Poem-A-Day #306 : Alien

Alien

I want to go to Mars -

They are sending them in - are going to give them the keys to the place
experiments and the building of bubbles to live in

I dream of the bubble housing the smaller bubbles

The small growing things in the shield of man-made ecosystem

Think about the likes on those selfies -

God this is boring - is broken - there is a sense that a hole in the window would send everything in this world into space

It will freeze there

Lose itself in the not-black not-dark

Why don't we have a word for the color of space - the vacuum of our heads

I want to go to Mars -

Put on that suit - drift in the expanse for years - and come out the other side alone
where I would send cryptic emails and video messages

Where I would piss on the dead sand of that planet and make castles from the mud

Mainly -
I don't want to talk to people anymore

And that is the thing that resonates - the internet has left me not wanting to hear or be heard

I long for a rotary phone that only clicks and never receives but that's not true because Candy Crush -

Here is the buoy in the open wilds of imagination - it blinks seven times
is silent -
is even and calm - it only knows what fingers have touched it tell it to know

It beckons -

Poem-A-Day #290 : Nightscape

Nightscape

On your skin

A color like purple

It thighs and glides across surfaces

A woman is thrown into the pool of a taxi

There is night and then there is city

Each thing defines itself against the void of space

Your eyes are glares

The streetlight blinks yellow banishing color

Mono

A wish to be the reflection in your sweat

The smell of garbage

A rat across your foot

Uber and crash

Your teeth are violet

Poem-A-Day #203 : Driven

Driven

We are really going - we will not need a map

Until the wheels are worn - and we have come
to the end of the world - the journey will be the positive action

Dear Evil - Oleander is poison is the flower of Hiroshima
it was the first to bloom after the bombs exploded and the buildings burned

When I died - the empty field the road to nowhere the open gates
of the spell - we will come back - we will break the spell

The end of the world is a cup of stars - insist on
the cup of stars - hope - find - a house of stars

The map is a line dear Evil - it crawls like millipedes

Julie Harris in The Haunting (1963)

Poem-A-Day #68 : ...and the Memory is Also Small

...and the Memory is Also Small

On the other side of the highway
the silver SUV sped towards home

It sought center
and smoothness

It carried a procession of bodies
through that space as careful as a mother

And the dog

It didn't have time to be more than
yet another small branch of kindling

Spinning - a loom endlessly kicked
in some dark room

Gold turning into straw then into shoots
and finally seeds blown in the wind

Poem-A-Day #12 : them/arrows

them/arrows

I wonder about the people who design iconography
the mindset of simplification is foreign and mysterious
like night time streets in a city I've never been to

There is a path along the canal from Canada Water to the hostel
and the group of young boys is tossing the ball between them
it's probably mid-day and warm out but could just as easily be night

You - I - We - are walking far enough behind them
that we can't hear their words jut the periodic laughter
and the sound of the ball hitting cobblestone

The first time I came to this canal it was 5 in the morning
it was in December and cold and dark and wet
and there was only quiet and water and how do I know where to go

We could pretend there were signs with a little house on them
arrows ---> pointing to the path to the hostel doors

There were only windows reflecting darkness
the sound of luggage wheels catching on brick

Source - http://ppv-london.blogspot.com/2012/05/rotherhithe.html

Cruise

Cruise (Circle Line) 2/25

To your left is where Carrie Bradshaw
first said no to Mr. Big

To your left everything was covered
in inches of ash on September 11th 2001

To your left is Macys where you can
buy many great things

To your left is Trinty Church which stood
as all the rest fell on September 11th 2001

And to your right is New Jersey and
the Statue of Liberty

I've discovered a snag in my word of the day.

The e-mail with the days word arrived at 8:30PM in my inbox.

I am at work Sunday nights until after midnight.

SO

Monday will have 2 poems. One early, one late.

Mira (Francis Drake completes his trip around the world 1580) 9/26

The Concorde landed in Texas today
493 years to the day
that Francis Drake completed his
3-year trip around the world

And what monsters were found
at such high altitudes
floating belly up like otters among clouds

That night we were looking at the stars
and just below Pisces you pointed
the sea monster Cetus with its star Mira
demanding us to look

There is the beast that swallowed Jonas

The hunger of deep space must be gigantic

We will keep our noses down to avoid our fate