[x]

Crows"Crows," I whisper and she flies,
brown arrow shot
from the bowstring of a word.

beta physicsi.
the rain wrapped impatience around your roof,
bored through the wood like a thousand million termites
(or one you-sized termite, blind, breathless)
and seeped from the cold clockwork like battery acid.

ii.
you lived in a widow's closet -

a house swarmed with antiques
that collapsed in their own gravity
and combusted -

and then you lived in widow's charcoal.

iii.
"galaxies are either lovers or termites," she mused.

(earlier, her fingernails bored into my back
Hubble's thousand million stars, all drops of acid
branding my spine.)

"they are drawn to each other for years
and in an instant, once together,
eat themselves alive.

Working ClassSmoking is a working class disease
They said; he smiled at this.
Lean in body and broad of mind
With shirtsleeves rolled,
A modern man's philosopher
Who stuttered over the words
Like his fingers did over her chassis
Detroit rolling iron beneath his palms
Grease and lubricant under the nails.
The cigarette cherry glows in the dark
Giving him a hard edge aura
The gloaming settling into the lines
Of his work-worn face

Alzheimer'sHis house is made of crumbling slats
    of rotted knotted oak
  peeling paint
and weakened joints.

  The wind blows unfettered
through unshuttered apertures
   dragging fresh sunlight in
      and memories away.

Even on the clearest days
       he visits the front porch
    less and less often.

        He prefers to explore
    those rooms further in
where tide and time have yet to reach.

Exhume and InhaleI have tasted God, he tasted of sweet wine
and sandalwood, the deep forest you lay down

in the moss and twigs, scattered like finger-bones,
your spine ripped out, curved like a bow.

I couldn't find your heart, trembling
against the opened cage of your ribs,

under the gently speaking rustle,
leaves unfurling, the dance of sunlight

slinking between your vertebrae:
piccolo skims and birchskin shaves.

I fled. Your right shoulder blade beckoned still,
unfolding like the slow feathers of a wing,

your wrist flung out, palm
up, gasped my name,

but I could not stay, only
strained your skin with oleander tea,

drifted, drifted with the t

the hanged manThis little red book you call the human body:
take it up and shake it. Shake the flaking pages
out of it, shake it from endpaper to endpaper
until the last of the phrases are gone; shake it
until it's aching and empty, the soul of a bird.

I will give you new words.

lessYour phone bills are smaller now,
with no long distance calls to make,

and your car insurance reduced to reflect lower mileage
and all those journeys not made, those roads not taken,
those lanes that you know like the back of your hand -

Left, right, straight ahead, right, right -

are no longer driven. You did not see the bluebells wake
and spring burst forth in the countryside,
did not see the snow on the fields, cold horses in their
quilted coats pawing, nibbling, pawing.

Christmas stamps still tucked in your wallet,
unused,
and fountain pens dried up next to watermarked
John Lewis writing paper
with no letters left to wr

no dear.

the chimney smoke

blows like hair

like love

like you

in the wind

its ashen hum

rising through

the clouds

my reverend

heart beats

a trembling dove

a man without

love pinned

to a crux of spine

dear burden of mine

o father have i sinned

what fire turned

this bread to stone

what sent

my voice

to roam

without my ribs

that gnash

like children

weeping in the gloam

my chest is pried

a tongueless jaw

with nothing left

to steal

or say after

those words

how much

lonelier

i feel

.

Of Half-Filled WordsShe is not a flutterbird.
Her fingers are skittish,
her smile is not.
Do not fear that you will
drive it away.

Sadness is her fumbling limb.
It is unwanted, yet
necessary.

When it is January
she will tell you,
"I am still struggling.
And I am becoming so many people
all at once.

A conglomeration of beauty that
I have managed to mangle.
Please, do not be sad for me."

Sometimes her sorrow is
meant for you. But mostly her.

Those specks and spots
of ocean storm lulls
reveal her truths:
ones she does not want
to extract from herself.

Her heart is not a rabbit.

