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dead1.

i hear these words
and something happens
in the yard;

it doesn't fit
a poem
or planet.

i see it squeeze
into the slits
beneath your shirt.

i feel it fly the smooth
of you
from off your back. it turns

and hides behind the acres,
stock frontiers
of jagged rooftops,

kept far and safe
and free
of me.

2.

the squirrel
has left the limb
as light would leave
a photograph.

i’m staring into its absence
and some new kind of animal is made;
one where
only
its reversal is alive.

it doesn't move or breathe.

the park is wintered over, and i don’t go.
the poppies
are all gone.
and when they do come back, they never chan
Accidentat the corner of boone trails and owen
she learned the brevity of flight:
glinting bumper for launch pad
trajectory approximately 5 feet
across the median.

she pirouetted
as proud, as swift
as any prima ballerina
but the landing
proved rough.

this I keep for her -
the listless weight of limbs
defying gravity, the beastly beauty
of a body bouyant before
its death.
ThrownBones heaped
like uncaught bonfires.
Crash lander, skyborn,
splintered like frostbitten stones,
like trees fallen deep
from the snow line.

Eulogy of a man that was,
and the name of his lover written
in femurs, vertebrae and ribs,
waiting for the thaw,
the salmon and the sea.

All memories carried by wolves
to their starving cubs.
Open skull for the rainfall
and the birds.
The landscape of skin
imprinted on the ground.
A fading map
with footstep borders
disappearing fast
in the tide of time.
PositiveLeft to me, your worst historian,
to pick up, in a daze, some depth of diction
I never found while you had lived

and I can only now pretend that words are capsules
of sanguinity, that they’ll unmask the symbologies
of sound that bore your binaries to their realms
like sacred dreams of Hypnos.
                                                    Regret’s a simple word.

I always thought of "A Separate Peace", and in those scenes
you were this Mozart in the rough, a perfect chord, one
which I would meekly channel through cracks of light
shown through the fist of my own interference,
steady indifference.
                   
systemhe said that one day I,
who have grown accustomed
to accumulating moons,
drawn like moths
to my Venus-brightness,
would meet my match.

he told me I would be
captured by the brilliance
of a star,
a Betelgeuse, a behemoth:
supergiant turned supernova turned
supermassive black hole.

he informed me, peeking out
from under my gravity,
his erratic elliptical orbit,
that one day I would be
swallowed up

and that it would be poetic justice.
syracuseListen to the audio version for the full effect, pretty please.
cloudshot sky like an oil painting and i am watching the
seagulls. i--
darling, i will swim for you
and swallow every whitecap.
i will pluck myself a coat of pelican wings,
sew them up with salt and spray--
become icarus for you.
you are calling me across the waves, love--
but you pull against the ache
in my bones, the hollow--
the clawing out for unseen sunsets and unturned tides.
i hear you, love
give me time.
i will always listen.
ZemiThings having to be returned to their transparency:

       i.
       / green mist-earth / knit
        atmosphere / fathomless
        blue-lavender / lights
        spun out from light

        ii.
        are recalcitrance / and you
        are convergence

     & - a fingernail of summer
        - a melting of rain
        - a crown of flowers
        - a priest of sunsets

(beautiful? I love you, because. Zemi.
Zemi. are you beautiful because I love
you? Zemi?                                   )

       iii.
       I imagine this is what it's like to breathe sea foam
       over the Cliffs of Moher: hydration. absolution.
low T
i'm too soft and rotten
now
to enter
into anything:
closets, contracts,
secret orders'
sacred blood oaths,

or thresholds; a frozen inch of face
the same as light years, oceans,
never meeting

i'd rather brush my mind with pills
and stick these artifacts of wealth
hard inside your origins

and keep the grass
from living
long
Lucidityi.
I am a natural lucid dreamer. When I was sick,
I dreamed away whole strings of days that burst
with causal power, as if the sun, shining past
my silted eyelids, had spilled a home behind them.

You watched how well I played that girl:
high heels, sparkle eyes,
sitting on his work desk with my lips curled,
legs crossed, booze at needle length
beneath my skin expelling floral tones,
pectoral blushes.

