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Copenhageni. Long-Distance

And so we stayed true
to that hormone laced
heart crossed
airport lounge
promise.
Cigarette nervous
yet stifled,
we parted
and vowed to love
the impossible
long-distance.

ii. Landlocked

Whispered words
hummed softly
these lurid tunes
cast vibrato
along the vast slouching wires
of our opposing
xenophobic
church pyre landscapes,
elongated pauses
manifest as false adoration,
loose, lonely,
despite the distance, our words
landlocked.

iii. Chemically enhanced to age

And we loved afar,
not by sky fetched satellites
or whimsical billboard technologies
nor a digital duality soon to cease
stripped

Holiday TweetBaked two spiced pumpkin pies,
barely stretching the crusts over
each dish & everyone will know
that I am a poet, not a baker.

Wrote no poems.

ZebraHer dress flows like a lazy river
when the thaw is done with the complaints
and the woods shrug their heavy shoulders.
She got it at that antique mall by the sea,
I remember. We were talking
of ice cream and whale bones.
It looked like a skeleton on the rack
but it space queened her.

Five dollars
or something.
Nobody cares. I was
looking for video games
from the 80s.
Black caps going
"CK - Christ is King."
"A family that prays together
stays together."
She wore dirty trainers
and she could have worn
anything.

She is still standing on that lawn,
looking like a takeoff.
I am still in that chair
thinking I could fly.

CavalierYou sat with one hand on the dashboard,
your other one shaking,
reluctantly dancing with a cheap cigarette,
that you were simply burning,
because something needed to die.
We didn't look each other in the eye,
except in the rear view mirror,
the irony not yet reflected.

I will never forget that six thousand mile stare,
many times your age shining from the endless deep,
the weight of everything you carry
written in ruptured veins.

"Old ghosts dancing again," I said.
"This is not very good," I whispered,
tightened throat and eyes aflame.
You echoed, and then you were gone.
I remained for a while, in that wreck of a Chevy,
maroon

windstorms and labworkafflatus, inflatus, my morning globe,
as lithe as your impermanence.
and home! dread homes! are rabbit dugs,
spoonholed piles of mexican brick
where nothing ever touches down,
nothing here alive receives
the plains’ poor offering of gypsy light,
the ugly wind that meets the mudline.

[metaphors]
1. a mottled fence
2. and how these storms hold faceless teeth
that slat their eyes through butter-wood
then purge their guts on wintered florets
4. some freshly headless nativities,
their polyethylene skirts upturned
from violent sacks
5. and knowing i’m a souless
speck

i lick at what is manifest
beneath your

The Satori of Easter WaspsHornets don't regret.
I can tell, the way they're trawling the egghunt like little Zen zygotes
looking for eves to cobble another nest of wombs
from the damp distillery.
They haven't cared for a million lives.

All finalities, both my thrifty dreams
and those lofty tea clouds, when black and white would never do,
when I had time to colour in their shells with crazy pinwheels
and hide them in ivy, they all parade through Grandma Becky's
backyard garden.

From bamboo rakes turning out the sky
to the little spring torii that opens back to Earth,
children run and rummage through a giant toybox in the shade.
This is it, all of it: the slender

KiteYou are not the grey anvil of your library
burdened as it is with thick tomes of memory,
nor are you the buttery words of your pale skin,
a layer once forced out in salty, inky angers.

You are not the warm push of the high ribald sun,
or the dark morning fret of unknowing,
that seeks direction from half-remembered deities,
left lingering in a cold dawn.

You are the construct of a Kite,
patchwork angles in primal colour,
translucent, teflonic,
gathering miniature masses of time
storing your wants in trinity rods,
almost
eternity bound
by the cast of gravity,

but for a fleeting second of flight.

DozingThere's the wind
     tapping at my window, fingers made of sand
and there again
     swirling leaves; to dance and chuckle on my doorstep

Eaves that whisper, clicking branches
     all bid to me
          good night...

