[x]

ZebraHer dress flows like a lazy river
when the thaw is done with the complaints
and the woods shrug their heavy shoulders.
She got it at that antique mall by the sea,
I remember. We were talking
of ice cream and whale bones.
It looked like a skeleton on the rack
but it space queened her.

Five dollars
or something.
Nobody cares. I was
looking for video games
from the 80s.
Black caps going
"CK - Christ is King."
"A family that prays together
stays together."
She wore dirty trainers
and she could have worn
anything.

She is still standing on that lawn,
looking like a takeoff.
I am still in that chair
thinking I could fly.

Last chance to seeIt's a odd kind of feeling
and an odd kind of peeling
the day you kiss your former self
that decisive goodbye,
then quickly rip your lips
from the parting.

There is no time frame,
no milestone markers
at the logical divisions.
One day you simply wake up empty,
a slight rumble in your snakeskin stomach,
then nothing but the seeping quiet.

Your flaking blood surfs the sloping light shafts
searching for new ground.

It is the last day, you see.
The furrows may remain,
but the uncertain air
of yesteryear
departs.

ThrownBones heaped
like uncaught bonfires.
Crash lander, skyborn,
splintered like frostbitten stones,
like trees fallen deep
from the snow line.

Eulogy of a man that was,
and the name of his lover written
in femurs, vertebrae and ribs,
waiting for the thaw,
the salmon and the sea.

All memories carried by wolves
to their starving cubs.
Open skull for the rainfall
and the birds.
The landscape of skin
imprinted on the ground.
A fading map
with footstep borders
disappearing fast
in the tide of time.

Garage saleI wonder if it will get easier,
a thingless life.
Body of one,
room for none.

For sale, cheap:
A PlayStation 2, used.
An ambition, abused.
Four walls, beaten.
One lamb shank.
...no, that's eaten.
Ninety-seven DVDs, watched.
Three novels, botched.
One brain, worn.
One heart, torn.

& other things, call for details.

Everything must go.
Like that girl in her waist coat
who called herself my wife.
Like that man in his leather jacket
who told me how to live my life.

To the CoastLooking darkly to the back of the car,
I see ruin in her eyes.

We pass another town of murderers
cradled in the pines.

This is the way to the coast,
and it is her birthday.

The sky is ashen and pregnant.
I snap a picture of your hand in mine
to somehow make this real.
Unfortunately
this makes the moment unforgettable.

She sleeps back there,
wearing my clothes
like family.

Here comes the Devil,
but we lose him
over the hill.

Here comes God,
but we lose him
at the sea.

The horror cycleYou leave me no choice but to leave the faucet on,
see what will come crawling, when all the water runs
out to embrace the sea.

There is a spluttering sound,
like porridge, like a sick child. There is no need for me
to check the source for answers. Everyone knows
from the primal smell.

Far out of sight, someone is driving a car,
singing happy tunes too hard, all rear mirrors cracked,
trying to think of anything but everything.
There is no passenger, of course. Everyone knows
from the lack of sense.

The water still runs.
It turns out that the sea becomes the sky
and the crawling goes in circles.

Southern Belle - 2I want to sing you songs on the low notes
for hours. Comb your hair behind your ear,
gentle and lingering. Slip into your eyes-
anything. You are

a ripple spreading across me. You are refracted light;
slickness of an abalone's back. The soft pearl.
Idle thought of my afternoon- always, always

I imagine. And Bourbon's not so far:
nineteen hours through a day,
then I could see you. Will we ripen
on touch?

Mildew.i.

thought I'd ask your brother,
why you don't want to see me,
today

ii.

"it's just that my pockets
are warmer than your hands"
you said

iii.

and I cannot keep myself
to myself;

I do not have my own
feelings, they belong to
everyone else

iv.

told you, I wouldn't tell
about the other night
in the car;

too late, the highway
saw us, as
silhouettes of sex

v.

will I ever
be able
to read you?

