Poetry archive 1

[Elven Doritos]

Last night I saw a dancing pioneer sitting on a tarot deck
   her coat unbuttoned and clinging to its rack
   she whispers into nothingness her hopes
   and as that void I listen without judging

She, with cryptic tides and jumbled resilience
   to which the unexplained referendum
   and the barely touching strands of chapels
   and their strangled inactivity drive the
   raving oxen of madness

She, with crossword desires and their checkered station
   who tell of Italian liqueur, kittens quite well fed
   surprising with its secrets and its tsetse manner
   twenty-one machine guns in adagio fashion
   precipitate

She, who smirks with waiting chaos at the sight of rain
   when prodded to pay the lords of steel and thunder
   instead will let the air out of their tin skulls
   and purchase new salvation

She, with clay-faced synthoid bebop half-note rhythm,
searching and surging through used car lots
tumbling in maternal manner as she loosens
two jugs of milk from curtained plastic

She, with system-thought-meaning, problem-solution self,
with stuffed monkey necessary for final preparation
whose anger is tempered with keen understanding
overstanding overself equating hopeful listening

She, who finally took in the sweet caramel breath of dawn,
learning in the tin cans that roll toward barrels
that life itself is worthy and untamable
shaking free of sweaty sullen duality

She, to whom modesty is all-unknowing, vagabond and stranger,
knocking quietly on her baroque dressing door
as her confidences command continental armies
touching one another in familial fashion

She, with Mozart between her wings, unitarian tambourines,
unlacing the shoes of courtiers and hiding them
boiling chicken for the sergeant-at-arms
quarantining vacuum thoughtlessness

She, with palms cupped in tenderness, balancing amphibians,
willing to endeavor over fences barbed and bolted
wreathed in shadows but twinkling with laughter
chewing apathy and denouncing all surrender

She, who corresponds with animal totems, spirits old and mighty,
with amnesty and inclusive provisional counsel
responsible and all-supposing of their worthiness
talking into distant towers with sliding words of beauty

She, with cold-death-dying-sickness, the nasal mortal form,
who perseveres to disinfect and seeks remissions
relenting to the storms of Eden-grasping panacea
her treetop and untipped hours smoking quietly

She, who senses heartache pills and their white-washed bottle,
hunting them as needles on a daydrop blacktop,
protecting children and her Heracles from malcontent,
throws them into dustbins and tells the siren deputy

She, with bookstore poet stationed nobly on her desk,
working in due diligence to present her case,
lumbering toward her further vocation, advocacy
lifelong in its luring nimble lashes

She, with Saturn on her tongue, her blazing mind eternally aglow,
with strength and ink stitched onto her skin,
with piercing orbs of absolution and rebellion,
who reaches at the galaxies and claims them all as hers

She, who sits between the oboes and the blurting of saxophonists,
the tantalizing light twinkling through sunroofs,
who mows the dewy blades of impious proportion
tumbling along as spiders slink into slumber

She, with black and white shirt entombed in moral quandary,
   with stuttering temples crumbling beneath her will
   loquacious as they truncate her medallions
   heaps of coins burning through the midnight

She, with safety cornered in her iron-coated sensuous surreality,
   who prefers the panic of rotund companions,
   the happy minds that link in warmth and wonder
   limping toward their wisdom with a glass of wine

She, with quarries where philosophers make war with negligence,
   with amber tasting taxis crashing in the breeze
   the painted locks of moonlight trickling
   transcending the numb preponderance

She, with imported cure-alls for the plantation of tomorrow,
   whose preparation and vivacity is all-convincing
   without which Atlas might divine a mortal surrender
   and none would ever question bifocal creation

She, with curling tassels that bridge the mundane consanguinity
   toppling regimes of idle madmen with candlewax
   remarking even in the face of nightwashed murkiness
   that prisons of the mind are where souls rot

She, with drawers of apostolic creed and many-flavored adventure,
   whose weapon sits and dances in abstention
   primordial in the twilight need of textual interference
   knowing that the floors of dalliance are to be cleaned

She, with syncopation found in the hearts of deceased rumrunners,
   who knows the squires of electronic angelic agony,
   speaking to the tempest and recalling Canadian days
   prancing about fashion shows as queen and comptroller

She, with fiber-optic aptitude and the slushing stream of clamor,
   licking at cones and whipping foam into a form
   tasting jacuzzi strategy and sharing canine laughter
   sheltering the blue-eyed beast with proper dignity

She, who bids for notions deemed insoluble by the mantra of eternals,
   knowing in immortal fashion that cosmic allergy
   and the paws of tremulous subcultural sneezing
   are equivocal and lackadaisical in their primacy

