[x]

earth circuitAnd when the sun sinks, the earth's skin crawls:

I.
I wonder if this awkward creature would notice me the way I notice him.
He's so tragic at his throne
I stare after him longingly.
And yet,
He never realizes that I'm the one
Who forever basks in his brilliant beams.
If only he knew how much brighter he could burn
[with me]
He'd light up the universe.

II.
I heard him speak of thirst, once.
The quenching lust of the stars had run dry.
So that night, I brought along a jar of acid.
(And how it gleamed in his glow).
I handed it to him, wrapped in taffeta ribbons,
screaming
I wish curdling joy
On my gurgling boy

starspunobserving the romanticism
of hooded cemetery kids,
smoking cigarettes pretending
they are not dead.

you were always so sure
about my uncertainty,
you watched
all my pick up lines
drop things.

we built the heat
of the evening from the solidity
of starlight,

pretended
that two teens at the park
at midnight
is the stuff of teen novels
(cliches dim on
our leaf-gold horizon)

your eyes darted
from the gray expanse
of the churchyard & wandered
in thoughtful
paths.

i wanted to ask you
if i could follow. shove
the words aside &
remember that i came here alone.

i remember our innocence
in the static b e t w e e n
stars

the hungry look...the hungry look,

the wolves
weaving through
and around
the gully of your throat like wraiths,

we can feel you rusting, lost one;

i know that drainpipes and fenders
begin to crackle after winter wet

and that there’s a touch of snow
in all of us,

but no one,
no one could hold you as tightly as you do,
your whole body, bloodless in this arrest,

and if you will not let your fetters show
i will show you
there’s a place for going, and you haven’t gone there yet;

where quantum particles, once in contact, can retain a connection
even when separated

where you
wander up to a stranger
with your shirt inside-out
and say &lsq

Liquid Cityhere, at the bottom - lovers.
there are lovers disassembling
themselveslost in and to the
desperate motion in
of - waves.

- did you think the continents
moved themselves? see them slip,

in an open sleep. less go, come.
come and, and - again. trembling

here, at the bottom - their eyes
are lightless. hollow bodies left
restless,

the sea does not sleep.

a ribcage drenched in dust i have your ribcage, you said.
what should i put in it?

i told you i'd always wanted a fire,
the kind that would fill my eyes with starlight
and pump my blood full of passion, but

you're made of wildflowers, you said.
a fire would burn you to ash.

you wanted to fill my chest with
the sound of a train, whistling
far away in the night;
with the sound of rain smacking leaves;
with the sound the wind makes
when it seems like it's trying to speak

and you wanted to throw in the
smell of midnight in august
and the feeling of sand being
sucked out from under your feet
when the ocean inhales,
and the strange little moment of
bitter

A ParenthesisYou were (a parenthesis, that paused
the daily, mundane stuff
of life;
a bundled breath
of fresh joy,
and borne in the wonder
of love.

Gasping and grasping,
'til in quiet you laid
still;
and I, my Child,
lie in quiet, still
tears).

And now, that is all you are,
and still so much more.

preludesi.
blue rose into the city backdrop
like balloons, a million for the
morning sun prelude.

ii.
i've not slept a dream
but i have cried a salty face
and letters spilled like beans
into my moleskine,
almost as virgin as i once was
with few stories between my covers.

iii.
the kettle's belly boils
like my head upon a pillow.

iv.
i am guilty for rarely finishing my tea
even when i use the small mugs;
pour, rinse, repeat.

v.
perhaps today i will play dead.

vi.
perched behind my blinds
it dawns on me that i am surrounded
by walled neighbours, strangers,
they're just preludes to lovers
the way i am always
prelude to the one.

The Cat on the PorchYou asked me why I do not believe in ghosts,
celestial at four in the morning.
It becomes the common hour,
not a biting static shock in the eye veins like I anticipated
but dangerously vogue and precious
like a real diamond ring or sapphires on your breast.
No wood pecking or oil teasing or misshapen duck bills bleating
just clay, but lighter, lightest
and bright
seductive and crestfallen.

