Albinio beach

her voice scratches hoarse
like jazz brushes,
i’m deaf to sounds of life around

it’s just the sea and i,
her crotchets
rip me into pieces

gurgling moistness
kisses love-bleached sand,
demanding
like a tango dancer, smiling
from behind a sun-soaked veil

i’m staring spellbound
at her beauty, shiver at
her tenderness and almost
start to cry, a myriad of

salty droplets on my skin,
she’s closing in on me,
licking me feverishly
with a smaragd liquid tongue

i’m letting go,
adjust my heartbeat to
her pulse and hit her depths

together
with the tuscan sun

.

this week’s poetics prompt at dVerse Poets Pub is all about water… and i just spent a breath-taking week in tuscany for a saxophone workshop but at least with enough time for two visits at the beach.. smiles… my commenting will still be a bit delayed as i’m in Rome for a few days..see ya soon..

meeting the bar

there is graffiti
between the dark and I’m
not sure when I will leave that tunnel,

cheer the bold or those lunatic
sick and odd enough
to spray their lives
onto the walls

traffic jammed & windows open,
wondering if I’ll suffocate on exhaust fumes,

thinking of last night, when
we fucked uninhibited until we crashed
unconscious to the floor, I’m

counting car lights, worn down faces,
music level 12 ; you told me i’m extreme,

nervousness, pressed tight
against wet concrete and pale mildew
splays on dark-grey tunnel walls,

i die amidst the crowd and no one sees
but a drizzling highways’ sprayer,
riding for a fall to bring some off-beat color
to a road I won’t remember

.
i’m linking up with the new form and crit forum at dVerse Poets Pub – a place to learn and hone our craft. this is where we will receive and give honest and constructive crit and grow our poetic skillz.

as i’m heading for my holidays tomorrow morning, i won’t be able to return comments and i’ll be offline for most of the time until august 2nd.. from friday morning on i have enabled comment moderation to keep spam away while i’m gone..just in case you’re wondering…see you soon..

flying fish

you fed me flying fish
on moon nights, silver shining
from the lake and
fen fires in our boat,

lying heavy winged all night and you
were pushing up my shirt
so you could feel my heart.

i told you of strange dreams
with seamless knitting ladies chasing
me and you would smile
and draw me closer,

asking if i saw the moonlight
dance for us,

there was no room for fear–
hoarse lips melting on me,

we could’ve split
the lake-deep silent surface with our laughter,
reverberate on wavering wooden planks,

your eyes like charcoal,
northern lights shone on your tongue

and from the base range greenish mermaids
guarded all our moves,

wading slowly deeper

we swam those swarming lakes eyes open

and the mosquitos ate us alive
when we drowned that day

.
we’re opening the doors at dVerse Poets Pub today, a place to share your poetry, meet friends, receive feedback and get inspired…join us for the first OpenLinkNight which starts at 3pm EST

I also want to say thanks again to a wonderful team at One Stop Poetry which closes its gates today. Thanks to Pete, Leslie, Adam, Brian, Gay and Chris for a wonderful time and thanks to all of you who have supported and encouraged us this past year. 

One Shoot – to the water

.
She never really asked him–

But he felt drawn
and so he stayed all day,

wondering if it were mice or rats
that made her seem so inapproachable

He just stood
and watched her for a while
before he started counting

five and seven, five..and

An old pond!
A frog jumps in—
the sound of water.
(Basho)

That was when she started smiling,
so he cited haikus until late

and when the sun went down,
he took her to the water.

I found her bra next morning on the shore

and never wrote a haiku since
. 

today is the last one shoot sunday and i want to say a big thanks to Chris and Adam for weeks and weeks of excellent photographer features and picture prompts. it was an honor to be on a team with them. the photo was shot by  Rosie Hardy  - check out the interview over at One Stop Poetry.

(and in case you’re looking for the construction poem…it’s further down…)

dVerse: & so it started

i found you lying
in between the gravel in the driveway,

Someone put you there
while i was vast asleep

When i picked you up,
it was still dark outside,

mist hung in my hair
like cobwebs,

You looked small, adventurous & vulnerable
and i liked the way you felt

between my fingers,
there was weight, worth carrying

Through the day i realized
that you were my dream

Poets, weaving webs around the world,
tossing ink pots over polished floors,

sitting soaked in shining pub light,
talking nights away

like we were never strangers ’cos

we found art in one another’s eyes
. 

so while we’re still busy, polishing floors and hanging curtains, we are in DESPERATE need of a poetry break.. and just can’t wait until the official opening on the 19th… and brian already ordered 300 pounds of crab legs for today.. haha… so hope to see you there for sharing your construction, beginnings, start-up, pub life, whatever verse with us at dVerse Poets Pub  ..pop in and say Hi.. 3pm EST

it still happens

i walk into magnetic fields
and realize it the moment
when i see them,

pausing at the edge of harvest
half a salad field behind, a second half ahead
and they are young and wild somehow

Her eyes are glued down to her hands,
digging trenches into fertile soil; his eyes
dig trenches into her

i wonder what she’s grubbing for,
a harbor for her heart because she fears
that it would wash away, with all the earth around,
not really grounded?

