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24 HOUR POETRY PARTYWe did it! Here's our poem.12 noonbare feet holding toes, curled on carpeted floori am white walls and white floor i am my soon, this one, adore right now there is no rain, the door is to the left of me racking my brain, no shame crack open the door shaking off edges and thoughts crack open the door the dog seems happy the rain is falling diagonal and i have a funeral tomorrow could be a palace of suburbia narrow space with junk instead dreamings dreamings dreamings in the core bare feet holding toes, curled on carpeted floor window slit dried rain computer refrain can't complain i see y(our) life bricked in by the windowpane nothing left to lose, nothing more to gain books a party of books poetry, anthologies a snickety lott of books and scalp i am home and fame i am more test it still and still and one 1 pmorbital happinessstellar gorgeousness, a cosmic chain constellations and a puddle a puddle of rain too rough from my hands, from other than me no grace. nothing. nothing unfolds as it should and it should be i felt something like pain, sliding out of me, aching in my chair meandering, not melancholy upended books, unopened bills, unbidden offers sent to me, a watch face down, a glossy photo, no space left free a neglected glass, dusty typewriter at an open door an empty duffle tossed upon a hardwood floor i feel a growling beat i am but a stain groping for me (and the rain and the door and a sea in a tree) from where i sit the view does not inspire -- papers stacked on desk, tables and floor little time for reverie or introspection the job requires one to see what is there not to dream what could be 2 pmfactual fallaciesthe roof above my head keep the rain and keep the dread inane managers to abhor photo of girlfriend i adore writing trash but maybe more window slit dried rain my desk is cluttered and causes me pain my excuses i use truly are poor what is there not to dream what could be what is not there dared to be all all all tears and queers and quietness and whores coming through my door coming through this mess in my mind begging, begging begging for more staring out upon a parking lot i am but a stain this asphalt is hot time holds me green and dying i can only hope i'll find a door tree green whispers and pebbles in holy streams too rough from my hands nothing unfolds as it should i'm begging still i'm begging for more 3 pma room can make a man where there is noneso i clothe myself in air spike windows with a wooden crutch up high, up high on the pitter patter stone red prim facets of dress i am the son of irishmen i know nothing of my father's father but i know his cigarettes i know his hands i know the hot beds of where he had been i know the empty wine bottles and laughter through trials and vices i know his cigarettes siamese question marks joined at the curiosity we were transformed our footprints intrepid sleuths orbiting obscure electrons ragtag regiment blame laid on lack of vision, superstition hieroglyphic malintention the pages of my book flew away, chasing your smile a smile like a hero that buffalo bob captain america smile like i saw on tv and then i saw it was me the yang approach when others cringe in yin the wild distance haunts the ocean's spread aloft aloft on lonely rafts in a sour, sour seizure of expression when leading lovers cross the slick dance floor no one but you personifies the devil anymore and i'm forgotten me me rotten bitten a piece of fruit that tasted good within today and yesterday i've lost myself in missing you, wishing you empty, nothing fantasies of dying been missin' most of everything for better than three decades now you did not say much when i leapt into the sky every twist and turn of my learning boy-skull the guitar sat in the corner like a memory and you leaned in and told me about hong kong, the heroin, the magazine strapped to your leg the size of the centipedes, the size of the cell and i wasn't like you i could not smile or deeply philosophize the sad engines what a pairing, what a coming-together we were long hair, short hair, long mind, short mind ya see i was drivin' home runnin' red lights my time in the realm of the charmed missing you, wishing you been missin' most of everything for better than three decades now 4 pmtightly writingloosely thinking like a junebug hovering an inflatable pool raft and several centuries crackle beneath her sunburnt skin pictures of her in blue bikini and shimmer-bottle "that's you at fifty" he elbowed "this is me without you" i thought and just yesterday, she reminded me that i am not my body nor those thoughts which chain me which battered my eardrums in waves of salt spray tidal bore, nineteen seventy-seven black ace secret six temple of man a gentle hand with the word and the best corner man any up and comer could ever hope to have erupted on the surface of the sun scrambling all radio transmission to bring us the