She, with Cadillac defensiveness and a grateful tone of ecstasy,
   who understands the nuance of appreciation and volition,
   with aptitude in all the fields to which she applies,
   excelling in the circle built by quantum elevation

It is she who stands in doorways for the glowing afterthought
   and tells me that the night is good
   it is right that I believe it

[Elven Doritos]

You live in a world of phantoms
Populated wholly by your nightmares
Your handshakes seem suspicious
Sliding, sinister, snide, and unrelenting

You have quite some nerve
You think I don't recall?
Your questions buzz like bumblebees
Your pity is distasteful

You spot your reflection in the pool
Of cerulean uncertainty
You cannot stand your twisted grimace
And so you try to mother me

Please, little girl,
With heartbreak in your ears,
With unstable marriage rings,
With child left in others' care,
With stationary creased and folded,
With prodding ignorance in spades,
With fear and stations oh so insecure,
With mountains moved and meadows burnt,
With all your touching needing playing preening. . .

Who do you think you are?

[Elven Doritos]

Two small snow owls fall out of a nest
slugs buried deep in their skulls

Their feathers dance and tremble
in the white winter wind

[Elven Doritos]

Nothing in the world of saints is worthy to be touched
Nothing in my heartfelt horror is without its crutch
Nothing that you say to me will bury its own grave
Nothing ever sprinkled here can spirits ever save

I blame the clay aristocrats for sculpting my retreat
They engineered my Waterloo, my quiet blue defeat
My crimes, they said, were arrogance, corruption of the soul
I know that they are envious of my resurgent role

Hunger is the sin of dukes who tell the world to bow
I wish to cast them into hell, alas I know not how
The scepter handed to me by the people who are free
Has broken all your barricades and halted my own knee

You tell me that you know a pope who hates my subtle groan
I'd respond he is my slave, that I command his humble throne
I had to melt his holy crown, that bold historic golden calf
I see republics slouch and rot as prefects gloat and laugh

Nothing in the riverbed is meant to finance memory
Nothing in the bloody streets can ever garner much pity
Nothing in the smoke of rifles can distort my waiting plans
Nothing you will ever do will separate or clasp my hands

[Elven Doritos]

Imagine that there is nothing
Beyond what you can see
There are no spirits hanging
Underneath the willow tree
Confusion and creation
Are the compliments of life
There is no other sensation
Than the coil of mortal strife

My love is swinging wildly
She is naked as a meadowlark
She waves her arms for me to join
But the skyline has gone dark
There is a trumpet blowing
The stone is left unturned
My mind has begun racing
Recollecting all that I've learned

But who is splitting firewood
Preparing for my funeral pyre?
There are platters clinging loudly
And I can hear a distant lyre
My dirty hair has been parted
They are marching up and down
I see them weaving briars there
Into the twisted form of a crown

I call down rain and thunder
I split the sky and turn it black
There is a sense of breathless wonder
And I know there is no turning back
Precious moments are tumbling
Underneath the waterfall
I cry so none can hear me
It was a vision that I saw

I sit inside the museum
Looking out of mirrored glass
There are strangers all around me
I am seated on a gray jackass
Imagine you can see nothing
Except your reflected face
Then you know why I'm demented
I've gone so mad in this place

[LordVreeg]

[blockquote=Eldo]I blame the clay aristocrats for sculpting my retreat
They engineered my Waterloo, my quiet blue defeat[/blockquote]
This works effortlessly.  Nicely done, a deft turn of phase and parse.   It gets more oblique (the nice way of telling the writer his muse went out for lunch) from there, thyough not with the meter or term, just with the clarity of vision.  You certainly find the key more often than not.

Actually, line 4 of the same quartrain is good as well, it's just line three and the marriage of "amplitude" to "The corruption of the soul", which you do infer by the comma, as the same or related "crime".  It does not go, at least here, in my understanding.  I'd even prefer "certitude", though a false certanty seems to be the opposite of what you are going for there.   Maybe Daedalitude?  

[Elven Doritos]

I went with arrogance.

[LordVreeg]

beauty.