I pretended to fall asleep on top of his blankets
so I had access to my concave nest,
a place without his hands on my stomach, no,
and without his mouth on my shoulder.
Now I am not even here
and he doesn't know, not at all.

ii.
My res
remember thisgemini, i've found it -
the missing weight from my every
valley, that was pulled from me while i was
unborn. "abducted," i'll say,
travelling back through spirit-lands
to watch our beginning, to witness
our once-upon-a-whole.

i've fallen into lightless quiet.
as i begin to breathe, i feel a pressure
released from my ears
and i can hear a cadence of
concurrent blooms. a gentle buzz
hums along, carried by the scent
of begging blossoms' celestial seed, and i
dare to look; removing one finger, then two,
then ten from my prying eyes
to see us there.

we are feathered and flowered.
our thorny bird-bones have no gaps
and our mahogany-skin is unblem
Achromatic Dreamstoday, god gave me present.

-
i.

stilted windows, white bones
decaying lungs and my mind races
at the rate of a lone moth's jaded wings

we taste better alone

ii.

clemency is earned
by the damned, by the damned
arbitrary sacrifices

we belong to nobody

iii.

and she bowed with artless grace
kissed the sky, shed stardust tears
choked on angelic moonshine

we draw our own constellations
-

today, i gave god presence.
Iridium.and love was never
a problem,

it is when our
mouths open;

the logistics
don't work

you always watched
films for the
action,

me, for the feeling.
leavetakingi.
the world is brighter where
dregs of strangers' revels remain --
i keep this half-light for my own.

ii.
i'll stay until the wind sighs a scotch-and-smoke
cliché, til the Muscadet's slipped from the lip
of my wayward
hello.(i know you're there before you do.)
iii.
your night is told in
patchouli-pulse wanders; mine,
in whorls of liqueur-breath. come
close and i'll find the warp
through the weft, the trails telling tales
in synaesthesia --
Platinum Blonde's been 'round and gone.

 iv.
(-- closer, find syllables strewn
 in an exhale's wake; stolen from my throat-
 ful of careless farewells, spin and sway
Arsenic.i.

It's just like talking
to anyone else

ii.

I cried when you wrote
that, just like when
I took your letters
down, and when you
told me you didn't
love me, anymore

iii.

and, I cannot
find a method
to pretend that
you were just
some lover

iv.

there are people
who make me laugh
like you never did,
but

I do not feel safe
with any of them;

v.

and I thought
about falling into
your arms next
year, when you
come back,

imagined
remembering how
to feel at home
and then

remembered

vi.

in all senses
of the word,
you will not
come back
home

vii.

oh, you over think things

and maybe I do,
but the things
are you.
Hand and foot, Hip and breastHear the ever-wonderful =TwilightPoetess read this aloud here!
And now I understand the depths  
to which a woman must sink, must
dig herself into, must push past with hand
and foot, hip and breast. It is not light I seek
but solidness. Not spring air soft against
my cheek, but the scalding touch of lava
forced for so long to be silent and still
now worming through a cracked
and weeping crust. It seeks explosions
because affection must be dramatic.
But the sky will not love it 
as thoroughly as I do.
 
And now I understand the impossible
permanence of night-lit words.
They linger in the valley between my wrist
and fingers; stow themselves in my freckles.
I cannot erase their presence, ignore
their weight -- only hope for a lover
who will burn away your shape.
 
But I understand hope to be a fickle
and most unfortuna
Browse More Like This
more ▶

More from `LiliWrites

Rain and Its BowsVERSE I

Tunes on the stereo
talk about rain & its bows
say chin up, walk straight
but it's just past eight
in the mornin', been
up all night missin' you babe
and startin' to feel I might be late sayin

CHORUS I

Sometimes when the sun shines
it's too damn bright
sometimes when the sky cries
feels just right to me
cause no arms surround me
no voice resounding
to carry me peaceful toward my sleep

VERSE II

Been keepin' my coffee company
last three hours with a dash of cream
and sweet thoughts of you -
that deep golden hue when
your smile crawls toward your eyes
the way our fingers brush
and my heart learns to fly

CHORUS II
A Fool's AdviceThere are monsters -

beasts with honeyed tongues
who lure you deep
into twisted places
& promise delights
you have no courage to dream;

they rub velvet across your skin
and you, weak and vulnerable,
so easily led astray

want it. want more. want
to feel the monsters' mint breath
curling like smoke in your throat
to fill you and leave you
wanting still.

Hold your armor close, child.
Venture no where
without your vigilance.
Living is an occupation
best practiced vicariously.
On UnfurlingFor the world, I paste petals
to my lips - leak nectar
and let them drink.