music proving it true i miss you i miss you like a broken link no bandage can mend the loss of you state lines and lifetimes away from me chords strike me down magnet to me world now in different hues voice just out of town Wrapping me in riffs sown by leadbelly's ghost cushions of air jump off the detroit-superior bridge in suspended animation over cuyahoga waters there are times when a soul strikes a path days past, ontario, on superior, on st. clair, on payne, on chester, on prospect, on euclid, in a row of millionaires names written on a black granite wall knew some yet somehow i miss them all but i forgot the sound of your return busy humming with the faucet drips he seemed to breathe back in response to me as though we were in bed and i had sighed i am thinking today, you upset me being gone as you are, i miss you still mad at the thought that you could leave me to all who i learned from carrying grace friendship and in-jokes, all fell into place the lessons i learned not to make no mistakes your end-time was sure you did enough on earth shall i move to hawai'i and dance with the gods i am not sorry for looking to the past these shards of crockery are the archaeology of wistful remembering, our makeshift memory .. and yet i can see, as if in a dream my grandfather, young as i never knew him at the reins of a cutter on a frozen lake i can't say enough how water heals 5 pmcolonel mustard mustache, caribbean eyesfat french toast and 500 rummy swimming and meditating ingenue woman, sophisticate child bouquets alive, somberly grow around this fallen human to glance upward into the sky but no western star met eye just darkness i fell face first flat on slick surface abandon, handed the man my ticket took seat number 3d watched time suspend through windows weeping, and when the runway became as little as a line, i counted seconds pedro, are you gone? only to be found in the wind and stars of the night who invented separation? who created terminals? a certain knopfler riff, piano sound, the shape of a lyric it pulls you to mind and i wonder where you are this day, a day of poetry, when i would love to hear you sing i remember and i never let that memory slip away a blog told by a world soul full of funk and fury yet flavor none left on your tongue faked you out and made you fall for the pretty lies i told just once i wish i could see what it is i missed before milk skinny throwing rocks off south docks a death for a clown -- of course you drowned you forgot and so will i sanity found solely through needles or jesus this i call life and live it in death, slow, shallow breaths noise of want as dawn folds a father's hope and longing you come back through this dust, this air, this time, this nothing, this always a name and the truth of personality but what made the name a name is going into hiding 6 pmcell-phoned people with a boardroom gazeand corporate-hearted spite there are wars within wars the world is cruel, beautiful and glorious but there is a light that makes the fight sometimes i cry at night because we're always right by night ignite fight after fight those sticky stories the repetitions the politicians with or without sound the alarm clocks at morning i cry every time i try but anger is a luxury i cannot afford little words trickle in the middle of the day escalating into shouts of dismay like a poem i constantly recite like a princess with a magic kite come what may right of way the very part of thee words at play the very heart of me this burnin', got me churnin' today break-a-day that is where it's gotta be alight alight alight public demonstrations of demeaning by day, always right by night ignite fight after fight those sticky stories the repetitions politicians without sound sons and daughters who are they? Who heeds their rights? weigh down convey all the souls that i survey the box they sent me in was sealed just right with bubblewrap and tape and not air-tight i smile and took a bite of my toast love is cheap i mumbled why not give in give up and make the most yeah give it up there's nothing to fight nothing to fight nothing but me nothing but me just me 7 pmin a chinese restaurant you have to payeven if the fortune cookie says, "you are my sunshine and my light" derek got into his stretch limo with the tinted glass to keep the world at bay he didn't see the minimum wage video store clerk he missed the bag lady with the rusty cart bite no real on clang grace to its night what we ignite we do betray with our fear, by what we say by how we bow our heads and pray the ceremony is a lie we sway in sacred rhythm, play we were the crimson priests and they those who obey in raptured fright the prey that shall be burning bright a thirty-foot jesus in a ghost robe letting slip one righteous ray faithless and undying the night now is away restless hours i dream and i lay whenever he leaves i think over and over just hit me just hit me just hit me i'd rather fight face to face than