poetry: results 361–384 of 735

for cleanliness to avoid criticism to save

time to save energy for enjoyment to

conserve our possessions for affection…

Question: should I slip

on my slip and rush this

flight or wait full blushed

for the warning…

Say the black road

is a bleached crest raveling

the one distance

meant for you (all of us).

At least, he thought

It was the rain: coastal showers,

The sand taking it all in,

Some higher power's blotter

For everything unknown.

A duet on the radio pleads to end

each day in song. If I had the choice,

my song would be quiet,

a little twang,

a trill when the voice hops up.

We took turns pointing at all the girls who would scream.

You couldn't watch so you smoked,

occasionally glancing up at this pirate ship.

We play cards to drink

quicker than we would on our own.

The dearler'd say "drop"

and we'd slap the single card,

sweat-stuck against our foreheads…

In a fat, greasy soil, that's full of snails,

I'll dig a grave deep down, where I may sleep

Spreading my bones at ease, to drowse in deep

Oblivion, as a shark within the wave.

It seems to me sometimes my blood is bubbling out

As fountains do, in rhythmic sobs; I feel it spout

And lapse; I hear it plainly; it makes a murmuring sound;

But from what wound it wells, so far I have not found.

That was the year I thought

I was going insane. Help, I said plainly.

I am having a mild case of the heartbreak.

When I looked at the fissure, all was glass and mistaken.

O holy terror of a night, this mad,

  malicious night, a supine night, bright

as bile, but anyway, inauspicious.

  Bedraggled night, delicious as doom.

A night over which no angel will swoon.

  O moon, O eye of God, unblinking.

And, yes, I have been drinking.

Sometimes you feel you've a touch of the broken heart,

when the orchid of evening wilts into nighttime,

when the darkness is not yet deep.

When you are tipsy with the grief of his leaving…

In glorious black and white with the surge

of salt foam racing around the isle

of our twining bodies. Punctuated

by fireworks, by rain, by snow…

So that this will seem like words between

old friends, I'll say it was painless.

And quick. I'll say it was mercy

and behind my face where I put

things like The Truth and dreams…

The language of the daisy isn't dead

but one hundred seeds in a pack

are dormant in their dry dark, some

dirt and water all you'll need…

Mr. Fix-It, you're no passkey Schneider,

eager to put your key in my Julie.

Oh, but say the word, my big star lucky —

I'll curtsey like a love-hungry spider.

It was not the beach pea that moved

but the bee that moved the flower,

they proved that.

Another, though slower was the vetch…

Two matrons at the railway ticket windows

reassured us very kindly

it is birth everywhere and no demise

and since everything comes in…

He thought with some precision

that marriages may be made elsewhere

but done here

sometimes

in some unsolicited places.

Soon into frozen shades, like leaves, we'll tumble.

Adieu, short summer's blaze, that shone to mock.

I remember the story: it was a hot day.

The hero disappeared behind enemy lines.

like the restless

rearrangement of radio static,

precludes twilight:

it leans shadows across the room…

My water-self opened our water-door

With a water-key, stepped across

The rippled threshold.

I loved him like salt.

Even when the slapping northerlies subsided

Everything leaned away in visible pain.

Just Keep Moving, in Latin, across our coat of arms…