Honeybush.i.

five letters, written
by you; your
lines speak of
love and for
ever, on my
walls, blue

and your picture
stays, red-
rimmed at my bed

ii.

imagined, a hole
in the wall;

blank frames

iii.

you speak, and I
am left wanting;
no comfort, no
interest, no
comprehension

iv.

yet your hand
in my hand and
your lips
between my brows
and your head on
my chest;

there is safety,
familiar and
without
questioning

v.

leave, fly
away to england,
france, norway;

there is no
love-less air
here for my
lungs

vi.

I pictured you,
minus setting
and family and
circumstance;

and I do not
love you

as you do
me

as you spok

Tumeric.the night my dog died
I shaved my legs

and tried to wash my
indifference away
with shea butter and
milk

and the pavement under
my heels felt like mud
and no melody or
sibling could extract
the fatigue; blue-grey

tomorrow, I'll tell you
under your jumper, that
love without conversation
is almost as meaningless
as physicality and sex

and I screamed and screamed
and called you despite my
metallic arteries and
the gusts around my ankles
and you had sport to play

crash, the burning out of
my compassion and my
violence, but I couldn't
be without company

for I could do without love
until the build up of rust
and walls slow

VertexAlways been told
I was wise beyond my years,
but years run faster
than wisdom.

As data amasses,
the patterns diffuse,
until only nature remains.

I remember the blood-rush,
hairs stretching in yearning,
hot breath and cold hands
and red deathless kisses.

What choices are there
at crossroads and cliffs -
if I could have,
I would have,
my friend.

Life is a series
of pictures and toys
and they all look old
in the end.

Chalk.i.

you're miles away, now.

ii.

mother said,
'oh, you don't look
too glum'

iii.

and we
were opposite ends
of a different spectrum,

but no one
will ever run their hands
across me
like you

iv.

I put the photo,
red-rimmed
into the drawer,
along with the letters

I still look at them,
when it gets dark

v.

and I thought
about going back,

but, like you said,
we're too different,
now

vi.

I'm free,
but I don't want
to fly.

Iridium.and love was never
a problem,

it is when our
mouths open;

the logistics
don't work

you always watched
films for the
action,

me, for the feeling.

Rhubarb.i.

there is a locket
with books and birds
and us,
entwined

ii.

passed, September
brings October;

the sky, earth is
lilac

iii.

we touched without
movement,

your hands sighed

iv.

phrases and eyes sway me;
I will be grey
when you are

v.

a town of crystals,
sepia-sun and
peace;

I am there, within
the city

vi.

we speak of making
love, and I will
admit an
enigma

vii.

you have only two
names;

both are kind

viii.

and we will
live, in the
dawn of contentment;
naked and alive

ix.

pulsatilla for my
eyes, sulphur
for I;

my spirit is calm,
my body is tired

x.

and soon, it will
be December,
and while distand l

Drunk textingI could tell it
every time that briar dirt branched from
the window in your hands, as if
it were flowers worth your time.
As if anything we wasted
ever lived
past the glory,
past the dust.

You were not the half the liar
you thought you were.
I knew, you know.
I knew.

Every seed I cultivated
I tasted lost, but
hope grows, right?
Hope grows.

Here comes the ghost.
You threw yourself to your rapid ground.
Here comes the ghost.

Past the Sisters,
past the Tombs.
You said you loved me.
I didn't respond
with anything
but bile.

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Echo beatThere in the corner sits a very small man & he is human
there in another, there sits another & she is human too
it is a wonder that they ever meet
but their ground goes round and round...

It is one tree that they climb into and get hit
by the same drop of rain
and it is one smile that they share
in a single kiss
and a swirl
and a twirl
and they are
familiar.

& they are so small, but their voices are eternal,
there are echoes where once they were -
even in another reality
where echoes are physical, like love
is liquid.

It is a pulsating madness that they call their kin and claim to know but never do,
not as ideas, as beings

Double toil, triple trouble          I have emptied this
           glass of mine, and
            even though it was
                transparent,
                     I was
                      still

ImpatiencePoetry
again!