[Elven Doritos]

double post

[Elven Doritos]

Tweet, tweet tu-twitter tweet
   The waking Illinois breeze
   sinking in the jubilation that
   bursts across the clouded
   shrouded disc where the
   morning comes unbundled
   woven into the golden acres
   swaying, hissing and soothing

Twah-tu-tweet, twit-tu-twah
   The shaking strings of marionettes
   those eagles parting kisses to the
   horizon, their feathers weeping
   in the rolling warmth of daylight
   twinkling and dripping all around
   as pastel mice scurry into the mud
   pressing their feet in tiny circles
   to escape their fear of death

Tw-twu, twe-tu-twee, twah-tu-twah-tu-tweet
   The blossom opens, virginal
   knowing not the touch of God
   though her petals moistly cling
   to the sweetened, humming air
   her emerald stem bends and aches
   she touches her neck to her brother
   calling to the soldier drone to place
   his feet gently on her waiting breast

Twih-tu-twih-tu-twih-tu-tweet
   Two small footprints line the road
   laughing and delighting as night dies
   mingling together as their master
   wanders into the hopeless streams
   of passing time and its cruel glory

[Elven Doritos]

the

fabric

tumbles

softly

to

the

machinist's

floor

[Elven Doritos]

Take me out of
your leaf fortress
I have no use
for paper jewels

Your rhombus heartache
and paperback promise
Are not conducting
proper electricity

Smuggling little bits
of fire in your pants
You had better turn back
and splash into your nest

[Elven Doritos]

Charlie was an astronaut
He sailed across the stars
He'd skate the rings of Jupiter
He loved to visit Mars

His suit was made of rubber
His helmet glowed bright blue
He only breathed pure neon
He loved to play kazoo

The planet that he came from
Was called Jklsipholame
Only one small Earthling
Could even say its name

He landed in a valley
And walked onto the street
His skin was green and orange
He had eleven feet

When Charlie held his hands up
(Though they really were like claws)
He could grab a distant star
(But always with good cause)

And so he met a little boy
His name was Johnny Chip
And told him that he needed help
To fix his broken ship

Well, Johnny was no astronaut
He had never been past Earth
He couldn't fix a hyperdrive
But he knew well his worth

He said big old Charlie
Who stood some nine feet tall,
"Come and stay at my mom's home
Until your planet calls"

Charlie took the boy's hand
Careful not to cut or slice
They sang a song together
From the planet of Quibrice

When Charlie used the television
To call his secret base
His helmet came unclouded
And Johnny saw his face

His seven eyes were teary
His nose was spiked and flat
He had a pair of mouthy grins
He was neither thin nor fat

Just as Johnny saw his face
The helmet went aglow
For Charlie could not bear the boy
To see him in sorrow

The officer he had called
Said in an angry voice
He would not send spare parts
So Charlie had a choice

It was about this time
When Johnny's mother learned
About the hidden astronaut
And soon she was concerned

When Charlie and she talked
He knew he had to go
Johnny tried to argue
But knew it would be so

Charlie was an astronaut
He'd sail into the stars
Upon a NASA shuttle
And then he'd float to Mars

Johnny watched in silence
And knew this was the end
As Charlie waved goodbye
And said to his brave friend:

"Of all the people I have met
On planets far and true
I have but one friend of mine
Of course, that would be you

Now please don't cry, little one
And don't you make a fuss
Don't cause trouble for your mom
And don't you hiss or cuss"

And then he did a miracle
Plucking from the night
A sparkling little handful
That twinkled with starlight

He handed them to Johnny
To put them on his wall
To remind him to act bravely
Always standing tall

As long as Johnny had them
These twinkling little stars
Charlie could still see him
Even from afar

The launch went as expected
And Charlie zoomed and flew
With a NASA rocket
And his helmet glowing blue

Many years would pass
And John was seventeen
He took those stupid stars
And tossed them as he cleaned

When Charlie looked for Johnny
He cried his neon tears
But who could really blame him
After all these years?

Charlie was an astronaut
No longer sailing stars
He lost his only friend to age
Stuck on dusty Mars

[Ishmayl-Retired]

^^ My favorite one yet.  Simple and beautiful.

[Elven Doritos]

Mr. Valentino is a very serious writer
Who writes very serious stories
He considers every word
Touching them gently
With the thumb that has been
Stuck so very far
Up his ass

Mr. Valentino is a generous man
Who gives generous sums
To all the women
Whom he knows
But the problem is that
He only knows
Prostitutes

On his early morning streetwalk route
The grateful sewers straddling dawn
The noble Valentino laughs
And touches his marble cane
Rapping the peasants
Who sleep in the
Dusty street

He takes his lunch to the grey courthouse
Shaking appendages at angry law
Standing next to Roman columns
Breathing fog into the afternoon
White snow crunches under his
Salami and rye and
He cackles

Although he goes to the opera house
He falls asleep in the first act
Don Giovanni cannot hold his eyes
From plunging into misty death
And so he seduces misery
And makes it his companion
In wild lust

Madness seeps from his snoring tongue
He tames relentless death and tombs
Only pomposity and pretense
Survive the sands of all remembrance
Stinking from the pyramids
Embalmed in fine repair
Touching, no?