I laugh, a lion's satisfied roar
& stretch myself into shapes
that impress, leave them too perplexed
to acknowledge what he demands of me:

Stitch marks where my exaggerations
proved too fantastic; acid gurgling
in each labored inhalation; a cracked
& bleeding mouth which cannot frown
until granted permission -a gift he presents unwrapped
as though it were simple, ordinary.
As though I did not need it
the way a raindrop dives toward land
spreads itself lovingly upon the leaf
and dissolves into something stronger,
potent, more beautiful than it knows.
Human Nature - I"...and many weep for sheer acceptance, and more
refuse to weep for fear of all acceptance,
but the weeping man, like the earth, requires nothing..."

-Les Murray, A Perfectly Ordinary Rainbow

"There!" They cry, fingers forced flat against the air
as though they might prick the face of God.
"He mocks us! He ridicules us!" Their teeth clattering,
their tongues a squallor of lies - they cry tears
in beautiful colors and fantastic shapes. They destroy
their clothing, rip out their hair, pound their fists
into the ground soaking up the salt of their eyes,
and they scream:

"Stop him! Stop him! That man there!
He cries quietly in solitu
In A Past LifeI was a Spanish woman,
thick hair & loose hips
browning under the Latin sun.

I tied his eyes in knots,
his belly in nooses
from which his every
ambition hung.

I laughed like water falls
& excited his fingertips
one-by-one.

And my sigh -
delicate,
delicious
on his lips

left him undone.

Featured in Groups:

:icondalinksystem: #dALinkSystem
The Link System :iconwritersink: #WritersInk
What's your story? :iconeliteliterature: #EliteLiterature
Elite Literature Collective :iconto-our-family: #To-Our-Family

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February 20, 2012
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:iconliliwrites:
My father is an alcoholic. He has never abused or purposefully neglected me. He loves me very much, and I love him. He just loves the bottle more.

I pulled this out of an old collection specifically for the launch of #To-Our-Family, a group that focuses on the familial love that exists despite difficulty, animosity, abuse, pain, and neglect. I strongly encourage all of you to check it out.

:heart:

Edit: Holy cow! :wow: Thank you for all of the support on this one, guys and gals. :heart: It means a lot!

I support #dALinkSystem! :la: Check out ~this-epiphany's poem about her father and his cat:

have you seen your father hugging the cat, my mother asks
& I laugh because I have. the
cat hugs him back, wraps his paws
around my father's neck, rubs
his face against the bristle
of my father's greying beard. &
I imagine my father whispering
sweetly to him & the cat's
low rumble in reply. just yesterday
they were fighting, my father
threatening to drown him
in the lake, cradling a
bird with broken wings, blinking
away tears. he loves them,
every bird & ground squirrel,
buries them & storms around
all day. but by night they are
embracing, my father & his cat,
making peace between themselves
too low for our ears. these
things I cannot hear, but se
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:iconthesquareroot:
*thesquareroot Apr 19, 2013  Hobbyist Writer
there's so much here, i can just wade through it....
Reply
:iconliliwrites:
`LiliWrites 1 day ago  Hobbyist Writer
Thank you! :)
Reply
:iconirrevocablefate:
`IrrevocableFate Feb 6, 2013   Writer
Hello again lovely, I've featured this piece as well: here 'cause you might have forgotten to click the last link or something.



:heart: Stephany
Reply
:iconliliwrites:
`LiliWrites Feb 8, 2013  Hobbyist Writer
:smooch: You are a peach!
Reply
:iconirrevocablefate:
`IrrevocableFate Feb 9, 2013   Writer
:giggle: :iconsmoochesplz:
Reply
:iconcareravegirlbear:
~CareRaveGirlBear Oct 18, 2012
I really Like these last few parting words, that is something our dad would say! And its so true!

Dad's parting words
reverent, pleading:

be better than me.

vii.

somebody told me
there's more to life
than breathing.

(life lesson:
there's more.)
Reply
:iconliliwrites:
`LiliWrites Oct 19, 2012  Hobbyist Writer
Thanks! :)
Reply
:iconfuzzyhoser:
`FuzzyHoser Oct 1, 2012  Hobbyist Writer
God, I feel this one. Different relative, but the very same feelings. :heart:

Powerful piece.
Reply
:iconliliwrites:
`LiliWrites Oct 1, 2012  Hobbyist Writer
:hug: Glad someone can relate. Well, sort of. :lol: I wish things like addiction didn't exist, but if they must, I am glad that people learn to live around them.
Reply
:iconfuzzyhoser:
`FuzzyHoser Oct 1, 2012  Hobbyist Writer
Ah, yes.. People either get or they try to. Those that try to never will. It's such a strange dynamic living with or around an addict. It makes survivors out of the innocent, yeah? :hug:
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