I find the answer as i view,
the farmer, sitting close enough
but not too close to zero in on her,

he understands the principle of seed
and yielding when the time is ripe

As i walk on, i ponder if i’ve ever seen such loads
of tenderness, squished in between a pick up, sweat,
dirt of a hard day’s work

& slowly moving clouds
none of them saw
. 

are you dVerse…? you should meet us at the Poets Pub when we push open the doors for you..19th of july..

filterless

parchment paper soft between our lips,
we smoked rebellion filterless,
sitting on pavements, lolled in
poster-plastered rooms,
the lush-me-green park or forbidden
quarry ponds next town, inhaling

pipes of freedom, world-less peace,
release-ing tiny dragons, tunneling
our lungs like oriental trains,
badged with the fear of falling black,
etched fat upon our foreheads

And their remnants fell like soldiers.

We lived on Che Guevara, blew
our ashes to the wind & bravely blasted
tightly ravelled dreams, fueled with
insist_dance, resistance–
hand-rolled, bent between
our fingers, gambling high scores

shoreless, though never tagged them
good or bad, left/right, dark/light– but
threw them in the air and let ‘em fly

(your lips did curl like Tutu seams,
pink ice-scream dreams) & we rolled
drunk with summer-laughter over
clover-covered grass.

But i remember autumn hanging in your hair,

& we kissed hard to keep us warm and like
there’s no tomorrow– and there wasn’t,

so we cut time to tiny mars bar chunks,
thickly sick with politics we didn’t understand
until we faded,

blue with smoke

& caught in the nightfall
. 

maybe you’ve already heard the rumors on twitter…next week, we’ll be launching dVerse Poets Pub, a new online community for poets. The site is just a shell right now, but stay tuned, we’re about to paint the walls and get the chairs ready for you guys..for tonight i’m linking up with One Shot Wednesday  for the last time..and i’m thankful for the great time we had…thanks to all of you who made One Stop a success..and could you hand me some tissues please…

under construction

Slicing peaches palatable,
i’m staring at your ruins,
scaffolds spread on open wounds
like bandages to stop the bleeding.

And as i look around,
there’s no one left to build the walls.

My knife scrapes hard
on worn down bricks,
juices spilling over hand & arms,
dripping slowly to the floor
and for a moment look like blood
before they seep away
between my feet

you look so peaceful and you know
that i’ve adored your beauty

Milky trickles turn to streams
and flood my oat flake towers

When i was a child,
we built a world of dreams & heaps of sand
and this is what i think of

as i sit down
to watch the sunrise
. 

Thanks Adam and Chris for the second to last One Shoot today and thanks for everything you’ve done and for being such an inspiration. It’s good to know you.
I’ll be having my last Spotlight over at One Stop on the 19th of July and then my time there comes to an end as well –  a good and valuable time where I’ve learned much, met many fantastic people and formed friendships I wouldn’t want to miss anymore…yep but won’t disappear from the poetic blogworld.. so…see you around..

The above picture is shot by Manchester-based lifestyle and travel Photographer Neil Alexander.

blown into silence

the grass could’ve had any color,
the people any shape and size,

i met them on the way & never met

There were trains
& cars
& bikes,

i didn’t see them, was immersed,
about to– disperse,
counting blue notes like they were

pure gold

& no one ever told me that the wind–
would pause
and tenderly enlaced
become a brother to my breath

Life could’ve had any color
but lost its saturation somewhere on the way,
so i am dipped in sound like i got never hurt
and never loved,

like i was never meaningful
or meaningless,

like no one ever choked me
into silence

I slowly walk the corn-growth road

with nothing on my mind but fragile tunes,
tumbling drunken from my headphones,
lean into the sun and–

take flight

stab me with the sun

stab me

with the last, fast floating sun beams
as the evening glistens sweet & soft
like candy floss

the rails lead nowhere,

watching trains,
high voltage strains like
they were toys, held in the sticky hands
of little boys, lost in their play

just stab me

slowly and dramatically as the day
has bored, ripped me to death already

we pass people in their cars.

no one moves us, neither do we care
enough to smile or shout or tear them
on their shoulders out of
susurrating silence,

dancing tango argentina
(with that passionate look
that melts the glaciers in this land)
right on the lake-side street,
dipping our feet, laying our tongue
in fire folds -

we run,

turn up the music and
imagine standing on the stages of our
lives -

the brave, the winner, the silent,
lined up comically on the promenade
like they belong; nowhere

Will You stab me

my heart sinks to the deepest point,
hitting the dead-line of the day
when sunlips kiss the gurgling waterbed

blood-red

.

i’ll be your host for tonight’s poetry party over at One Stop Poetry, come, write a poem and join us..sign up opens 5pm EST