When it beats
faster, faster, faster,
you need not
run harder

Puddled GasolineHear me read it! Puddled Gasoline

Someone left the car on
with the garage door closed again;
mother-of-pearl rainbows
streak the harsh winter concrete
as I breathe past the fumes.

Your son,
forgetful seventeen
at its finest,
blares Grunge
or Punk
or some other form of noise
I'm not familiar with.

He will not hear me screaming
when I tug open the door
and you spill out like a puddle
onto my freshly-buffed shoes,
because I will not be screaming
at all.

For the first time
in almost twenty years of marriage,
you've silenced me.

AirYou do not have to be empty.
Go, now, to the high places, the thin spires
of mountains and skyscrapers
the roof of your house, tipped with snow,
and fill yourself up with the air.
Drink it in, taste it, roll it around
on your tongue, feel it settle
in the caverns of your lungs. Feel the dust
and the ice crystals and the scraps of newspaper
brush your lips, and fill yourself with them, too.
Fill yourself up with the moonlight, the frost,
the dusky rose of the rising sun,
the night, the morning, the calls of birds,
the sillhouettes of telephone poles,
the shadows of people and clouds and alley cats
that dance across the pave

etch-a-sketch
he wrote his suicide note on an etch-a-sketch board.
elmo-red frame, golden paint drawing out the classy cursive logo, white bottle-cap knobs, and a fake digital screen.
a child's dream.

it took him six hours to revisit his childhood for the last time.
[it didn't take that long because he didn't know what to say, but because he wanted to finally do something right.]

he carefully turned each knob, forming darkened pixels into letters, letters into words, and words into spider-silk-thin sentences that would rip and fade, just as spider webs did.

his words faded a bit when you accidentally knocked it off his dresser so you could take it

Nuclear Winter'Mother, tell me again about the sun.'
She pauses scraping the stretched hide,
thinks. So many images she could give, in words
he wouldn't understand – golden, sunrise, light.
Her son was born to cold darkness, has never seen
the sun, animals in clouds, gods in the midnight sky.

Some days, what she misses most is the sky,
more than electricity, than fresh tomatoes, than sun-
shine. The white tails of planes created scenes
of foreign adventure, when only thunderheads could hide
the horizon and the day produced its own light.
Now the horizon chokes on ash and she on useless words.

She never lets him see her cry when her words

The nature of inspirationWhen was the last time
You heard the word 'erection' in poetry?
I think it was a while back
Between the pages
Of reform
And Odyssey.

I mean "humans" don't even play
Bogies anymore,
Or just rise to the thirteen year old tree-house
Inside us all
Where politeness is a foul facade
And we aren't afraid of our fingers.

No...
Instead
We prioritise the silhouettes
And forget
The way pressing pen into paper
Made us so
Steamy
And out of
Breath.

Inspiration isn't a pretty, pristine river...
It's magma
Flowing
With taboo,
Glowing
Like irradiated
Lemonade
And it's about time we became
Mutants too.

It's about time
We l

It starts with a flash-bang and a Majulahi.
June's hauled her here again and
she's tapping at my classroom window,
A gazillion tiny fingers rapping in succession
(When she said "invitation" I didn't realise she meant
soaking half the country, the spike in umbrella prices has
nothing to do with me)
What's worse than an impatient child
is one with the whole atmosphere as her battering ram
when she tries to say something the urgency brims over
and one million exclamation marks
is beginning to sound like static frazzling
out on the pavements

ii.
She is without choice: when Cloud mother tips her out
she must go, and go she will
caught in an obtuse cycle, fought over

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Fall

by ^neurotype, Apr 23, 2011, 6:26:03 PM
Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Haiku & Eastern

terminal—
my grandmother, crumbling
leaves

Fallby ^neurotype

Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Haiku & Eastern

okay, major thanks to `imperfect for the ideas. seriously. this is a lot smarter now, I think. (updated July 2012) ...also `HaveTales-WillTell for reminding me that em dashes are awesome.

this is fiction (despite a real enough sentiment). Written for [link]

Edit: bbbllllbbbfffpfffff ok, so $lightningmonkey is way better at poetry than me and ^thorns can rock feelings (go read about her sexy minotaur)...and I hear they like comments

PS. Questions welcomed.

