[x]

Synchro-CityThey breathed in unison. All over the city, all over the planet, the bots were breathing together. They moved and walked and spoke as their individual programming dictated, but their breathing was synchronised, in and out with the constancy of a ticking clock. She was in her twenties when she first managed to make her own working robot and it breathed with inexorable regularity. In out. In out. In out.
"Hello," it said. In out. "Are you my mother?"
She laughed.
"The female creator of my form," it insisted, "The instantiator of my existence. Are you my mother?"
She had to concede that she was, although the term made her uneasy.
In out. I

In Search of an Old RecipeDown a wintry lane, where streetlamps
rise from dimly lit snow hills and the
town is lightly covered in frost,

I pass an old neighbor’s house and
a village café. The gurgling noises
of a brewing pot and the sugary smells
of rising dough

always met with long conversations
or quiet contemplations, an old friend
or a new friend and a hint of the past.

Something that started the day and
ended the day with company and
a dash of hope

that time can always be paused
and people can always gather.
And behind the rising steam of
tightly gripped mugs, you can always
find laughter, stirring its warmth around
ta

How to Write a SestinaIn order to write a sestina,
you must start by being unsure,
quickly switching from cold to hot
to cold and to hot again,
the temperature being like a cat
in the Sahara desert at dusk.

Sit on your porch at dusk,
watch the clouds create their sestinas.
As you watch, allow your cat
beside you, her tongue lapping unsurely
from a cup. Look up again,
wonder if milk would be hot

if left out. It is hot;
There is a heat about dusk.
Forget. Forget about the poem again,
Look around. Everywhere, there are sestinas.
Not just in the cool, unsure
ripples your cat

makes, the gentle clink clink your cat's
teeth make as she tips h

moth-eaten curtainsI sit on the carpet
where gaps are filled
with chewing gum and dead spiders,

it's here, time,
I tell her everything;
use the words that are scribbled
on the paper with bright pink ruled
lines and no margins
kept in a shoebox beneath my bed.

The curtains were moth-eaten.

Damp marks left from leaks
swirl shapes on the
ceiling and the wall behind me,
smelling like clothes
that have flapped in the rain
and fallen in a pile, then worn
too many times;

in here, this time,
the whole building appears
abandoned,
yet with the windows intact
and exterior bricks
red, new.

The smell of summer
stays outside.

She stares at me with

Written On the Stall A frown marred her pristine features. Maria read the crude writing on the bathroom stall: Kristen is fat. Jason's a hottie. Maria's a fag. That one sullied her. Maria could only muse one thought, "At least I understand." She took a pen to the stall, "And damn proud of it."

Under the UmbrellaThat’s me under the battered umbrella, the one with the Technicolor dreamcoat and the hairstyle that’s decidedly undecided. I’m avoiding looking down, I expect, because I’d like to be one of those confident people that smiles and says “Afternoon!” to everyone they pass on the gum-dappled pavements, and not someone that puts all their energy into considering abandoned takeaway packaging and coins glued to the floor by psychology students.

I’m probably thinking about poetry, or one of many arrogant young men that occasionally give me a look that could be mistaken for something meaningful. Maybe I’m just

Modern MagicThe witch Baba Yaga once baked herself bread
out of spiders and liars and red razorwire
that was garnished with flowers from the vaults of the dead,
and sweetened with lye from a child’s funeral pyre.
It was light as the crisp, cracking bones on the fields
and as sharp to the taste as the ash-scattered shards
that were all that remains of the swords and the shields
of the warrior king and his bold bodyguards.

In a chicken leg hovel at the edge of a wood
the witch Baba Yaga licks the dregs from the spoons
that she used to stir soup, spiced and thickened with blood
that the dying ones spilt from their widowing wounds.
But her

Passenger

She wrote me:

This is the time of all things read;
the time of books, clean hands, straw dogs,
shared looks. This is the time
that finds the time to settle down;
to open that smile with enormous plans;
to pound on metal rolled with rust;
to lie when lovers lie, alone, quiet,
in kitsch and style.

She wrote me:

Death for some is a careless cat,
one that lacks a voice—and love—
and never plays chess.
But that is not my choice.
You see, I prefer the quieter sort;
the kind of death that stalks one
through shapeless blur, a caress of trust
and a lack of breath—now three, now two—
a sweet bluff and a face that

Suicide, Such A Womanly WordThey shall find me dead.
Another tragic Sylvia,
Another pale Virginia.
So delicately we all rest in our graves;
These shadows of men, fled from life
As a doe flees spindle-legged from a lion.

Only that we had a Samson to save us!
He in all his strength could hold my tongue.
We are but weaklings as lovers,
Breaking like little girls, sweet Russian dolls.
Only that he should kiss me into being,
And whisper flesh to my frail, effete verse,
Spill thick crimson on my pink watercolours.

I awoke in such a pleasant agony.
A burning poison! seductive and sympathetic
To a Juliet crass as I.
For the cold midday
I promise not a breath,

Candle-Induced EuphoriaThe rain seems to melt away in front of the candlelight,
But really, it steams off,
Like a sky-blue slate in the morning glare,
Distilling and purifying,
Defying the grim reflux of repetition.