How to eat wild cabbageWhen I stare into the mirror
the one on mirror duty glares
back and tells me things by
radiation. He always tells me that
I must only wear a limited range of
faces, and that these are my sole
acceptable expressions of emotion.
He doesn't tell me who does the
accepting.

He instructs me that I must not answer:

'I feel like crossbones in a ham sandwich,
I wish that we were not murdering
ourselves, I wish that we were not
this happy shade of evil, I wish that all children
were whole. I cannot accept the following things:
reality TV, brussel sprouts [brassica oleracea],
the need to say things in Latin, white paper,
morning lies,

Barometric pressureNo rest.
No air. No.
Space to.
Exist.

In
side.

No life.
No death. No.
Room.

To breathe. To live.
That dream.

I reach. My arms.
Break. I try.
I try.
So.
Hard.

No way.
Way out. No.
Worries.

The
ba
ro
me
te
r

f
l
a
t

l

i

n

e

s

.

A day at the happiness factoryYou push, I pull.
I push, you pull.
If we both stand still, the tedium will break us.
If one stands still and the other acts, things get complicated.
If both of us push or pull, we will wear each other down,
and we may be forced to quit this job down the line.
But they pay us in life-blood, and we are the starving lions in the dark.
It's just another day at the happiness factory.
So you pull, and I push.
I pull, and you push.
And we pull though,
together.

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Cavalier

by *neonxaos, Dec 10, 2012, 5:41:18 AM
Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

You sat with one hand on the dashboard,
your other one shaking,
reluctantly dancing with a cheap cigarette,
that you were simply burning,
because something needed to die.
We didn't look each other in the eye,
except in the rear view mirror,
the irony not yet reflected.

I will never forget that six thousand mile stare,
many times your age shining from the endless deep,
the weight of everything you carry
written in ruptured veins.

"Old ghosts dancing again," I said.
"This is not very good," I whispered,
tightened throat and eyes aflame.
You echoed, and then you were gone.
I remained for a while, in that wreck of a Chevy,
marooned in a landscape of broken plastic,
trees of straws and cavernous containers,
all your books and other secret escapes.

Cavalierby *neonxaos

Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

Still dealing with things.

Critique by ~shehrozeameen Dec 12, 2012, 11:52:02 PM

This was a very dark read, but a fruitful one - the dealing with dread, the ending used, and the manner in which you've given your character so much brevity is really impressive.

Its saddening to bear with the protagonist's burden, and its also an unbearable plight to comprehend, but we have to do it; What I love most in this work is the honesty... I can only imagine how much sorrow the protagonist went through, just to bear that loss.

The first two stanzas are enough to get the point through.

Frankly, the technique is acceptable in itself: its concise and the rhyme added inadvertently gives a sharp contrast to the scenario - it needs no comments, it gets the point through.

What do you think?

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*glossolalias Dec 15, 2012

your work has been featured here: [link] please go check out the other pieces & have a nice day

*neonxaos Dec 18, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

I thought I replied to this already... Thanks a bunch!

*LancelotPrice Dec 12, 2012

ThAt is pretty damned good.

*neonxaos Dec 12, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Thank you, good sir

*LancelotPrice Dec 12, 2012

It was a pleasure to read.

`vespera Dec 11, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Do you mean that the books were secret escapes?

"marooned in a landscape of broken plastic,
trees of straws and cavernous containers,
all your books and other secret escapes"

I'm imagining broken plastic, (none broken) trees of straw and containers, and secret escapes, which include books.

Just want to make sure I'm reading that right and you didn't miss a serial comma or two

*neonxaos Dec 11, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Yes, it should read like that. "trees of straws and cavernous containers" is sort of a continued observation, not part of the sequence above. I wanted a slightly disjointed, broken feel.

`vespera Dec 12, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

It's a cool image

*riparii Dec 10, 2012

Oh but ouch.

*neonxaos Dec 11, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Yup.

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Cavalier

Cavalierby *neonxaos

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