(no subject)

[penguinboy.livejournal.com]

The Gods

The statues of Greek gods
In the storage room of the art school
Where I led Pamela by the hand,
Or was it she who led me?
Nibbled my ear, while I raised her skirt.

Identical Apollos held identical
Empty hands. Poor imitations,
I thought. They belong in a window
Of a store going out of business
On a street dark and desolate.

That's because my eyes were closed
Long before they were open again.
It was night. There was still light,
Enough to tell their nakedness from ours,
But I couldn't figure where it came from,
And how long it meant to stay.

by Charles Simic

Lonesome Night

[juneflame.livejournal.com]

You brothers, who are mine,
Poor people, near and far,
Longing for every star,
Dream of relief from pain,
You, stumbling dumb
At night, as pale stars break,
Lift your thin hands for some
Hope, and suffer, and wake,
Poor muddling commonplace,
You sailors who must live
Unstarred by hopelessness,
We share a single face.
Give me my welcome back.



~Hermann Hesse; Translated by James Wright

Variation On The Word Sleep

[juneflame.livejournal.com]

I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and as you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

~Margaret Atwood~

By Adam Ford.

[amybelle1210.livejournal.com]

a small revenge


After we fought I
went downstairs and
left the house,
but not before I
put that song you hate
on the CD player
and pressed repeat.

(no subject)

[silverflurry.livejournal.com]

Kinky
Denise Duhamel

They decide to exchange heads.
Barbie squeezes the small opening under her chin
over Ken's bulging neck socket. His wide jaw line jostles
atop his girlfriend's body, loosely,
like one of those novelty dogs
destined to gaze from the back windows of cars.
The two dolls chase each other around the orange Country Camper
unsure what they'll do when they're within touching distance.
Ken wants to feel Barbie's toes between his lips,
take off one of her legs and force his whole arm inside her.
With only the vaguest suggestion of genitals,
all the alluring qualities they possess as fashion dolls,
up until now, have done neither of them much good.
But suddenly Barbie is excited looking at her own body
under the weight of Ken's face. He is part circus freak,
part thwarted hermaphrodite. And she is imagining
she is somebody else-- maybe somebody middle class and ordinary,
maybe another teenage model being caught in a scandal.

The night had begun with Barbie getting angry
at finding Ken's blow up doll, folded and stuffed
under the couch. He was defensive and ashamed, especially about
not having the breath to inflate her. But after a round
of pretend-tears, Barbie and Ken vowed to try
to make their relationship work. With their good memories
as sustaining as good food, they listened to late-night radio
talk shows, one featuring Doctor Ruth. When all else fails,
just hold each other, the small sex therapist crooned.
Barbie and Ken, on cue, groped in the dark,
their interchangeable skin glowing, the color of Band-Aids.
Then, they let themselves go-- Soon Barbie was begging Ken
to try on her spandex miniskirt. She showed him how
to pivot as though he was on a runway. Ken begged
to tie Barbie onto his yellow surfboard and spin her
on the kitcen table until she grew dizzy. Anything,
anything, they both said to the other's requests,
their mirrored desires bubbling from the most unlikely places.

(no subject)

[maneater.livejournal.com]

Black Rook in Rainy Weather
Sylvia Plath

On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain-
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident

To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall
Without ceremony, or portent.

Although, I admit, I desire,
Occasionally, some backtalk
From the mute sky, I can't honestly complain:
A certain minor light may still
Lean incandescent

Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then --
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honor
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen
Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); sceptical
Yet politic, ignorant

Of whatever angel any choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. With luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur.
If you care to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance
Miracles. The wait's begun again,
The long wait for the angel,

For that rare, random descent.

(no subject)

[penguinboy.livejournal.com]

Indigo

What I see now in our snapshots
together is the hole in your T-shirt,
a torn seam at your left shoulder, dark
in the sun. Already up close, you can see
the indigo thread coming out, and this is
what worries me, how fast a thing
unravels. From the loose weave of what
covers us, touches our freckled skin, we are
open to desire or absence.
We count on the way our clothes keep us
together, separate and intact,
though we know better. We are
no closer beneath the careful fabric,
the small, easy buttons -- only more
honest, unyielding, foreign. Nor are we
any safer, any more beyond touch
across heavy cotton, a white linen sleeve.
And if the distance we've sewn together
is thin, what begins to give
has been there all along: always
how things come apart into their own
basic pieces, all texture and hue of color,
all fiber and cut and bone, where
we are most ourselves revealed.
This time I want to take each unbroken
thread between my fingers, worrying it,
undoing slowly what I know to follow
where it takes me, how it ends.

by Kyoko Uchida