spend an hour waiting i could twist into the quilt, deny the day, fake illness, and come out smiling in the night i could hide the things i built, and throw away the things for which i once put up a fight i could let my anger linger in a box of battered tin attach it like post-it note to silence i could barricade my anger and let no man come in prepare myself for love for pleas for violence hopeless trips trippy day off flights way come to stand another day a world missing parts unknown burning blood of broken bone we as kites against the wind we as boats against the tide a world in a world's part called insane by the clock of pain night comes with burning might to play the stage another day songs of light in darkend ray spinning ticks of clocks time changing pulse of forever rhyme 8 pmcarved to the enumerated nightsthese elite licks of self vindication sitting in the alabaster raincoat speaking light, guttural, and meek when i'm gone too long the piano out of tune every key is wrong out of tune broken strings sound like shouting from the next apartment out of tune finally, after years of fighting bitterly i lay tracks wayward, set my sights toward becoming my own mother hopeless trips of flights way come to stand another day a world missing parts unknown burning blood of broken bone we as kites against the wind we as boats against the tide a world in a worlds part magicians in the art of punctuating life with a fight if you prefer the night, if you think a dream would set it right, please shut your eyes and repeat the pledge of allegiance -- while the candles flicker on coal-tar bought from third-world countries at rock-bottom prices -- and when you've finished praying, thank god for the gift of sight, and then thank him again for everything you'll never see my anger is slow as rust in my bowed skull a black flag holds sway the wind, or is it a whisper, seems to say: sharpen your tongue, prepare for the fray no fire of holy sacrifice lights us on our way to write beyond the word the banished night beyond what we incite the truth 9 pmthe rain is purple heremore smoke than liquid. after a nighttime battle between thunderheads and stars water striders play jesus and brown wet mud in the garden fertilizes my toes splitting open my red letter days. i believe that i will belong to you there enamored, crazed with wind and hailstones, the flutter of delicate green camouflage eyes, clove cigarettes, diaper rash, boot camp, mathematics, weeping willow branches, television glare, points and picas. i will fall upwards toward the eternal getting lost in the colors that run too fast for speed or pointillism upon the shivering decapitation of these sun golden hours (i feel myself giving way beneath my own weight eating ocean waves, slipping through the blades of grass like mischief) i might be a careening molecule, for all i know. nature rhymes me, colliding spokes in kaleidoscope fragments of light in spherical line -- there is beauty in decay. i take the size of winter, splinter it into my palm, the exquisite tension of a violin string being drawn a bell rings into silence nothing brings it further in than god, a nite lite in eternity. 10 pmi thought i was connected oncei don't remember bare feet a week without rain there was a question that nature never asked wash it away with water or with a new leaf for a new day (who knows what speck a day might be? probably all the rock specimens i've been collecting along the way) there's no respite for dirty tears or the truth of rand-mcnally bricked in or let out a window slit prophetic puddles, like morning sliding laughing diving into a stream flowing or the texture of moss in spaces between neurons, at the scale of molecules where all the green reminds me to grow, just as the benevolent superman of the sun can touch but never burn the unconditional love of a young child looking forever away when we tiptoe in blurs of moving too fast. 11 pmcosmic debrisover and on me like hives and clusters of moons, bees upon magnificent flowers gold dust and platinum particles enriching the youth of air my goldfish make no distinction between real and unreal each part an antidote to the other alone among conscious beats in this heat right along and strong i become some inexpensive drywall in the hurricane of stars or i'm one hundred percent on a blue planet which spins and moves around the sun. sparks of it used to exist in me and with these dazed and deliberate movements, i eat earth and spit out trees like newest spring, i can smell rain. and if i run and stay with the river then there would be something missing while the blades of grass rise above me like skyscrapers 12 midnightthrough pub air heavy with noisy smokea love story begins outside, blank nighttime streets the moon, low and fat like an overripe melon moving forward in the rain i'm meeting you downtown on the train (i knew from your clothes that this trip would be right i'm digging the trap and the fuck