[x]

couldn't bluei draw a picture of
tomorrow morning:

a man in a silver box sells
75 cent coffee and bad bagels.

his shirt is the kind of blue no one ever
tried to name a crayon after.
dust-plastic blue,
tried to love you
(couldn't)
blue.

and the morning is that same color,
the color of canned lightning-bugs and
unfiltered cigarettes and desire,
because that is all you
draw with couldn't blue.

i pay him 1.25 in change and purse-lint
so that a fourth-world factory can make more
silver boxes to sell more things
more stale blueberry muffins.

and he will keep gathering change
in 75 cent purse-lint increments
in the small sinking townships of

Tallmy words are green tonight
written in the air in a neon glow
standing on the corner in the snow
reciting poetry from memory
i feel very tall

there is power in words
and tonight i'm in control
looming large and strong and
razor sharp
and feeling very tall

have i had too much? no,
just enough to clearly see
my shoulders are straight, my
head held high
speaking green words

and very, very tall

a ribcage drenched in dust i have your ribcage, you said.
what should i put in it?

i told you i'd always wanted a fire,
the kind that would fill my eyes with starlight
and pump my blood full of passion, but

you're made of wildflowers, you said.
a fire would burn you to ash.

you wanted to fill my chest with
the sound of a train, whistling
far away in the night;
with the sound of rain smacking leaves;
with the sound the wind makes
when it seems like it's trying to speak

and you wanted to throw in the
smell of midnight in august
and the feeling of sand being
sucked out from under your feet
when the ocean inhales,
and the strange little moment of
bitter

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.

Searching for the SunI.

The day everything ended, she was standing in a parking lot, weary from a long day of departures and destinations, staring up at the sky. Clouds strolled west, their armfuls of grey dripping out of their grasp and spattering onto the asphalt, onto her upturned face. They rolled and crashed into one another, piling up high in the stratosphere like mountains of cottony stone. Once, they had been at war, and their arguments had sliced across the countryside with the recklessness of a summer fire. Now, though, something had calmed them. Perhaps they were tired from their travel like her, or perhaps it was the sun, gently wedging them apart wi

RigaIt wasn't quite spring
when you first slipped
into Pils bar;
lithe and fluid,
Mucha muse.
I had to have you.

Chocolate eyes, rum-kissed lips,
milky skin: 607 special.
Gloved fingers
pleasingly revealed to hide
no ring. In the gaping blue
VIP maw I yearned, plotted.

It wasn't quite summer
when I first threaded
my fingers
through your gilded tresses;
gazing into eyes
nervous and champagne heavy.

We spoke the language of lovers
most nights after that -
the syncopated rhythm
of your art nouveau curves
my playground.
We painted the town red.

It wasn't quite autumn
when you first arrived late
in that maroon dress; animated

Harvest MoonThree a.m. moonlight
across lazy dust motes; a
tree scrapes the window.
Your arm weighs on my hip like
whispered promises of love.

ConfessionLips met in clumsy haiku,
against each other, pressed,
the way the earth touches the sky,
soft and whimsy as the dusk.

Tongues painted passion-
          sunset colors,
          halcyon atmosphere, infused,
-upon every awaiting space offered.

Metaphors dotted the hallows of limbs and tasted like the seasons-
          a bursting and vibrant spring,
          a hot and passionate summer,

another notch on the wall. 1.
a while now,
a while now has passed
with bruises crying jagged from your voice
and pretty little nicks upon
your memory.

( tricky partners dancing
stiffly
within your hands cupped around a flame,

for artists draw and
writers scream

another curse at the bleeding night
snipping stitches and
weaving nightmares into weary minds.
)

dragging bottles of paint behind you
like they were clanging and
swishing the secrets of life into
your ears,
oh, your ears bled with screams

Tomb Worldbuy the war bonds to my body
buy tickets to the air raid of my soul
trenches on my wrists
fight the somme across my stomach
machine gun pock marks
bombs, my flesh shakes

no land,
only lines to cross
and three miles of blood and barbed wire marshes

protect the soldiers
but there are no defenses
the western front is failing

TO ARMS!

shells that are empty
(I am empty)

the skies
(my eyes)
lighting up with flares
there's only smoke left
up there
(clouds my mind)

we left our masks behind and now we'll all go blind

packed in here, piled in
like cattle
like corpses

where is the axis?
we've been in here three days.
is t

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

a long awaited return.It was raining when we landed.
A shock
to our sun-drenched systems,
stumbling with snatched-
away sleep.

Another bus, another train
whirring upon endless tracks.
We run, we flee through foreign streets –
disdainful eyes stare on,
watching fugitive

outsiders -
desperate for a taste
of home.

Let Me Down GentlyI never said I was an angel,
rather,
I'm a feather on its wing,
so when you let me drift
on the next western current,
let me fall slowly down,
d
   r
     i
      f
        t
          i
            n
                g.
I promise I'll land softly,
though you will not find me
where you left me.

Undressing PoetryShe clothes herself in poetry,
seals her skin within the verse.

Each line becomes another garment
that conceals her fixed form's curvature,
but peels away when read.

Last night I dissected a stanza,
clamped it tight between my teeth
and tugged it down her legs.

Her body breathes warm and sweet,
speckled red like a summer strawberry field.

I sucked the juice from her lines and
spit the punctuation like seeds.