They bled Peter and Pangloss over a river.
I was wearing white for the funeral
humming 'home', the matronly letters
soothe me
clotheshorses and moonlight,
Mayan jewellery in my cabinet
the mother tongue kissing my molars better

But then there

the trouble isi'd like life to be
quiet and lovely
like distant church-bells
chiming through snow,
muted by the smell of
an old book and the
feel of a fire warming
me into my chair, and
a mug of tea, steeping
the moment in hushed
gratitude, easily in reach.

mutethings have been easier
without words &
we pretend neither of us care;

we stutter
splutter
laughing and choking
on puns &

when you bend me over nouns
i scream

louder
growl
more fluent.

the words are there waiting to be spoken

me . you . love

my dear, we've been mute
for so long

speak to me.

plumbumshe has a heart of gold
and she, a heart of lead
and she, a heart of uranium.

and they go walking sometimes, the three of them.

gold is confident in her worth,
untarnishable
bought and sold and bought and sold
the virgin whore

and lead behind,
heart heavy in her chest
guilt from bullets
and pride from pipes
and anxiety from irreparable brain damage

and somewhere off to the side treads uranium,
tumors growing,
white skin glowing,
thin frame for a dense core.

cliffcliff
e.bojnowski

on velvet roads,
I impale a belated dawn
with my incisors and
shiver with perfect leaves-

I have no qualms
with the dark hills
that slope
and stagger into
a bed of scorched fly husks:

where
the thrum of the ground
melds
with the rapids in
my clairvoyant ears.

tree, fiddler crabIt took days to hollow out the soft parts
of the trunk, dig out the tree-flesh and sap,
polish the raw wood so that when he sat,
there would be no splinters. He carved his name
into the side, like a blessing, a declaration
of good fortune, and stowed his forest inside.

Survival of the IllestAre those hints of lemon I detect?
Look, I'm just here to get wasted, don't try
to make it more than that.

I'd drink motor oil if I thought
it could get me high; chase it with a shot
of antifreeze
so
you can keep your survival instincts,
locked up
in that pretty velvet box (along with all
those other things
you thought you could convince yourself
you lived for). Instincts are the bare
bones of the impossibilities we wanted
to believe in,
remember,
those times you tried to tell me that
adrenaline was God's way
of saying
that
we were His chosen ones, we were
special, we were free.
I tried to tell you that instincts an

Davaothe equatorial sun
soft-etched on my skin,
there, del sur

islands away

the tan lines of shallow-bathing
in your eyes

there is so much time between

you
and
I

you spoil me, featherbreath
do i dare commit my memory
into dreams?

i laugh upon waking,
i did not realize--
i run when i go to you

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hungry for words.letters filling up bent-edge envelopes,
coffee filling underslept irises,
wax seals and buzzing typewriters

keep the monstrous claws
from stretching out of my abdomen.

hungry for words --

to rip them from the pages of my dictionary and homegrown thesaurus.
to wrap them around each rib --
each delicate tendon.

blood seeping through manilla bandages.
runny ink dripping among permanent red.

slipping between every word-gap.

i spy you.i spy you behind
cosmogirls and blank, vogue stares,
shiny girls in front of restored mustangs.

with your dull colors and blank pages
waiting to be written on.

i spy you behind
thoreau and emerson
half-used and disregarded

full of prose and accidental ripped pages
stained with coffee and candle wax;
crumbs leaving gaps between pages.

arriere-pensee.i felt your hardened lips against mine
and smelt your cigarette-coffee breath quite surely
though i ignored its bold presence, you relished mine.
read me the french in lolita with such accuracy
and you knew -- i knew --- that i wasn't listening
to the meanings of each phrase, rather the way in which you
wrapped your mouth around each "la syllabe".

you found my poetry compelling only because you knew its root
and the discovery wasn't so humble, wasn't so intricate.
but, each kiss you brave upon my shoulder is.

each, another to be tallied against your conscience.

searching for nostalgia.maybe the amount of bent keys
or stuck locks
will explain the many ways i've tried finding you.

perhaps the ripped maps
or bent atlas bindings
will explain the distances i've traveled.

no matter how many times i'm redirected
or how many cups of coffee,
i won't stop until i find you.

i won't stop until i get there.

grave waxPlease listen to this poem here. :)

how i wish i could be water
in a stream, river, lake, or sea.
all my worries would flow straight away from me.

lips would turn blue, and skin would turn green.
all my worries would flow over me.
through the sockets, nooks and crannies of my brain
underneath fingernails, they'd sweep though my veins.

other fish would glance and decide me as dinner --
they swim closer and closer, then can't get away quicker.

bisacodylPlease listen to this poem here. :)

a groan
like an orphaned soul
creeping up the esophagus

that familiarity
red, fraction of mass
in pill form
down into the orphaned soul

begins and unfolds
problems solved
and more rise

take a breath
take a sip
down a fix
irony.

a groan
like an orphaned soul
creeping up the esophagus

hunger's cry.
satisfied.

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Submitted: June 27, 2012
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despondent

by ~ocean-whispers, Jun 27, 2012, 12:29:34 AM
Literature / Prose / Fiction / General Fiction / Flash Fiction & Vignettes

_{i.