Charlie Charlie couldn't dance anymore. His legs went bad, arthritis in the knees. It was a real tragedy, because Charlie always enjoyed the attention his dancing brought. It was the one thing that he could do well, and now it was gone. He'd never been much of a singer, and it was rather pitiful to hear him trying now, trying anything to grab the spotlight just a little longer. Charlie could feel death, and it wasn't far away. He couldn't speak about it to anyone but me, because it wasn't something you went around telling people. But he knew it was near, he told me. I was his confidant. Why? I don't know. He just took a liking to me for some reason.

Another Glimpse of the Madman Across the WaterCracked summer sidewalk, potholed city streets
Ice cream, balloons, cotton candy, dust, heat
Fast food and playgrounds, creaky old swings
Ghost of summers past in the shadows of tall trees

Churchsteeple, radio tower, pop tunes, melted wax
The green of grass that'll die, sandman, starman, slacks
Gypsy sunlight glare in the faded glass storefront
Childhood's end awaits at the end of the jumprope

Tar smell of the boardwalk, sand grit of the beach
Every sunset takes summer farther out of reach
Circling gulls and jumping fish, shells glisten in the sun
Neon lights up the night once the long day's done

No Oaks StandOld brick-and-iron brewery, borders invaded
by brushes of fennel, by wildgrass

home to shipping containers,
to refrigerated units, fans spinning
only when the southerlies blow

the wildgrass doesn't mind

my father worked here
my father died here

and the grasses grow on, grow tall
as the brewery sinks, and the wind whistles

I pray for strong roots and liquid head,
I pray to become the grass

PaganWhen the tree limbs move madly about
And whisper incantations through their leaves
The moon is fat and full and brings gifts
To those who know the old stories
And place sweet dreams gently in their heads

These are the days and nights to be treasured
When the pumpkins are full and the grass is tall
A Pagan love song to the universe is sung
The world rests at ease for a short while
And everything is in its place

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More from *beeinthebottle

Pox in SocksA pox on rigid writing!
Use your adjectives adverbs
gerunds similes:
"I languidly waltz in water
like a turkey waltzing in sand"

Teach me how to be Type B

It is but a flight of fancy,
to write without worry
Turkey talk makes me nervous, though,
as does the thought of dancing

Teach me how to stay in step

Turkey trot or hippopotamus tango?
One-two-three; I step on toes
I can't fling my arms or shake my legs
without apologies, without looking back
to see who is watching,
who else might be waltzing

Teach me how to hokey-pokey,
help me turn myself around

Only if you teach me how to lead
Five-six-eight; I'm always skipping

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Two-Stepby *beeinthebottle

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

©2012-2013 *beeinthebottle

10/26-28/2012. Revised 11/25/2012.

Written for the #GrimGloomTale autumn contest.

*RichardLeach Nov 14, 2012 Professional Traditional Artist

How long ago was this posted?

Oh my.
I went scrolling down, hoping I'd already commented and forgotten

It's good work. "night harangues/the coming dawn" are my favorite lines here - really nice.

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*beeinthebottle Nov 14, 2012 Writer

I'm happier with the last couple of lines than with the rest of it, but it turned out OK on the whole, I think. And thank you.

Love that little Sherlock guy....

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~neuroticmnemonic Oct 30, 2012 Writer

Much better fall than late.

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*beeinthebottle Oct 31, 2012 Writer

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`vespera Oct 29, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

I hadn't realized you'd written about leaves dancing, too.

Reply

*beeinthebottle Oct 29, 2012 Writer

Leaves must dance a lot.

Reply

`vespera Oct 29, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

They are rather cheery for being dead...

Reply

`FuzzyHoser Oct 28, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Gorgeous, in a not-shiny-and-glittery way, which is how I prefer my gorgeous findings. (:
Also, harangues is such a hella cool word.
I'm gonna have to figure out a way to use it now.

Yes, I get excited over cool sounded words.

Reply

*beeinthebottle Oct 28, 2012 Writer

I like harangues. I was afraid it outshadowed the rest of the piece, which doesn't have such coolio words....

Reply

`FuzzyHoser Oct 28, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

No, I don't think it outshadows, so much as sets the piece off. If you use too many cool words, then they lose their oomph, ya know.

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