and the fight) this is my recipe for fresh with each misstep each fight, each stumble my way of loving is to lose narrowing the focus of my life like thickets along the window panes i choke this is who i am and the sacrifices i make define my boundaries and my walls pinpoint the start of our downfall find it that exact spot and i will tell you why carry this rush of life into bright sunlight, hold it sacred it's what we have left to hold on to 1 amnovember made its promises, and i became your shoreeroding wordlessly beneath your approach and retreat staying just enough to remind you that you said you'd try and i said that i'd fight even though i long to touch my fingertips to your neck or back or arm hear your breath softly escape from your parted lips my thoughts are louder than your raven hair coiled like mine wanting the wet and the heat and the pain simple isn't something that can contain the night, growing heavy with memory and longing, winding against the sky in a jealous refrain. 2 amfragments. one looks like the moonotherwise, pigments. churches. semi- holy stones. someone's eyes cross in rows or paths where hearts are as common as watches, ticking thickly as morning empties fire into the night. hollow atrocities grow heavy with memory and longing i still remember the bloodstain his dead body left on the floor it was obscene, a sorry sight i wonder if he can hear into me love me please love me, alone in the night i'm singing in my sleep we're spending separate nights sighing eyes countless tries believing lies pinpoint the start of our downfall and i will tell you why nobody moved when i cried 3 amsoftly spoken, brokenasked of myself in silence filmy golden streetlight listening to the sound boots make on the floor -- contact -- love commands duties ignore every ounce of myself that was a vagabond love and still the door shuts silent we know the flesh, bone and shake pulled both ways 4 ami'm sitting and wonderingwhat it's like to take a chance what it's like to draw circles through the zippers of contemplation while geometry argues with algebraic variables an alarm goes off inside the fog cracked scattered seeds i do this with a smile on my face i do this where the dark binds hard on the edges, and the price of love is negligible when i'm collecting defeat in piles ordered neatly against the edge of the brick wall where i rest my head and listen to the way absence whispers into brass tubas, genetically re-engineered to mimic cellos in october likely to pass with a night's rest, dissipate with adequate distraction, (brain is the hate of a snake that hasn't ever bitten) between the lines that cut through nails, claw through pink, and crack the ice when voices collide: everything will slip nothing can be held and i say so long, love, off into the peoria night where i appear on your doorstep melting my head spirals upward 5 amparking softly at the stoplightsinging gently to the moonlight tap tapping on the dashboard fondling the seat cover shouting a single line: "you are your mother" (johnny cash waxedachumo) rakes for the handless man, and a mouth flooded with glue circles in the room, wondering where there will be time to breathe. hearing the weight of screams emanating from a device: still a piece of human beauty trouble crushes between my eyes (my brain hasn't finished congealing.) failing an answer filling our mornings with the terrible death of food. 6 amlashing myselfto an orange thought i cannot find my step, my track my feet are lost in a huge stack of dying grass. and while i pass this wondrous way i plug my ears and pace working the clear life down the tube at no why time all, they're telling us to do things, to do voodoo things, and grin at ragged thoughts of slices of life (he put out his cigarette in a knot on his wooden right leg if he's deaf and cannot hear then we'll bury the sleeping ear) the night swears its revenge, assures us it will come again to release us from our sanity and i wonder when will i get back home into a swaying lukewarm sea. 7 amawoken with the back-hoes and bulldozers againsomewhere i can sleep somewhere i can dream second eyelid slowly rises amazed at glaring sunlight get religion kick the monkey fall in love write the conclusion understand calculus i am reborn pretending your fate lies in my wonder/eyes like children back to eden humanity runs naked at this hour before going out to wait for the bus once i followed a meandering river and like joseph smith i met a prophet "upon you i confer these tablets" he said, so i ate, and i saw it is storming outside and loudly the wind journeys yet inside all is calm morning is a time for glints of light, the kind that shatter into sheets that separate the warmth from the cold the hum from the screech the gray buzz from the yawn into the folds of light caught in the mania beyond the bedroom door this grayness is a fluid skin and bones now grind to life my black weight breathes eyes push and pull over