Diplomatic Impunity

The foreign tourist
non-fluent in English speech,
conveniently.

Cooler Heads Prevailing

A lovers quarrel
his imprisonment, her guilt
a cake-baked escape.

Heat Wave (haiku)

Crashing on my shores-
eroding my coasts of skin-
recedes with the moon.

The Seeing Eye (Haiku)

The elephant's mind
never forgets its poor sight-
or its kind kanine.


A Haiku for the wonderful picture prompt from Bluebell Books...

Short Story Slam Week 6-Children's Literature

Night-Vision

The bones of maples dance in meditation
to the hum and buzz of the earth turning.
They sway slightly
                           and
                      slowly
brushing the bellies of the atmosphere.
Monuments of molecules
                tremble and shudder
                                      under
the ominous pressure of gravity.

They harness a secret
swirling in their guts-
that if the song falls silent
the universe will have no choice,

but to parish within the rain.

What Do You See In Me?

I see the fastgossiptalking you
whose sentences crackle like brushfire-
after too many cans of diet coke
and a busy day
full of assholes and errands-
leaving you flustered
and beautiful.

I see the messy-haired you
who falls asleep so easily
and when wakes
in the abyss of night,
barely whispers my name 
(a record 22 times)
to see if I am restless too.

I see the detached and frightened you
who builds walls
to cover the trails
of her thoughts and fears-
so that I may climb the vines
that defend them-
to candidly witness
your bewildered glances.

Reading Comprehension

Leafing through the pages of my life
I found a picture of you
tucked in the binding,
marking a chapter
that I could never seem to finish.

The Contents of a Mother-Son Talk Over Brandy and Cider

*This and "something said in passing" is my attempt to build a cohesive colletion of poems, under the tentative title of "Geneology", dealing with themes of family, not just my own but in a general sense as well. Your criticism of all my works is greatly appreciated, because I dont believe I am every truely done with any of my writings. Thanks so much enjoy.*

*also posted on dVerse poets pub grand opening!!!!*

Her fingers
were the first to fall in love
with him-
attempting to tame
the wild threads of his hair-
as the two of them held onto
the trembling frame of his motorcycle.
At least that is what I gather
from stories I have heard
in times when they seemed much
happier-
perhaps
still in love with
the way the wind
ripped through the hair on their arms
at, onehundredmilesperhour-
perhaps
still in love with
the pinky-swear grasp they had
on their eternity.

The First Painting

*submission for jingle poetry's potluck week 44 "painting whispers"*


In the midst of his struggle
to shape fake fruit lying
in a ceramic beige bowl and garnished
with wilting dandelions, that he found
springing from a crack
at the edge of the road the day before
he threw his palette to the floor.

Kneeling down beside the pieces of shattered
white plastic and primary smears
he gripped his brush like a knife
and plunged it into every color.

He dragged this weapon
over his open palm.
He twisted and swirled it viciously
swiping hues of red and blue
thrashing whites and strange purples
over his callouses
until the bristles splayed out
like palmetto leaves
singed in the morning sun.

When he paused to catch his breath
his eyes fell on the small canvas
that used to be his pale flesh
and it was black.
A textureless, infinite darkness
that swallowed all values and dimensions
of the rainbow he had attempted
to entangle in his fingers.

Intelligent Design

She stands-
in the sitting room.

One eyebrow peaked-
her posture akimboed

and
I am suspended-
in a limbo of
my feng-shui-faux-pas
post-machismo placement

of my old, silly
wall posters.

They simply-
do not go
with her
art-nouveau-asian-inspired
eggplant infused
post-modern upholstered -
color
palette.

A life of language
scrawled on a closed attic door
now reads please come in.

I would like to nominate... brown paper bag girl

http://brownpaperbaggirl.wordpress.com/2011/07/09/on-stormy-days/

Tag:  Promising poets poetry cafe

Something Said in Passing

He was resting heavy in his armchair
and we were watching
the grain of the television,
a laugh track chattering
ambiently.

