oh, yeah

[exclamationpoint]

this again :P happy sevens everybody~

february:
for love is immortality
at the tattoo parlor
dissociation
grey
i think i am like a butterfly
valentine poem (dsm-v)

june:
untitled
intro poem
spare room
you wear time like a new dress
my first skin is scarce
locomotive breath
unfinished

august:
aftermath
untitled
and now, the weather

oh well, here it goes

black dust makes you
mortal, battle-marked
two fingers in soot and
sweat to paint your face
with a blaze of glory

black ink makes you
untouchable, new
tattoo popping off
your skin like squid
spray, growing beyond

the confines of your body,
which will fade, you say defiantly,
hiding your eyes behind shades,
counting the days like rosary beads.

[Sorella]

point,
Interesting comparison of dust and ink, battle and tattoo. Look forward to more.
Sorella

[Asymptote]

I love the "new tattoo popping off your skin like squid spray."

[exclamationpoint]

at the tattoo parlor
on a table, i'm stretched out
like an old map, creases
blurring rivers and railroads
together, and oh, i want to
travel, but i trace the lines
instead, coming back every
few months to mark the space
between my hands and the world
a little more clearly.

[Ted Ten]

Very nicely written, and very readable (aloud). I like this.

[Donner]

Hi, !,

i'm stretched out / like an old map is a terrific simile, as is counting the days like rosary beads, with the rest nicely following. Both pieces effectively muse on our mortality.

Donner

(PS - As a mod as well as a 7/7 participant, I have to fairly warn you: if you decide to workshop any of these later, we'll yell at you for not using proper capitalization unless you can defend your choice. )

[new leaf]

Good to see you back again this year. The latest one is interesting; it reminds me that 'the map is not the territory'.

You might want to consider installing your index in the first post if you plan to do more than one page.

Malinda

[JFN]

point,

These are both strong drafts full of vivid and precise imagery. A fantastic start to the week. Keep them coming.

John

[exclamationpoint]

thanks for your comments, everybody ^_^ i will for sure set up my index .... at some point ... :P

dissociation
Put on mismatched gloves at 3 A.M.
and go outside to watch the snow fall.
Float down the street like a soap bubble,

stopping by the only lighted window,
which belongs to a tiny chinese restaurant
flickering like the last eye of Argos.

You think you see a couple inside,
but the glass is frosted and the air
is diffuse with ice crystals,

where the snow makes things unreal,
a coating becomes a drift,
the way you are at 3 A.M.

watching people laugh from afar.

[Asymptote]

Oooh. I love "float down the street like a soap bubble" and "watching people laugh from afar". Been there, though not necessarily at 3 A.M. You're one to watch, exclamationpoint.

[exclamationpoint]

this place gets grayer by the day,
i've got fog on my breath
and the snow mingles with smoke
while the whites and darks get mixed in the laundry.
my shadow is as real as i am.

[JFN]

point,

This latest one is exceptionally grey. I find myself craving colour, which I suppose is the point.

Dissociation is an interesting scene. Personal thing, but do you need to mention 3 am twice? Just a thought.

John

[exclamationpoint]

i think i am like a butterfly –
drawn in pale purple, lured by the promise

of sweet nectar, bent back into a
sticky cocoon. here i flit from light

to slight burning light, spears of incense
to keep the bugs away. i have chewed

on cinnamon sticks before, my head
cast up in clouds like a monk on a mountaintop

nearing the end of a seven-day fast, wondering
now about the structure of weeks mirroring

the structure of bodies. i have cut sunday from
my fragile hands. they do not know what to say to me

in this exalted state under the half-light. they do not know
what to say to me ever.

[exclamationpoint]

yikes, i forgot to post yesterday

in honor of valentine's day, here's a revision of a poem i wrote a while ago, which is romantic (sort of?)


she was a nail-biter, onychophagic to
the last drop; and he a hypochondriac –
something about opposites attracting
or neurotics at the very least

though not quite incompatible. her fingers
dipped in poison could only be a sign of god,
from god, and she was him every time she
picked apart a smile or diffused a conversation
with her teeth. and from there she could lay kisses
on every inch of his pure bleeding skin

and in the wanting is the catch – he had been a good catholic boy
once, and had love rapped onto his dirty hands,
and she had rubbed salt and soap into hers.
sometimes he would open old books, hoping to pick up a papercut
or some vintage disease, the newest thing to be
the oldest, the sickest, the weakest, and loved

so in the end we’re all a little bit crazy.

[Donner]

so in the end we’re all a little bit crazy.

Amen. And

and in the wanting is the catch – he had been a good catholic boy
once, and had love rapped onto his dirty hands,

that's a super line break after "boy".

You weave wild images and sumptuous sonics into your poems. It's a great quality to possess. I've enjoyed your thread a lot.

Donner