"are you sleepy today?"
"yes."
"but you were sleepy yesterday."
"i know."

ii.

she stirs her pomegranate green-tea until it turns from clear to purple
setting it on her bedside table and climbing back into bed again.
her fingers follow the bluer-than-usual constellation veins on her wrists and down
to the freckle on her forearm and then the scar on the inside of her elbow
crossing the tendon as if it were crux.
and then she remembered that God hasn't been with her lately.

iii.

today is long and sunny but when she steps outside the humidity creaks her bones
and her skin starts to inflame.
she assumes that if getting the mail is a struggle, having a child would be too.

iv.

often times when she sets her tea down she remembers that her Bible is in the drawer beneath
along with the crucifix necklace that her mother made her.

v.

her husband comes home late nowadays and she never questions why that may be
because she knows.
she would do the same too if she had a wife who took four different medications a day just to do the laundry.
instead she listens to him fall asleep right beside her and once she sees the gentle rise and fall of his chest she takes his hand in hers
and rubs her fingers over the bumps and knots that she once had memorized.}

despondentby ~ocean-whispers

Literature / Prose / Fiction / General Fiction / Flash Fiction & Vignettes

Edit: Thank you so much for the daily deviation! I was so excited when I found out that I jumped up and down.

Thanks so much to for the feature and suggestion! I really appreciate it.

I'm so awestruck right now, thank you!

Also, thank you to all the new watchers and to the deviants who favorite this piece.

I can't say thank you to all of you but I really do appreciate your generosity.

_____________________________________

this poem is for a contest that #LiterarySanctuary [link] is holding.

it's supposed to be about the month of June.

how could this poem be about June?!?! WHAT ABOUT THIS POEM IS JUNE-ISH? WAT.

yeah, i know it's pretty vague but i will explain:

"crux" (which is in the second stanza, fifth line) is a constellation that can only be seen in April, May and June.

the rest of the intended references are made in the first line of the third stanza. "long" - June has the longest days, "sunny" - June is very sunny (at least in TX), and "humidity" - in TX, June is very humid. (i don't go outside which is why i'm so pale)

that's honestly it, and i hope this is good enough for the contest!

thank you and good luck to everyone else that entered!

p.s.) i don't capitalize my poetry, i'm sorry if that disqualifies me.

p.s.s.) i wrote two poems in one night WOAH

Daily Deviation

Given 2013-02-08

despondent by *ocean-whispers ( Featured by ^NicSwaner )

love 1 1

joy 1 1

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sad 1 1

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~SnowCoveredLoyalty Feb 23, 2013

This is just amazing. Oh so many emotions there, so many. I have no words for just exactly how much I like this poem. It draws out so many emotional responses and is just beautifully written. I really like how different the first stanza is, and that it seems out of place at first but after reading through the whole poem it really does fit very well. That last stanza hits home hard.

~ocean-whispers Feb 23, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Thank you so much.

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

*Encompass--Rose Feb 9, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

Congrats on the well-deserved DD. I have rarely found literature I liked on DA--which may not mean anything to you because I am a complete stranger--but your poem is quite moving and well-written. My only slight criticism is the first stanza, which doesn't really flow well with the rest of it and made me keep looking back at it to see if I could figure out why it was hanging there. Someone else had a similar comment, so I won't belabor the point. Anyway, nicely done.

~ocean-whispers Feb 9, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

I am totally okay with suggestions -- thank you.

When I got that comment, I agreed, but I left it because I wasn't sure on how to fix it. I'll have to take another look at it.

Thanks again.

*Encompass--Rose Feb 9, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

You're welcome. I'd just try to open with an image or emotion. What impression are you trying to leave with your audience there?

~ocean-whispers Feb 9, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

It's supposed to be how the woman isn't willing to do anything other than the everyday struggles she already goes through.

It's supposed to be her husband but, I'm not sure how to write in a husband's voice without making that part sound whiny or out of place.

I'm actually considering taking that part out.

*thesquareroot Feb 12, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

i agree that on its initial reading the first stanza may seem slightly erroneous, however after having read it once, i feel its meaning and depth multiplies exponentially. but i think the most amazing part of the poem is that it is equally as heartfelt, depressing, and life-affirming when read from the male perspective as well.

~ocean-whispers Feb 12, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Thank you very much. That's actually really nice to hear -- men definitely can struggle from the same troubles as the woman in this poem, they're often not written about though.

Maybe I'll do that in the future!

*Encompass--Rose Feb 9, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

I assumed it was her husband asking if she was sleepy. If you leave it in, maybe you can try just some images to set the scene a little more solidly. Describe what the character sees and how it feels.

~ocean-whispers Feb 9, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

Thank you.

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