I stared at him sideways for a while
realizing he was
different that night.
Not angry drunk like the night before
When he put his fist through the wall
beside my mother,
but sad drunk. I could see
his thoughts transforming into words.

"You hear that one loud laugh in the audience?"
He slurred. "That one you can hear,
above all the others?
It always sounds just like your mother's."

He was right. I could hear her too,
as startling as a fist
bursting through the wall and as striking
as broken bottle sparkling on the kitchen floor.

Thoughts of a Presumptuous House Cat Laying in the Sun

Photo property of Jeffrey Lewis

My name is not Marvin
even though that is what you and your sister
decided to call me
after much deliberation,
when I was the last present
on that snowy Christmas morning.
My youthful coat was very handsome then
wasn’t it.
My real name
given to me by my beautiful calico mother
is Fredrick.
I think it’s a much better name
royal
refined
distinguished,
much like myself I might add.
No matter.
I suppose I must make some compromises
in order to find fresh Fancy Feast
placed in the cellar stairway every morning.
And don’t think I didn’t notice
it was the store brand you laid out yesterday.
Don’t get me wrong though
I do enjoy your company.
The contours of your face
make a wonderful pillow
in the dim hours just before dawn.
And you should enjoy my company.
You know you are very lucky to have me.
I could have sold
for nearly one hundred dollars
to that lady across town,
with the expansive back yard and
plush velvet couch
placed in front of the elegant marble fireplace.
Your pull out thingy in the guest room
isn’t all that bad I suppose
it’s perfect for sharpening my claws.
Oh my
look at how brilliantly my paws glisten
in the soft afternoon sun
washing across the carpet.
It’s moments like these
when I realize my existence is
truly magnificent.
I think I will venture outside today
and run around the yard really fast.
Sometimes I am amazed
at how ferocious and agile I can be.
Why just the other day I killed three mice.
They never really had a chance though.
on second thought
the humidity is rather high today
and I do feel slightly under the weather

After The Tempest

A poem inspired by this picture provided by bluebellbooks recent blog

There was an inscription
on the barrel
of a telescope, that I found
deftly floating out to sea.
It read- "there is
great beauty in discovery,
but the truth is impossible
to perceive."
I returned it
to its brine, beneath me
and tacked, obliquely
toward an island
I formed solely
for the purposes of teaching me
the nuances of my
uncharted degrees.

Criticism Of A Self Portrait

*This poem is a product of Art-spiration, thanks to the wonderful images of Bonnie from original art studio
and the folks over at one stop poetry , enjoy...


*ALSO SUBMITTED FOR JINGLE POETRY'S POTLUCK WEEK 44  "PAINTING WHISPERS"

A coil of white ink
extends itself
from the slightest tract of
soft-tissue; a pale membrane aquiesces-
a diligent breath diffuses
beneath a gate of ribs.

This cord
of many sinewous strings;
traverses the narrow alley intersecting
my-self
and
a muraled door, opposing me.

Pirouetting
with the feathered atoms
of hydrogen
and oxygen, along its way;
it has become a wire,
now vibrating.

Its' entrance
into the mural;
although surreptitious, is marked
by a point;
a small hole consisting of
infinite dimensions, each one
flaring out from its epicenter;
tremorous arteries
siphoning and examining
small samples of color
from the strange skin of canvas.

As the fiberous vessels
begin to grasp the mural's edges,
its tarnished surface
subtly resembles a mirror,
splintered and fractured,
in which I can detect faint shadows
of my-self; opaque projections
of an old color film.

I am, now-
two murals;
reflecting upon each other
the infinite array of chroma
and the absense of it.

Cosmetology

A sun awakes to sanitize
a speckled field of grass in sharp
angled flames of silence,
exfoliating the vaporous ghosts of night.

