[x]

Ours

The mountains lumbering over the meadow
like great elephants, their skin a lambent white:
we could have them but every day they are changing.
They are diminished to sparse outlines;
they are sandpaper-skinned and costly.
It isn't ours anymore, and we are holding on,
one eye, one fraction of each of us
trained on hills that are hollow now –
and as for what lives we live separately,
we spend them cut down to that other half.
The train comes and goes
and its wheels sing their screeches
on rails thick with grit and rust and life,
and we sit in the shadow of the station;
we sweat there and we stir our st

care about --

Care About --

I care about your hands, callused from carrying tagged suitcases
from one hotel to the next – hands that have begun to hesitate
before they touch me, hands that feel more at home
around a glass of Anis del Toro than I do here in Spain,
but that are no longer at home on my hips.
I care about your voice when it's a flat tone
unbecoming of the girl you say you love,
when it is distracted, disinterested, when it
leans always towards this one topic.

And if I do it, then it will be nice again
if I say things are like white elephants,
and you'll like it?
Then I'll do it. Because I don't care about

Katuatagoing out with her
was like World War One, except
it was over by Christmas

available nowlove is like a bruise
lurking just beneath your skin
begging to be born

ManuscriptI have written us down, typed us up, and sent us out.
they will edit us, and say some parts are no good.

but I want your run-ons, your lack of punctuation; and you are so easy
on my weak binding, my damaged spine.

SinfulOur nights are stolen:
our lovers,
our lives
stripped at the door,

leaving only
our scarred bodies
suspended between fleeting present and
uncertain future.

theoretical layersand the snowflakes that hide behind our eyes,
as we compress them to close, melting around our hearts,
dampening a too exciting feeling, falling on a cedar tree
from whence we fell, laughing, and I think perhaps
a one-sided heart cracks its own eggs open.

The stones themselves enunciate their praise,
and all, we, tremble to bear upon their steadfastness,
a chivalrous guard against a whiling wind, dead
in a despairing song, tumultuous and contrary
to our living claims, and it is as silent as its name.

I concern over the state of our campfire
as you feed it your life, as it hungers all the while,
as we thirst all the more for the ra

THREE DAYS FROM NOWfor Daniela Jara's 20th birthday on 6.21.04

three days from now
she will rise up to the playground of angels
fighter jets and zeppelins
burst open the door
translate her body into an equation
of one–hundred twenty pounds moving
nine–point–eight meters per second per second
and tumble from heaven
because she wants to taste the sky
on her birthday

this is the part of the poem
where I should drop metaphors
about falling in love with her
or how she's already fallen from heaven once
or something about shooting stars
or glass ceilings
but this isn't a love poem

I said I would fall alongside her
stretch out fingers to find her
fa

mondaymornings are important
to the poem. sometimes it
has to struggle toward Monday
and the house has to be cleaned.
it hardly has time to think of you.
it needs bagels for strength
and caffeine for the tangled mess
of words, strewn about like cheese
doodles locked in battle position
on the floor. the air is stale.

it will unearth suitcases full
of past. read chapters of history
written on cracked luggage tags.
it will want to stop because its
allergies are flaring. the flotsam
and jetsam of the mess is getting
in the way of the poem. it becomes
impatient and contemplates whiskey
and a cigarette mid afternoon.

it will di

songs about slumber

I.

our city is a bed

.

a man tries to straighten the wrinkled
sheet of road – gives up, sits down,
pans the street for change

.

the apartment building thrusts, phallic,
making love to an empty sky. a burst
of pigeons coo shut up shut up

.

a boy tries to fall asleep. his nightlight
is a myth that burns out once a day

.

the girl walks off her roof

.

.

our city is not a mattress

.

Dressing “Yesterday," you said, "I went through my closet and paired a tie with each one of my shirts."
You seemed pleased, and Siera smiled a little.
"I've got one whole room just to get dressed in," you added. “Since Danah moved out,” you didn't.
She wanted to hug you, but couldn't - it was a rule, kind of. No hugging, no kissing. Not since she moved out. It was implied.
So you sat with her on the couch, and tempted Berkeley to sit between you. The cat took up a lot of room, but your fingers brushed hers along the long, narrow expanses of tabby-stripe.
"So, hey. Thanks."
"Please don't say

We Watched Ourselves Dissipatewe caught our breath with butterfly nets
and exhaled
the pieces of each other's wings
that stuck in our lungs.
the sky gave a shiver and the stars
unsealed, their firefly cores shimmering
and fluttering
toward us.

plucking them from the air, they slip
between our fingertips
and fall like butterfly wings
to the ground.

we conduct the celestial engagement with
our metallic hearts
that control this unsteady rhythm of
love crescendos
and staccato love-making.
like conductors in an orchestra.

our lives write the love songs.

fire, or water

were this blurred, we'd be submerged,
stuck under the waves
with warping colours & corals falling away
from a certain blue surface, where white animals are climbing.
hot & cold climb the same ladder into the eye
and we see everything sharper:

today there are sky-flags, halfway tattered.
browns & sea-thinned greens, then reds & great flames
are traditional
but the starving stag, steaming in the cracked courtyard
says blue is autumn's secret favourite, the colour of bruise & ozone & iris.

a leaf can fall like a cracked mast, or a dead bird meant for the ground
where the plummet loves d

Strawberries By Sunset.Admire--
the halcyon of wind carries
industrial merchants
away from golden acres
on which blossoms my treasure
bush-cradled until prosperity.