Windows glint, spraying eyes with light,
Retinas scorched with newer pigments;
They have gotten purer,
A better yield,
But it remains theoretical.

the lwwdI used to take long walks with Destiny. Those long late-night walks when it was just starting to get cool outside and the moon could be seen hiding behind thin layers of clouds. I liked taking those walks. Listening to the rustle of the leaves on the empty streets while the wind warms the body. It was nights like that I loved. But Destiny was always changing. Evolving into something different each time I saw him. Sometimes his eyes were blue, sometimes they were brown or green. These little things told me he was trying something new. The little changes are the ones that told me his mood. While the big ones caused catastrophes.

Last night Des

fat.I once
knelt to kiss
my mother's belly
as it spilled fluidly
over her waistband,

the milky, mottled
soft skin stretched
taut and drawn
in thick puckers

of flesh. I pressed
grateful lips to the swell,
the feathery, darkened scar
where they wrenched us
apart.

Wild Flower Crimes When I crush the head of a clover bloom, the scent carries me to that far off field where my weed battered knees cut trails by the blackberry bush. Where the old man let us feast on his jam flavored crop of wild fruit, and told us tales of when his hair was crowned with dandelion fluff. Where the overhead hum of power lines cursing the heat of summer was the only thread we used to find our way back home. Where the king of the day was crowned based upon who found the biggest possum skull, or smashed the tallest crawdad hole; swearing he fought off its occupant, who was the size of Bobby’s dog. Back then, the trash of ditches

Tanka Series1.

dry leaves-
I remember
the perfect spiral
of my worn
pigskin

2.

asking her out
by email
I proofread every word
then-
delete

3.

flipping
to the free space
in my journal-
but how can five lines
hold autumn dusk?

4.

sorority bake sale
the girl I dumped
last year
serves me
a cold brownie

5.

Thanksgiving-
above the
dinner prayer
the howl
of a stray dog

6.

fall carnival
the tarot woman's hand
warm
against my own

7.

even in the cool
of night air
the rose
climbing
her ankle

Barfly MemoriesMy fondest memories are tied up in threads of cigarette smoke and dregs of spilled whiskey. Even way back in the days where we all played the happy family game the smell of my parents smoke and the voices and amber glasses from dad’s bar cocooned me. I still remember how I could taste the tobacco in the back of my throat from my perch behind the bar. Not even eight years old and there I sat amongst old men slumped over there drinks with worn shoe leather faces. The bar was one of the places of old, the patrons rooted trees shedding leaves of peanut shells and cellophane cigarette wrappers. I learned more in those hot afternoons and balmy

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YuriAsh white bud, rise from the debris
I forced your bulb four years ago
Lilies smell like sweet anis seed to me.

Feed her thirsty leaves soft lemon tea,
wet her frosty bulb in the earth below.
Ash white bud, rise from the debris.

Open your petal mouth, swallow the sea,
devour earth like chocolate dough.
Lilies smell like sweet anis seed to me.

I rise from the earth with grass stained knees,
brush dirt from my legs, hot and slow.
Ash white bud, rise from the debris.

Her stem dances to the wind's cacophony
and her pollen scatters in her throes.
Lilies smell like sweet anis seed to me.

Her blooming face is all I can see
against a f

SacramentAround our sacred April's breakfast
we held guilty hands beneath the table.
Our sacrament was fried and scrambled
like three weeks prior; fire-scorched.

We held guilty hands beneath the table,
fingers interwoven, hot and sweat-slicked.
Like tornadoes tearing through three days
our mouths were filled with words and breath.

With brittle fingers hot and sweat-slicked
we touched our lips, ripped and paper dry
to stop up our wet mouths full of words.
Our hands overflowed into one another.

We touched our lips, dry and sticking
like pine sap to dirty child hands.
Our bodies flowed into one another
and rose to a boil, burning away.

Li

TrenchesShe's aphasic. She doesn't
cough mustard gas
from rice paper lungs.
Her armies have learned
it's habit to fight,
fall back,
retreat,
lose a black mud trench
and retake it
five hours later.

For one million casualties,
one hundred yards were gained.
Each yard
is ten thousand men down,
and she crawls
over their bodies,
fingers and toes
grappling
with dirt, blood,
and blue flesh.

She says,
Sometimes I'm so hungry
that I feel full,
sick and clenched.
And sometimes
my empty hands feel
like they're holding something
heavy
and solid.

ElementalI will have a half life
of 16 million years
eroding and dissolving
into banana paste,
bromine bleaching
and bubbling my skin
with its red-brown
spider web streams,
heavy and unstable,
exploding into shards of
soft plastic and orange ice
in my ears, my lungs,
pyrotechnic grapes.
I will dress myself
in lemons and mustard
a by-product
of nuclear reactors.
Berkeley lied in '99
when they said that
I would decompose to 116
the first Japanese Jesus.