*check out the great poets and poems at poets united*

Accouterments

The soft flesh under leather skin.

The hard and hiddin pit with in.

The blender and blades setting them free.

Your love of guacamole and me.


*todays twitter poem... follow me @lewisstyle*

Another City

When I draw back
the weathered cloaks of my being
there should seem revealed  ...another city,
                         drifting on water
with bruised and wounded garrisons of spirit-
citizens stationed in vigilence of
the treacheries to their bastions of generation
and in reverie to the holy organic hymns
of eloquent sunlight
                    scattering   
                              widely...

The sounds of a brave heart.beat.
measuring the time
it takes to file
the venerable volumes of cultivated institution
piled in careless vaults,
towers teetering in the midst of their streets
                          and between their lamps-
winding along the 
                   creeks
                  of
              yellow
               energy
                lining the limits
                             of the
                               city
                              and
                        dividing
                       the
                       empty
                      outer
                 pastures
                into
             secret
        passages
       of
exile-
quietly
propagating
a philosophy of shadows and dust
forming walls of corrugation to surround
my palace of copper and triumph.

Spontaneous Combustion

A wave of crystal white wine
fell
abruptly to kiss the dance
                          floor,
and swim within a
serrated sea of glass.

A pile
of satin lapels,
coat tails
and slacks coiled itself
lightly around
the cummerbund and
cufflinks-

quickly, a discreet
cello melody
drifted uneasily into
a bewildered silence.

A breathless and
blinking crowd
of relatives
and revelers
surveyed the smoldering scene
       
 wondering

if this
necessarily affected
the legitimacy of the vows-
and the openness
of the bar.


Check out some great poems and writers at Dverse poets pub

Reincarnation

There is a memory deep
within the years of my heart
of when we walked down to the lake.

You in your blue sun hat
and a matching summer dress-
that played with the waves
around your ankles.

You imagined yourself 
as a blue jay-
while I sat quietly
by the picnic table
singing a soft song
to the sky you so admired.

I am a bird! you screamed
your fragile arm-span bursting open 
and then you swooped down
through the branches
with fiery excitement at your wing-tips!

A life-time later
and that is the only dream
I have ever remembered.

Her Wild Side

In patient cages
she waits; a raging soul.
Swallowing an air of uncertainty,
she watches a world darker
than her pupils
poke and prod the sinews
of her pride-
comfortable in its sense
of security, lurking between
those loose bars.

*check out this and more great poets and poems at poets united*

Memorandum/ From: God/ To: Adam and Eve/ Subject: Directions For Breathing

Open your mouth,
parting at the lips.
Now exhale, slowly
draining everything from within.
Don’t force it,
this process should be woven
with every fiber of your being
Just before you begin to feel
a twitch in your lower back,
let your ribs explode,
lifting the soft tissue of your lungs.
Don’t try to control it,
let it all unfold
At this point imagine
yourself being dragged
over a waterfall
or slipping through
the thunder clouds.
In this moment
let the entire universe
you have collected in your chest
burst through your throat
with the speed of a splintering scream.
It will usually only manifest
in the form of a deep sigh.


*check out other great poets and poems at Gooseberry Gardens*

The Jaws of Life

I dont know how-
but I know deep and dark
secret sides of you,
the kind that drop off
into abysses and treacherous
caverns.
I think an ocean of sadness
must have carved them out of you,
leaving the salt to settle
in your wounds.
I dont blame you
for being swallowed
by the sea
because I too, have fallen
into those deep and dark sides of you.


*Check out more great poems at Poets United*

The Winnowing

God harvested his pastures today
and I snickered at the thought
of my salvation being tossed into
and sifted by such a fickle
New England breeze.

