[x]

Old hauntsNumb fingers fumble at coppers
and a dodgy purple lighter which is unfit for purpose.

Giant splodges of stars
as if God - in a frolic of youthful exuberance –
went wild with a paintbrush.

Granite delicately held by shape and contour alone.
Slotted together: a melee of ankles, hips, spontaneous larynx.

Careless hopes, dreams wide, menthol cigarettes.
Thoughts all quiet.

Rooibos TeaBreathe deep the chai haze—

Picasso's djinn,
a muse of eggshells and grandma's lace tablecloths,
cradles the tea kettle to her chest
and abandons Latin words and names—
flotsam and jetsam dribbling
irrelevant among the little red tea leaves;
the driftwood of genus and species bumping
against the shores of the South African scrublands.

She hovers orange and indigo,
a quavering flame of dreams
and drained tea dregs—
divination with a soft-spiced voice
at the bottom of the mug,
never quite gone—

a flock of Van Gogh crows
frozen in their hayfields.

The SiegeThe first mile is always the easiest.
—Kyle Lynn to me, circa 2006

Tell that to the ghosts,
men soaked in sand and blood spray,
storming the shores of Normandy.

First Infantry's sprint through coastal
trenches, up bluffs, under ruptured drays.
Tell that to the ghosts

huddled in half-channeled holes,
a captain's dash through shrapnel, gray
storm on the shores of Normandy.

A German boy adrift in the compost
of his legs, his elbows' grand flail.
Tell that to the ghosts

ripped in four by mortars posted
over Omaha. Dawn's evenly keeled decay
storming the shores of Normandy

The Farmers SonWe sat sipping grappa as the storm clouds rolled in from the ridges
like the smoke from some great unseen inferno,
the wood walls and shingles of the house complained to us
in low groans,
of the wind coming up hard, through the valley,

and there was flickering light from a candle,
and she told me how light from a prism dissects into different colours that correspond
in some way to our bodies and that all of life was a rhythm

and I believed that part,

and I believed there were stars beyond the sight of man on any grey day
and that they might hold some greater secret than prisms or rhythms
or any question a farmers son could ever

Ingenueshe lives off petrichor.

sometimes she'll spend her lonesome days watching the soft spell of rain
reach the depths of cyclic whispers and paradoxical breaths, lost behind her sleepless eyes.

she laughs at gravity.

sometimes she'll notice how the broken inertia of her body is nothing but a reflection of
the chemistry given between her grief and the afterglow of beautified language.

she smiles.

sometimes she'll break the bullets caught in her teeth and mould the tired fragments into something worth loving.

tetherhookedYou shift around me, bejeweled
with currency which cannot be
exchanged because detaching your eyes
would be like hollowing a lighthouse,
would be smashing a rare beacon
with stubby fingers and because

trading your mouth would be like
silencing shellsongs and symphonies
and the cinders of your sentences,
the embers of your exhales would
welcome ash where once was warmth

and because your callouses catch on
clothes too well and your shoulders
are the base of a sturdy cradle
and every time you blink, I wake up
and I am uncovered and I am new

and because you would have to
watch the demolition of your
features, the thieving

Wyrmling Ghostwritenew millennium toothache
w feeder hand, aluminum
bubblegum knuckle muncher bumpin' phoenix plumage...
   & I rock the Rings, now!
supernova falcon flipper -
was-a-real-boy chicken shitter -
fist-fuck photon vision sifter -
  soullost, anon forgetter -
  so lost, rewind protector -
  dead princess bone collector -
  hopelessly tethered to the Ghosts, remember?
    Nah, man, I don't know any of the Ghosts by name
   but I've been following the will'o'wisps
    chasin' knowledge, speed & blame
    try

petrichorNiobe weeps.

gold scattered rough across
cracked earth and the last
remains of summer - they fell
like leaves in the arms of the wind.

some scents cannot be captured.
the gods bleed onto rock,
and the stone sends her prayers
in return: petrichor.

listen - the heavy thud of
rain on parched ground;
the monsoon sealing life back in;
the sky bows and kisses earth.

Niobe weeps.

We spent the recollectivesThis is what the early universe looked like:

dust motes hanging in a slant of sunlight;
love is natural & real and gathered in the corners of
the vacant smiles of stroke victims & thought killers

who told me to regard the universe as a living creature with a heartbeat of zirconium,
who makes insurance claims against our classics, wonderful winged portraits
of lunar landings & alarm clocks, of broken Aeneas, the galactic curator
expecting big things this year, a big turnout this year,

year where I recall the bacchanalia of eyeless Christmas Eves
that chased my family into carbonite wetlands, the hydrogen eateries

When I hang my towe

mosaics.sometimes unique
is not loud;
or bright, alive and raging,
possessed of a hunger for the atypical,
up front and too close,
or thrice-pierced and drenched
in the rebellions
particular to the latest generation.

