Friday, November 10, 2006

Poems Not Written By Me...

Here is a post devoted to work by other poets.. These are some poems that I like..

Party Crasher

- weaver

Knees knock.
I walk across a cobblestone square and
enter the side gate. There is false confidence
in the tilt of my chin. My fingers play
with the latch a fraction too long.
Only the fringe below the knee
shivers to betray.

A distance, an eternity, a second?
Another square of stone and ivy –
voices, laughter, mimicking fountains
a violinist at the table next, proffering a rose.
And here I am – uninvited – in your mind’s eye
the dapple of sunlight through a canopy of trees,
or the soft moss between a cobble,
a marigold nestled on your side plate.

Unsteady, I walk like a newborn colt that has
just found its legs, the world tilts you toward me.
I have arrived like the girl in a Bogart movie,
my fingers twist cloth at the table edge
and I wish to God I could take your order, but I’m
no waitress - my tongue tied into a knot of
cherry stems.

Your eyes full of quiet surprise,
the motion of your wrist mimics a maestro
taken aback by a sudden change in tempo,
motions me to sit. Symphonic composition
dissolves into the chaos of jazz,
chill of wrought iron against thigh,
dry reed against moist lips.
And even though I don’t, I do. I know every
language for a single word although
neither one will say it. Our knees touch.
Only a shiver at the table hem betrays.



Wait
- Cyn

Beads slowly roll, fall
from the tumbler, the cracked cubes
prismatic in the afternoon sun.

And I am motionless,
the glass to my lips,
mid-poise.

Minnows waltz about my feet
in careful choreography
and I wait.

Waiting's what I’m good at.

I imagine myself the mink,
or that I am Great and Blue
and patient and true and you
will come to me.

Come to me.

Let me show you all I know:
how the skin shines with a touch,
spittle glistens on a lip,

how fingers form a perfect fit
in the hollow of a back,
when night eclipses noon.

Come to me.

Make me believe
the loon has cried
for me, forlorn,

dark form in the night.
I am undone by the sun.
I wait.

Come.



Apple
- Priscilla Barton

I watched
you eat
an apple.

You rinsed it
under water,

and dried it
with a paper
towel.

You took a knife
and peeled it,

then cut it
into quarters.

You ate
the pieces
slowly,

then tidied up
your mess.

In those
moments
while
you ate,

I stopped
loving you.



Lazarus

- pseudonym

This respirator hums unselfish
vacuum of God, a plastic gill.

----I am no lung no longer,
----I am collapsed zip-lock bag
----once full of hallucinations,
----I am body flat bed sheets laying,

my graves clothes hang:
nothing to feed the fireplace,
a violent turn on the ceiling fan
the door blows open,
new nakedness blackness.

There are children in my head,
thousands, millions, rattling
the light switch, my eyes, the blinds
eyelids alternating:

----I am dead [alive] dead -

----I now breathe as Adam first,
----I am Lazarus second –
----I am pumped new blood air life,
----I am not what I breathed in,
----not what I coughed up,
----not what I lift up,
----not what I remember,

as I am pulled out breath, to come out
and take off these grave clothes.



Would You Notice
- MadameXcfo

Would you notice

If she fell off the edge
of this flat earth

(thomas crying in the corner)

falling forever in the eternal

tumbling like clothes in a dryer
over and over in the black
darkness.

S
_I
_fD
__fE
ways:

Bloody and sticky and covered in
a mask across the face and arms, and the mouth
moving in a silent

(no sound in space)

scream that she never meant it and does need
saving, but

not
_ffby
___fyou.



In Addition to Sugar and Spice
- Kraydel

Baby's breath hair
And razorblade lips
Bottomless eyes
And hourglass hips
Needlepoint fingers
And sandpaper skin
Heroin heart
And candycane sin
Megaphone whispers
And LSD ears
Beautiful lies
And all of my fears

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