Listen--
the hush valley whispers
poetry under sheets
necking a residuum evenfall
in which our ghosts remain
kissing strawberries by sunset.

picking flowersdrunk on dandelion milk:
this dragon-fly, cotton-cloud haze
dulls my ears to each petal's cry
as I seek a flower's counsel in love.

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dark spaces

by ~insanexflame, Jan 20, 2007, 10:11:53 AM
Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

Dark Spaces

                We quarreled it away all those
muggy summer nights when the reflections
of train lights blazed in the river.  Hours
after the fact we bit our lips until they were
white under our teeth –
                                 we tried too late to
catch those words up in between our sheets;
we were frantic with it but I think we knew
even then that they were tacked to the sky
with the stars.

It is gone.
                Now I will hold the sheets to your
lips when you try to speak.  I will shut my eyes
to the dark spaces between the stars.  Safely
encased in our closed drapes and covers, I will
lie awake at night to study your silhouette.  In
the shadows that linger between us I will find
the barest hint of silver-blue moonlight tracing
the curve from your neck to your shoulder and
press my lips against it.
         I will love it above any other part of you.

dark spacesby ~insanexflame

Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

december 2oo6/january 2oo7.
though this was not written at the same time as the other two poems in this set and though it breaks from the inspiration of ernest hemingway, this poem is meant to be the second step in a set of three poems.

please be sure to read the first: [link]
and the third: [link]

these are love poems, but they are not about love, nor are they about the object of any affection. rather, they are about the way in which I love. they are meant to be read together, and together they are a journey, as writing them has been a journey for me.

it's difficult, really, to explore how one loves - as difficult as it is to explore that complex emotion itself. poetry's been my best means of doing so, as of yet.

I struggled with this one and I'm still not entirely satisfied, so constructive criticism would be particularly helpful.

Daily Deviation

Given 2009-02-12

There is a certain beauty in dark spaces by ~insanexflame. It has a lovely old time feel and grace to it. As our suggester reminds us: this poem, like all of the like master romanticists did with visual art in the 1800s, a person can not help but imagine a gorgeous painting while reading this work. ( Suggested by `ATrue and Featured by `LadyLincoln )

!Rebelegade Mar 2, 2009

Featured! [link]

~gracelikerain316 Feb 16, 2009

i truly enjoyed this. i'm so sorry i have no advanced critique except to say that this captured me emotionally in ways that most poetry of this style and topic does not. it made me want to cry for the emotional memory it brought with it. i love how you described in your comments that you are describing the way in which you love. that was very insightful and added depth to the piece. thank you and congratulations on the DD. well deserved and also nice to see some written works featured.

~Fenzer Feb 12, 2009

Great job! i like the word placement.

!GabrielleNoelle Feb 12, 2009

This is beautiful.
~ELLE~

~Rinnian Feb 12, 2009 Student General Artist

Gorgeous.

I can't really think of much to critique. It's pretty amazing as is.

~ATrueNorseman Feb 12, 2009 Hobbyist Writer

sooo niiice, my teacher would say the ending doesn't work with the narrative, but i say: take this lovely work as a simple love poem, and it'd be hard to disagree with how LOVELY it actually is

~overEye Feb 12, 2009

cool

~Slot-Machine-Stomach Feb 12, 2009

This left me stunned and hollow. You really hammered this piece home.

*Michaeldavitt Feb 12, 2009 Professional Writer

The minor frictions that a prolonged sharing of quarters inevitably produces drove us further and further apart, and finally created an almost insurmountable barrier between us. Neither of us made any effort to put our differences aside and let bygones be bygones. The air was electric whenever we met; an underlying hostility became more and more evident, and senseless fits of anger prevailed on every occasion. At times we quarreled so violently, for practically no reason at all, that we were left speechless and had to stay away from each other to avoid more serious outbursts. If we each had tried, after the fact, to recall exactly why we had quarreled, we would seldom have found a legitimate reason

In the Land of White Death

By VALERIAN ALBANOV

~widigo Feb 12, 2009

Inspirational, A well deserved DD.

I'll be watching for more work of this caliber.

The imagery is rich and easy to grasp while still being beautiful to the ear. Very well done.

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