sometimes it is a girl with
mouse brown hair and eyes
the color of weak tea,
who stands with her schoolbooks clutched
to her chest, in uniform shades of grey-blue
like the midmorning autumn sky

who has a wide mouth prone to nervous smiles,

pale lips and pale cheeks
and words that don't always come out
the way she means

who holds the universe
in the intricacies of her fingerprints
and laughs in treble clef notes
and u

city drowned cleanbirds fly bluer before a hurricane,
wings sharper, the bricks neater.
one train is always longer than the
other. i cried about it. the saturated
city, droplets of colour caught on
tape & rewinding, cups me in its
palms, i am a bug on its window,
imagining all of it underwater &
people clapping in a silent film,
the last dying bubbles curtsying
on their lips, for their marble town
the white skied & terrible atlantis.

SalemI.

the bright scarlet egg of dawn
nests in my head.

when it is time, it will crack my
skull like a shell
and be born.

II.

I have a witch's fingers and a
witch's eyes, rough pewter lenses
through which I see the world.

I have sabotaged their crops,
I have plagued their children,
I have eaten their livestock in the night
(so they say)
and I hear the whispers in the streets.

they will be willing to kill
for their conviction, though
I am not willing to die for it.

III.

I am no longer human.
I've been branded
with an ugly mark
of fear and desperation,

one terse syllable that cuts
like a switch.

IV.

a thin reddish line

leavetakingi.
the world is brighter where
dregs of strangers' revels remain --
i keep this half-light for my own.

ii.
i'll stay until the wind sighs a scotch-and-smoke
cliché, til the Muscadet's slipped from the lip
of my wayward
hello.(i know you're there before you do.)
iii.
your night is told in
patchouli-pulse wanders; mine,
in whorls of liqueur-breath. come
close and i'll find the warp
through the weft, the trails telling tales
in synaesthesia --
Platinum Blonde's been 'round and gone.

iv.
(-- closer, find syllables strewn
in an exhale's wake; stolen from my throat-
ful of careless farewells, spin and sway

In summer we all burnThe summer is coming,
I hear the beach roaring from here,
can see shirts hung over shoulders,
sunglasses, arms round waists,
can feel the earth's purrs,
breaking hibernation,
pollens tossed up at us in fanfare.

Ants are walking over me
because we're sharing a tree together.
Back to back, we're trying to
make our winter's pallour a warmer shade.
Is it some sort of personal sign
when you let your shoe-tongues fill with tan bark,
when it's driven you mad your whole life?
Or when you eat ice-cream in public (the sticky
fingers a mere afterthought)?

These trees though, they're not changing.
I can't help thinking they

surface tensionshe strides like a sea walker,
each step rippling outwards
in search of a kindred being.

this echolocation finds nothing-
angry waves crash her delicate signals
now as confused as her footsteps
balanced upon the water's skin.

she falters and begins to sink-
a dangerous game to play Jesus
and not know how to swim.

soft hands slap against the cold hard surface
as she flounders for a grasp on reality.
her belief keeps her afloat
for now.

the water stings her face,
evidence of struggle and suffering.
her figure frames a distorted self portrait
as she crawls back to her feet-

on the other side of sane.

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Submitted: December 7, 2011
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goldby =angelStained

Literature / Poetry / Nature / Free Verse

©2011-2013 =angelStained

(will edit to-morrow. one of my favorites in a while.)

edit 17/12/2011: ...what to-morrow? inspired by a slow night staring at the sky. and clouds and soon the sun-set.

read:

peel with bones and rapid eye movement
      she is waiting
to fall
says goodbye, as her body shifts
  beyond the frame of the steely car
moving faster than she can
like gasoline ink blots
   making the physiognomy of her
descent one of skin and
   disordered intimacy
so sly
so sleek
   as if she were made of flint,
biodegradable against the grit of choice.

Daily Deviation

Given 2011-12-24

gold by =angelStained ( Featured by $wreckling )

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~ValynAporia Jun 7, 2012

I really enjoy how your line breaks add such a sense of movement, especially when coupled with word choice like "tremble," "ripples," and "converge."

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Mood: Joy

~RestlessSands Mar 23, 2012

wow. fantastic!

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=angelStained Mar 31, 2012 Writer

thanks!

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*toxic-nebulae Jan 31, 2012 Student Writer

featured: [link]

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*toxic-nebulae Jan 28, 2012 Student Writer

you are amazing

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=angelStained Feb 1, 2012 Writer

! too lovely, the feature & you.

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*toxic-nebulae Feb 1, 2012 Student Writer

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*gold-rose Jan 24, 2012 Hobbyist Photographer

Because you're a member of

your work is featured in this journal

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Please make sure you add it to your favourites to get even more exposure!

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*magdalagarza Jan 6, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

This poem reminds me of a story where a little boy breathes the sky in and out. I can't remember what happened in it, but that image stuck, and here it is again. Loved the last two lines: how "settlements" just sings to "stars".

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