My lips mouthed the shape of her words
as my skin grew more sticky with
every splash of imagery dripping down my chin.

I peeled apart her soft pages
with sticky, pink fingertips that left them
clinging to my skin.

A sing

list for ninth october1) your lover is dead and
you burn the eggs. grease
streaks the stove. you
sit, stand, switch off
the burner. sit.
the birds chirp. sit.

2) your lover is dead and
the birds are hungry:
the blue-jay funereal
blue, mockingbird
sick ocean grey.
you shore yourself
against the bare mattress,
empty mason jars, your
mother's phone calls,
bestsellers commended
by desk receptionists.
the author's name
dwarfs the title,
that means it's good.
that means it's popular.
you spill tea
and soak its pages
and sit. sit.

3) your lover is dead and
the tea is cold.
the leaves have settled
in rorschach patterns.

the tea

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Gladnessso many questions are left
in a nest of your hair

-an unanswered letter, a roll of film,
a lifetime writ in your hand
your name

mementos, you said
are kept to leave the darkness out
like a lucky charm or a captive
to some secret spell

of nostalgia perhaps,
or vanity

but I saw
you only kept a spare regret.

what you are,
when captured perfectly
is an unintrusive kind of love

like a solemn prayer
or a picture of gladness

I imagine
a lifetime kept in boxes
is a quiet world.

your eyes were always
filled with laughter
for the kindness of strangers

a laughter that
reverberates in my mind.

AddendumSuppose,
we are not one

any sphere of 'togetherness',
the uneven semi-circles of our lives
are just two shapes
gravitating

away or nowhere from each

other

the 'otherness'
is what I clearly remember,
the solitude of without

you

or just without.

A circle that is lacking
is a Gestaltian reification

"I think you are the Sun because you appear whole.
You are full and I am lacking."

but the sunshine can be blinding

perhaps,
we are not lacking
though we overcompensate
for the gracelessness
of our individuality.

We do not complete each other
(it implies we are not whole to begin with)
Know this, the Sun and Moon
begets a

Our ShapeThe second is cosmic dust
now, your reflection
is a conduit to a dream.

The image:
[you in the middle of the square]

Amidst the beating of feathers
you look around a sea of faces.
Mid-run I watch
your opaline smile,
the lustre of your sweat

It occurs to me
that you had been waiting.

I stop. You'd been waiting for me.

The sound of longing
pulsates in some
unsung crevice
of my heart.

The past is color coded
an iridescent kiss,
the dark blue
of our eternal twilights--

a monochromic measurement in sighs.

Now, in the mere flux
of years eyes wander
on the weak link
of your fingers

a perfect frame, a circle
a wedding band or chain.

You

Davaothe equatorial sun
soft-etched on my skin,
there, del sur

islands away

the tan lines of shallow-bathing
in your eyes

there is so much time between

you
and
I

you spoil me, featherbreath
do i dare commit my memory
into dreams?

i laugh upon waking,
i did not realize--
i run when i go to you

Writing is Such a Futile EndeavorI know you,
the you who wants to be symbolic
and draped in visions

your language
so thick with verisimilitude

your throat croaks
with verses

I am drawn to your gravity
but poet--

Writing is such
a futile endeavor
the pen knows this,
the wind whimpers,
the nose follows
more amorous scents.

The page is still pale
with rain water
or earth dust,
the potter's hands
knows more thrills.

Writing is so lonely,
don't you miss people?

You're so fearful of touch.
People are imperfect
but they strain

of something beautiful.

PrometheusWe met once,
in the shade
of a midsummer sun

though you forget

memories so warped
in solitude.

The weary soul
is an island
of abandoned shores.

I knew you
from your eyes,
once so beaming
with sentiment.

Now I only see you
grieve mortally
and the sorrow
tasted of seawater
but agony is like rust
flowing from the rock
and bleeding
through the earth

I never told you--
at night I tremble,
disturbed by visions
of Prometheus dying

when I hear,
and I hear them often,
the wild sobbing
of sea creatures
and I shake with some
terrible guilt.

When I dream
fear enters me,
imagining you
sprouting organs
like flowers

but your shape,
your inc

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Math and Poetry

by ~MariaTala, Dec 8, 2010, 4:49:20 AM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

She used to tell me
of math and poetry
by the length of her arm
and rhythm of her heart
condensing verse and fraction
with form following the function

of communist theories
and greek philosophies.
she beat out aesthetics
with a perfect symmetry.

because no one understands
the relationship between
seafoam and shoreline
the way she does
[swimming in saltwater sorrows]

reimagining time in an hourglass,
she shot up infinities with a glance
and left me moondrunk in the night.

she emits sparks throughout my system
breaking and entering--
my kingdom under siege.

her name was an amalgam of numbers
1.61803399 . . . .
and I loved her by design.

Math and Poetryby ~MariaTala

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

_{math and poetry and objectivism and marx and plato and aesthetics and madeupwords and time and golden ratios and loveandloveandlove. . .}

Daily Deviation

Given 2012-05-27

Math and Poetry by ~MariaTala The suggester writers, "I've never read such a beautiful, breathing, making-me-rethink poem that is the relationship between two seemingly opposite ideas not emphasized oxymoronically, but brought together." ( Suggested by ^NicSwaner and Featured by `thorns )