
kids to sleep before
darkness reaches them

and the scent of steel still
on their tongues as they
lick their way up her
thighs to drink to life, to

shut out the swords, the spears,
the coughed blood and
the – he didn’t make it…

They greedily gulp
humid warmth, suck
parted lips, tasting freedom and

See the trenches in her softness
There are no
winners left

..woo hoo it’s One Shot Wednesday again and the wonderful Adam Dustus will be your host tonight…write a poem and join us or just jump over to read what some fine poets brought to the table..sign up opens at 5 pm EST

the art of rolling down summer hills

It wasn’t that she was not used
to faceless alleys, clinically clean
or disgustingly dirty – just as life can get

and it wasn’t that she was not used
to fight her way along the gangways
of some nightmares, side by side
with people she had met along the way

She shakes her head and pauses,
measures life in thirty minute slips
and they feel easy in the pockets of
her dressing gown

What really bothers her
is the lost art of rolling down these aisles
and make them smell like summer lawns

Remembering the scent
when flowers fell to dust in curly
hair, wrapping her nights with
deep blue summer groove – she sighs

Today, it’s drugs and wheelchairs
standing in her way -

another thirty minute slip

She smiles a bit and turns her head,
wrinkles her nose and for a moment
she feels lightweight,
leaned against the wind, her world

getting green again

This poem is my response to the One Shoot Sunday Challenge. The above photo was shot by Canadian photographer Greg Laychak. Check out the interview over at One Stop and I can highly recommend to jump over to Greg’s website to see more of his fantastic photography.

Miri

the first rays of spring
bring you back,
freckled like Latte Macchiato
wet paint on your shirt.. nose..

brush in hand, dreaming
your bike summer green, dotted
with butterflies and your
smile tastes of
Ben & Jerry’s

i sit on the edge of a tear,
wrinkle my nose, twinkle
dust from the sunshine
and hum, prepared for

……new colors

(just a sentimental moment when i saw my daughter Miriam’s bike in the garage the other day…and she’ll be back from bolivia in june…)

sunshine flash

we share such things as salad, meat balls and
chick-yellow scrambled eggs, sitting in
the spring on wooden benches, inhaling

life smoldering fat as Cuban cigars,
roll it in our mouthes like russian Rs and
swallow greedily, moistened by german

beer and the rough music madness of a
Porsche nine eleven. I pick up the
vibrations, tame ‘em with my tongue and let
them shake us to the brink of sunshine flash


this was last sunday in the black forest…family lunch and on the pic in the front is hubby with nephew..smiles

spring invasion/in berne/berne fusion

i walk this bridge, splish smaragd waters
flow beneath,
a heavy current, sun

melting on skin
we meet in gothic heat,
smooth crumbling sandstone,

blurred reflections swimming green
and quiver soft as wind blown ripples
‘cross your opaque face and

did you know time is relative,
fleeting, tick-ing astronomical
when bears & fools
keep dancing through the night.

i never really touched this magic place,
so full of everything that lives in caves and towers,
restless, ground-lost worlds,

and when the bridge breaks down
i haven’t learned to swim but
you are divin’ up,
wading deep as rivers in me,

see the trees
spellin’ your name
with bloom-thick tongues,

you smell of forests and i’m sure you know,
no need to rescue me, today i Am.

i was in Berne on business last week and was once more fascinated by the deep green water of the river Aare which flows around this beautiful 12th century town. the green color comes from the minerals of the glacier water which flows into the Aare.

..and yeah – it’s poetry time - One Shot Wednesday again…a bustling and alive group of poets throw their best poems into the One Stop Pool and have fun together..you should join us..sign up opens at 5 pm EST

don’t even think about it..

don’t even think about it
’til the words pile up and
you can’t stop them any more

unless you’d kill ‘em,
every single one with the point of your pen,

unless you would drown or die
if you’d refuse to let ‘em come and
come like lovers in tight nights – but

you got stuck, the escalator
is not moving, blank steel laughs
into the poet’s face &

in your eyes – still warm,
the remnants of last night.

out in the kitchen, oldies on the radio,
no bridge to
never ending metro lines and
faceless crowds with long expired tickets -

you smile and i think of Bukowski’s words &
take another sip of coffee – black -
the stairway starts to move and somehow -
i feel drunk

This is my entry for the one shoot sunday picture prompt over at One Stop Poetry. The photo was shot by photographer and poet James Rainsford.

longing for light

we have short days
and endless nights,

daylight rationed, tiny sips
of sun-strung power chords,
played madly on my heart

when darkness swallows

brittle bones
and turns my drunkenness to
hip-deep desperation. yes,

i am intoxicated by the sun’s
soft glow and there are
acres full of light-soaked sheets,

crazy sweetness
under spicy sails,

my tongue screams fire,

sun-flamed on swiss lakes,
i long for longer days ‘cos
nightly magic crumbles fast,
there is no spell to moons, wrapped

in pale light, i drift
and you can’t hold me

don’t move so fast

i wonder if you can,
if you stand in the rain,
if you stop to move,
just allow

drippy drops
licking your ear
’til you hear
water’s whispering

want, can you tell
the shape
of what flows
cool & damp
on your skin, feel ‘em
sing of spring, notice
what key they’re in, taste

thursday rain pear-sweet
on summer-soft tongues

knowing you know,
by the sparks in your eyes,
water-wet trees breathing sighs,
bent low, pressing their lips
into squishy earth,
quietly rooted

with stillness-wrapped wings watching
wantonly seeds give birth

…just a quiet spring moment…