Vernal Equinox

There is an unusual warmth tonight
lingering above the town
For a while I drove mainstreet
with my windows down and
sat in the chairs at the coffee shop
I was real cool and regular
like my iced tea people
watched the sun
and its effects on our skin
Now I am walking with the late crowd
cascading through deadened
sentences and flirtations
with shot glasses and lips
We are all happy and warm
grabbing the night with a full sprint
delighted to see the last days
of our cold and lonely winters

People Say We Kiss Like Bonnie and Clyde

Urgent and violent
like red lights and sirens
with a hesitation
sickly reminiscent of mortality
because-

we know

this is our      last-chance-to-do-something-
beautiful,

before the bullets bring us down
and the dust settles-

before you
hand me that shotgun
to light your cigarette-
to burn this place
to the ground.

The Sentiment

She left her glasses
on the bureau in my room-
for a second date.

Naima

A plague of leaves
swarm the busy walkway
and sing whispers
of the crystalizing atmoshere
enveloping their frail bodies-
the ghosts of birds-
desperate and pandering
for the supreme and
blustery benevolence
of the early morning
bipedal transit.

The Saviors

You and I will change the world,
like the colors of maple leaves.
You swinging from scarlet branches,
me guiding the tire safely from the tree.

You and I will change the world,
like directions of the wind.
You chasing the clouds with your kite,
me anticipating storms behind the sunset.

You and I will change the world,
like our snow-wet clothes.
You warming your hands over the fire,
me pouring our whistling hot chocolate.

I Asked Her

She told me
she used to sit
alone,
next to the infinite horizon
of the ocean, her feet
sinking into the sand
her tears
clutched in her hands.

I asked her
where they fell from, and
she told me
they always felt steeped
in the weight of the past,
and the untimely death
of her childhood.

Whenever she returns
to collapse
among the memories
and salty air
of the Nantucket Sound,
she confesses, that she can not always
hold them all in.

Salvage

*I am sailing from the paradise of onestoppoetry for a new land in dVerse poets pub *



I managed to catch the wind in the pockets of my coat
and steer using my hands as keels.
I tacked the sidewalks
with simple,
fluid
ease,
and on my journey
I passed many strangers-
castaways on islands of themselves,
alone and hungry.

Some were building rafts,
some were diligently tending to their signal fires,
and some had nothing-

I should have reached out for them all,
but I had no anchor-
nothing to keep me from becoming more wreckage
on the same rocks that crushed their own ambitious ships.

An Inter-elemental Engagement

When I hold you
you melt.
But I do not think of loss
or death,
as the sun sinks you
into my skin.

When I find only fluid
between you and me-
I do not think of tears
or grieving
for a form you once possessed.

Despite the futility of our embraces
on summer days,
when the entire Earth boils-
You still kiss my neck
with cold lips
and sacrifice.

And when distant grandchildren
beg me for the meaning of life
I will remember our love-
that transcended temperature.
When it was my warm skin
transforming into water-
the compromise of our souls.

A Poor Wayfaring Stranger

He asked for Samantha.
I could tell she held some significance
in the thoughts travelling through his veins
by the way he stuttered and stumbled
through the syllables of her name-
and quietly scuffed the welcome mat under his boots.
When I told him I did not know her,
that she did not live here-
I could feel the heartbreak,
I could feel the hope
sliding from his voice and
I felt a dry gust of sadness
realizing the red paint of my front door
was just another mirage
in his search for water.

The Last Supper

Jesus once died-

but then rose
through the mists of night
from the confines
of his dark tomb.

No such destiny awaits
those left on earth though-
And as the thin horizon of time paces closer,
I realize that for others-
mortality is gradually
taking the shape of small,
unknown
shadowy figures
in the distance.

Slowly-
each Easter dinner
has seemed a bit smaller,
as we all move slightly
to fill empty spaces
beginning to grow
between one another-
as silently-
whole people have begun to fade.

Eventually-
a chair will be removed from the table
to hold up the magazines
in the corner-
but replaced
with a worn and brittle
child's high-chair.
Once used by my father-
and my sister-
and me.