DEAR TWATS: ~~do NOT tease me by leaving one comment and then giving up. Bitches be gettin' my hopes up.~~ I am a very sensitive person prone to flames so if you say something here it will be maximally entertaining, you should try it.

Daily Deviation

Given 2012-07-17

Fall by `neurotype ( Suggested by $wreckling and Featured by `thorns )

Critique by ~Verbose-Rhetoric Jul 17, 2012, 11:20:34 PM

The ability to capture so much in such a few words is definitely noteworthy. The subject matter being decay, death and departure is housed effortlessly. This poem is not without ambition.

As for your comments and publisizing of the artists who suggested your work be displayed..
No one person is "better" at poetry than any other. Structure, form and syntax? None of that matters when dealing with the root of poetry's inception...self expression. Convey a message, scene or story to your audience in so few or verbose word useage and you've accomplished a feat fitting of kings and legends.

One thing I always use to compare Daily Deviations. Until now the absolute worse DD I have witnessed was a picture of a pickle. There was no special lighting..no artistic merit..nothing of actual value in this picture...but it was given the prestigious award. I was furious! I admit. Until I took a look at the artist's gallery and found so very much more...
Why do I share this?
This groping of words..is in my opinion..no pickle. But it allows other artists to not only observe your deviation..but expose them to your other works...either those already displayed in your gallery..or the ones you have yet to share. The most important thing is...they'll never miss a thing. All of us are watching..

ps. Leave the colon.

What do you think?

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The Artist thought this was FAIR

5 out of 9 deviants thought this was fair.

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Critique by ~Adonael Jul 17, 2012, 10:54:01 AM

First off, I do rather like the double entendre 'leaves', assuming it is one, alluding to autumn 'leaves' and the physical infinitive 'to leave'

It is commendable that you tell so much, particularly how you effectively engage the senses with only five words. But I feel like the word 'terminal' does the same job as the rest of the piece. I'll assume from the word that the scene would be a clinic or a hospital, but I feel the piece might have set a scene more effectively if that first word had been alluding to that place.

As to the general form, it is ambitious - some great vision here and the topic it addresses is a powerful and emotional one. The DD was well earnt

What do you think?

Fair Unfair

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23 out of 27 deviants thought this was fair.

15 Replies

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neutral 1 1

~joe-wright Aug 26, 2012 General Artist

Oh wow, this just jumped out at me when I was going through your gallery, no wonder it go a DD!

^neurotype Sep 7, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Thanks!

*x--Fox Aug 19, 2012

It doesn't for me express as many feelings as most people saw. To me, it just seems kind of blunt and dry. Not because it's short but because of the words displayed don't really have that much effect. Except for leaves... I don't know I was trying to figure it out. Thought somebody might explain it to me.

^neurotype Aug 19, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Would you be alright with me linking you an explanation I already wrote? Try this

And my style is both blunt and dry at times, so it's not the most inappropriate impression to have.

*x--Fox Aug 19, 2012

Oh okay, the first part I got. The second part of the explanation I didn't understand at first but seems really neat now that I know. It was more personal perhaps. But I like it. Wish you didn't have to defend your DD though either way. It's not fair/right. If they have such an irrational problem they should take it up with somebody else. But anyway thanks for helping. I was worried I came off as rude. I know how sensitive I get anyway about artsy stuff.

^neurotype Aug 19, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Honestly, I mind more when trolls can't follow through. I mean, I'm not sensitive about it at all so I'm basically getting screwed out of easy entertainment.

No, it would have been worse to just be like 'I don't get this, I'm done'! I don't think it's rude to want to understand.

`Infinite-Heart Aug 3, 2012 General Artist

Wow, this is really powerful. this is so incredibly emotative and powerful with so few words. It's deep, and I love the spacing between lines.

The words are well chosen as well. Great work here.

wonderful work.

Congrats on the dd

^neurotype Aug 22, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Thank you!

`Infinite-Heart Aug 23, 2012 General Artist

*Koppo Jul 25, 2012

congrats on the DD. from one twat to another <3

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