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April's House

by ~ThimbleIsland, Jan 1, 2005, 10:24:23 PM
Literature / Poetry / Romantic / Post-Teen (Mature) / Traditional Fixed Forms

The man who would be my lover through April had a daughter.
I showed her Playboys from 1999 and she grabbed at my breasts.

In mid-April my lover's grandmother died in a Michigan hospital.
The night before we had hurried sex on a friend's floor and in his shower.

I lay naked on a dark blue couch watching B list horror movies
with names like Frankenhooker and drank carbonated strawberry wine.

The floor was covered in empty Bacardi bottles and powdered Cheetos
while the bathroom smelled of concentrated bleach and urine.

I could crawl out onto the flat tarry roof through a second story window.
On the fourth of July I sat on the functionless brick chimney and got high.

The roof in South Oakland always reminded me of Mary Poppins.
Vodka coursing through my blood, I danced like a chimney sweep.

A man with bleached hair and long nails filed to a point walked me home.
He said, Margaret, I want you, and I knew I had stayed in a house full of lies.

April's Houseby ~ThimbleIsland

Literature / Poetry / Romantic / Post-Teen (Mature) / Traditional Fixed Forms

This poem is written in what is by far my favorite form, and also one of the most neglected forms of poetry out there; the Ghazal.

The Ghazal (pronounced "guzzle") is middle-eastern in origin, dating back to the 8th century. The name literally means "talking to or about women" in Arabic so generally they are utilized as a love poem, be it obsessive love (which the ghazal is great for) or "nice" love, or just writing about a woman in general.

The Ghazal originally had many many rules associated with it, but modern poets usually do not work with all of them. I personally choose in this poem to employ the "Maqta", "Sher", and "Beher". The technique of the Maqta is the concept of the poet addressing him or herself in the final line of the poem. The Sher refers to each couplet, which is capable of standing alone without the other couplets in the poem and Beher is the "meter" of the ghazal which only states that each line should be the same length visually as all the others, seeing as apparently the ancient Arabic did not use a meterical language, but rather, like many eastern languages, each syllable had the same emphasis.

Also, this Ghazal is considered to be a "gar-muraddaf" Ghazal, seeing as I fail to utilize the technique of the "Radif" (which most english speakers do) in which the second line of each couplet would end in the same word or phrase.

Yes, I know far too much about Ghazals. I love them and have written over 50. Not all of them are good, mind you, but they are fun.

Daily Deviation

Given 2008-09-17

The suggestor writes, "April's House by ~ThimbleIsland is a modern take on Ghazal, expressing the traditional theme of "illicit, unattainable love" through the narrator's torrid affair in the month of April. The style is deliciously gritty and irreverent, each couplet telling a dirty anecdote." It is hard to adapt a form like the ghazal to English, but I enjoyed this modern adaptation for its naughtiness and style. ( Suggested by `Iscariot-Priest and Featured by !lovetodeviate )

love 1 1

~~joy 0 0~~

wow 1 1

mad 1 1

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

~DorkButton Mar 11, 2010 Hobbyist Writer

The structure is intriguing, and I've never seen it before. The poem itself is, as evidenced by other comments and its status as a daily deviation, of course, wonderful. Great job, and I commend you for your work in a medium that is not well explored in our culture.

*almcdermid Jul 3, 2009 Hobbyist Writer

I have to admit ignorance to this form before

suggested that I would probably like it. This poem is stunning,

'In mid-April my lover's grandmother died in a Michigan hospital.
The night before we had hurried sex on a friend's floor and in his shower.'

Just brilliant, but I don't quite understand the structure. I plan to re-read your comment, but I was wondering if I could tempt you into writing something about the form, similar to what I've done here with haiku: [link]

I don't mind hearing 'no' if this something that doesn't interest you.

~Freakomaniacadisical Apr 16, 2009

i REALLY liked it!

_________________________
Read mine
[link]

~derangedlunatic Sep 18, 2008

thanks to what you wrote and information, i learned something new.
this is interesting.

~three-planes Sep 17, 2008 Hobbyist General Artist

This is truly an awesome poem. It's nice to see a different type of structure used.

~glassray Sep 17, 2008

I really like this, I'd seriously like to try the Ghazal structure... No joke. And just curious, not that I mind, but does it have to be about a woman/women?

~bishopBlueWaters Sep 17, 2008

Definitely deserved a DD!
Awesome I love it!

~OLoboCanta Sep 17, 2008

this is really awesome, quite visually stunning. what a cool poem format! i really love the ending couplet

=sketchseven Sep 17, 2008 Professional Filmographer

Fascinating just for the comments, had never heard of the Arabic approach to poetry before. I'll have to find out some more of the rules and give it a try.

Congratulations on the DD

~Kikoislucky66 Sep 17, 2008

Hm, this is my first time reading a Ghazal. The style you have written visually shows me a broad concept of emotional/physical stability of the character's thoughts of her lover.

Its pretty amazing, seeing as the poem was very short, it was able to capture my brain completely, which is not very hard but certainly eye catching.

The part I enjoy the most would be, "He said, Margaret, I want you, and I knew I had stayed in a house full of lies."

It showed me the results in very short details, which is what I like to find quick.
Great job :]

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