Objects in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

Wiping beads of water off of the mirror
I didn’t feel the cool glass underneath.
I contacted something like skin
or oddlyfamiliar fingerprints-
As I swept my palm
across a reflection of my face
I blinked, but I did not feel it,
and at the same time I noticed
his eyes-
staring back at me mimicking
a bewildered movement.


*check out other great poems and poets at poets united*

Conservation of Energy

I am the first flakes of snow.
When the atmosphere explodes
into endless dimensions
And running across my yard
seems like lightspeed.

I am blood red leaves.
When the air is laced with frost
And gravity pulls in slow motion.

I am her smile.
When she crumbles
under the weight of love
And disintegrates into my arms.

I am 13 minutes and 41 seconds of Coltrane.
When chaos sounds like a wind symphony
And every image
seems more mesmerizing
when I close my eyes.

I am a pile of glass
under a car wrapped around a guardrail.
When death hovered inches above my head
And blood never smelled so real.

I am a reflection from the lake.
When the waves fall so still,
That my world never seemed so fake.

I am the Law of Conservation of Energy.
When I read that energy
cannot be created or destroyed,
But merely changes form…

The After Life

Like ghosts-
my words haunt the page-
They wander     across a stiff binding
meticulously         
placing     their     steps
as rivers of          white space
begin to fill in around them-
They drift         voiceless in the strange
new world neck deep
in the sewage of my lost thoughts-

Inertia

I enjoy seeing things come
out of left field-
like meteorites
in a cape of flames-
that dive-
in
to
the
soft
skin of the earth.

I like impact.

I like the silent-
smoldering scene
of leaving a hole
in the world.

Suicide by Plato

I have witnessed
great beauty,
and now I am powerless
to turn my wings away
from such a magnificent flame.

The Labyrinth

I am lost
within a maze of myself,
my sight stripped
by a darkness
that my fingers must now
attempt to understand
by tracing the cracks
along the walls.

I feverishly run them
into corners and dead ends.
And now they ache
with the pain of having to wander
these abstract and tangled halls
alone,
waiting for some
mystic zephyr to point the way.

At a crossroads,
I glimpse you
amidst a glow of tranquility
that sheds a sunset over your hair
gently dancing to the left.

The Deities of the Human Breast

We have forgotten those large and numerous senses
    used to shape our visions.
    Now they are merely ghostly forgotten notes-
    indentations on the underlying pages, of words scrawled
    in the rush of discovery and progression of paradigms.
We have forgotten our own thoughts and words,
    and now we sit trembling and amnesiac, on a park bench
    wondering, how we got there;
    not just retracing our sordid steps to the phyical present,
    but we sit trying to remember all of those
    yellow woods and all those
    dark divergences, and which one-
    which one was both the beginning and the end
    of all those infinite possibilities.
We have forgotten the nature of ourselves
    and the places we have come from-
    the sheer miraculousness of our being and the awesomeness
    of our thoughts.
We have forgotten the language.
We have forgotten the soul.
We have forgotten the beauty of the mind.
We have forgotten the past .
We have forgotten the future.
We have forgotten the hope.
Who has looked down that inward path to see the secrets there-
    resting in an ornate and locked chest at the foot of the bed?
    The heirlooms of ancient poets, the graffiti on the underpass,
    the inner voice over the loudspeakers.
We have forgotten our anatomy of guts and glory, of visceral instincts.
We have forgotten the true feeling, how you feel when your mind wakes 
    racing and angry, screaming anxiously from your pillow.
Who remembers these dreams, or those nightmares-
    where the truth seems unrecognizably distorted?
Who remembers how we got here, to these heavy decisions
    compressing our chest cavities-
    of whether to give our bodies to our senses, or to numb them
    and choke them down in the dead of the night?


*dVerse poets pub open link night... join in the fun*

A Poem For An Aborted Child

You were not brought into this world-
because yesterday your sister
was raped and murdered.