in the middle of the rain there this morning, through the leaves, a glimmer of light and i smelled color and lived scents and marveled at the clarity by special invitation the masquerade beckons i open my eyes like curtains on brown framed windows the room looks the same my first moment is neutral then i focus my gelatin brain immaculate visions of lunacy tired of spinning on this cozy piece of dirt so we scatter the directions get chased up ladders and over a roof we get away and we run some more almost get caught but spot a door it's marked "perception" we've passed through here before 8 ami am not the same person at dawnhiding behind closed eyes and lies, natural lenses enhance my sight see over the foreground of petty blight and into the large unknown tear yesterday's page out of the notebook window slit a cup of coffee if i could i would embrace the day taste its trips while cups get warm a room can make a man where there was none before but a newspaper can break a spirit i won't let it break me what waits for me outside cannot be good but we're snug like a bug in a fucking rug and war is nothing but a big group hug 9 ama blur of fantastic visionsgives way to mundane images through the leaves, a glimmer of light -- faint murmurs shine clearer than my faded windowpane: there are people passing, hurriedly poking holes in the morning and pinning it back in place with their wire frame smiles. all the little ants are caught in their paths i am reborn pretending metamorphosis of fog and skyline these objects so brilliant (glassonglass stressballs) all things are well in place but the unknown awaits me, and the tarnished mirror distorts an inherent sadness that clings about my eyes i cry every time i hear an alarm clock 10 amfather somewhat mends, andi take my reason with a grin and a smile carrying all my cheap stuff in my coat kidnapped stories and pulsating air keep my crippled mind company, and i, a mere laugh among groans, a wink of bliss (but not the chuckle cantankerous) floating on the temperamental breeze that smacks the shutters wide looming on horizons many may fail god exists but he has myriad nicknames, and would have invented ways to pale in a million years you'll never get me among coal mines and mill towns, but we really do flutter despite a dark sky watching them die, i can no longer gloat i stand in the highway, wearing bright colors the heat makes my skin tear i am inconsistency afloat scribing identity will always fail let me be or take me to jail beyond jazz your sunken toes awail alas until the might of night entails a laugh among groans, a wink of bliss a moat around your stalwart obsession a joke intent on rowdy intention 11 amkeep ya mind openmonopoly has a jail i ride a goat to work i got kidnapped stories for you and pulsating air sparkles, sharp borders, blanks i am a cactus i am wigs i am the fishboy waterfall, the pugdog membrane i am a married, divorced, deadbeat dad a man of honor and integrity i do what i can i dream of serenity i am a breakdown in a lame town a tent show gypsy with a medicine wheel a fast slow mother with an achilles heel a mad ass hatter with an empty pail i'm a long time coming on the cyclone sail i mother the motherless over and over i hate myself and then play red rover i'm a fistful of wet river clay my mother didn't graduate but fed me words i am an aging poet, a nurse, old a grandmother alone in a sea of golden light i stand in the highway wearing bright colors i am unbottled glitter a poem out of synch nothing but words i wrote a half note on the wrong score tension unleashed i sell words a year ago i tried a gymnastic trick i'm a writer whose liquid paper went stale i am the first branch of the tallest tree in our backyard sunrise trainyard nature seems ready, but i am not Contributors to this poem: chcknbeer, bennie, knip, judih, shamatha, steve plonk, firecracker, kelasher, lucy!, thaoworra, firsty, j8, wildmind, panta rhei, hal quest, beatvibe, four degrees, trisha ra, buk's lover, jota, zen, flood, glorious amok, wildmind, doc stray, rain70, grushenka, billectric, lightning rod, michaelamichael, wireman, bk, jamelah, elz, andeh, seajay1221, markk, carmabum, beth vieria, piph, yrag, doreen peri, philip harris, checkers, rogerf, judithkay, intre-alude, inglosolunbe, daedelus_child, cruising fool, beat_fan, dlove, kkizer, e_dog, anniefay, arcadia, ruby tuesday, divine mendacity, mnaz, eveningair, violet9ish, lefty, bluefire, unknownpoet, Kristopher, Rudra, buddhabitch, kim-chee, geranium, bluedaisy, ellipsis, inglosolunbe, majic, minfin, bohonato, pasiphae, nanirolls, khristophorous, 33, luckystrikes, herbhermit, lovey, ~k, coolazice, sacredburro, jimboloco, bohonato, dwilde, dizzykicks, karmacoupe, daedelus_child, kornringfingers, anniefay, brooklyn, rudra, kreddible trout, amandalin, hester prynne, rh8onda, silverbear, davidkm |
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24 HOUR POETRY PARTY is a LitKicks Production.