She was twelve,
and she could not wait
to hold you in her arms.
She vowed
to protect you and love you
more than any other sister
has ever loved.
She hoped
you would have black hair
like hers.
She would have
accepted you and loved you,
like she loved the world-
with cradled arms
and tender eyes.

Quantum Leap

I came through a black hole for you,
fighting a stream of time and space-
searching for something to hold on to
in this weightlessness...

Language of Origin, Please?

From the Greek Poiesis-
making or creating

(the young speller turns
a quizzical eye to the judges).

May I have a definition
please?

(Contestant 148,
sitting impatiently in his seat,
tampers with his collar and tie turbulently).

Poetry-
an imaginative awareness of experience
expressed through meaning, sound,
and rhythmic language choices
so as to evoke an emotional response.

(the auditorium is filled
with whispers and the rustling of programs
as the speller is shifting
closer to the edge of spelling)

Can you use it
in a sentence, please?
"The pianist played the prelude with poetry"

(the young speller closes her eyes
and imagines a pianist
sitting before black and white keys
turning the pages of a song
called poetry-
and she imagines
the letters of the song
flowing out of her
like warm notes)

Poetry-
Poetry-P-O-E-T-R-Y
Poetry-

The Laundromat

*dVerse poets pub open link night, join in the fun and see other great poems and poets*


Time to me has been
the slow digestion
of my existence
tumbling on
to itself and mixing
like cement with some
surprisingly, pink shirts.
I have been cautious
not to get my thoughts
caught
in the teeth
of such a confusing
contraption.
But now the repetition
of obsessively tucking
and folding
my torn tube socks
has got me thinking
of the machinery of life,
and how
we seem to be
waiting
for something to
stop turning and
stop crushing
so we can stop-
and smell the scents
of Mountain Freshness
and Spring Lillies.
I have become consumed
by the consistant whirling
of sound and heat,
and now I can sense
the static energy
of my own apparatus
chasing some
ghostly syncopation
of what our collective minds
must believe
is the music of life.

The Wild Sea Horses

It is a rebelliously cool and breezey fall morning.
The dingies resting in the estuaries
tug at their moorings-
but with a despairing futility
revealing their age.

Their moldy hulls and paint peeling from the edges
are the afflictions
of years of high and low tides
that have dragged them
over the stoney shores.

In a slant of warming sunlight
burning through maples leaves
I contemplate wading through the tall reeds
and seaweed separating us
to cut these creatures free-
and epically ride the ocean swells that
dare challenge our vitality.

While Holding My Breath and Driving Past a Cemetery

The idea
of my death
does not bother me.

Not as much as the empty fields
behind the mossy tombstones.

Where the grass is kept
neatly cut, and the
small gatherings of dandelions
seem to be the last signs of life.


*Check out other great poets and poems at poets united*

Desoto: Pseudo-Pacific Sunset

The withering sun
drags our bodies to rest
on the warm beach,
next to sand dollars
and seaweed.
The sun slowly sinks
like a large ocean liner,
down,
down,
down,
pausing for,
a sliver of a second
before slipping
behind the amber horizon.

We enjoy watching
this death of the day.
It is the only time
we can stare at the sun.

*Inspired by sunset on desoto beach national park outside Tampa Florida. And submitted for dVerse Poets water theme*

Forced Hot Water

It is minutes before the sun will rise,
and a thin blanket of
light and snow
has draped itself over windshields and
hedges and has even managed
to hold on to the rusty handle bars
of my old bike,
leaning against the porch.

I have witnessed this transformation
in its entirety tonight,
while I sat
next to a small crack in the window-
comforting the radiator between each
piercing scream of heat.
It's okay, it's just a dream I tell it.
Tomorrow you will wake to see
the intruder has melted beneath
a crackling sun.

I know the truth though-
that we cannot defend ourselves all winter.
Soon we will need the protection
of a second blanket.