Poem Spot - [ on the spot ]

the sirens are loud tonight
breaking traffic's steady hum
over dead air,
lightening edged currents
racing on sound, not breath.

i think the pressure is carrying over
me
and i don't know if i can fight against
its
weight anymore.

Airports are strange places,
not quite sky, not quite land, waiting, humming, running, waiting again.

We seem to spend most of our time in this world in limimal spaces. One foot stepping, one foot standing, too late or too early, too cold, too warm, unsettled; waiting, looking, grieving, waiting again.

And love is more often than not just the same strange place, one person leaving, one staying, we must have met too early or too late, and here we wait, here we watch not quite the sky, not quite land, not quite wrong, not quite right. Still waiting, wishing, hoping waiting again.

Here in the liminal space between swimming and drowning. Between breaths, caught in layovers, trying to figure out what we're waiting for.

just humming along
to the generator's noise
and wishing for a song
that would stoke some joy

i slouch in an airplane seat.
it feels right to be halfway between worlds,
my only bridge to reality the popping of my ears.
a stranger breathes beside me. we are sharing
the same air, two pairs of lungs in sync, and yet
his eyes are foreign, and mine are lonely.
i think it'd be nice
if this were a rom-com, if i could bend over an armrest
and lay my head on a shoulder. if i could share my earbuds
and feel our heads bob at the same time with each drumbeat.
a pop and i nosedive into reality.
the window could hold a thousand sunsets, a thousand stars,
a thousand lights glittering below me
and not one of them would be bright enough.

I've walked across this street before

Only the gravel, the shopfronts and the faces have changed

This chill breeze remains the same,

blowing in forgotten parts of me

taking enough dust away with it for me to realise

I've walked across this street before.

In the midst of a frighteningly cold evening,
Your gaze pierces through the frigid air
And haunts me to my core
But your eyes speak not of anger
Or hatred, or loathing
But rather disappointment
Which is perhaps the most chilling realization
You could have forced me to confront
That winter evening

Love is a telephone wire;
it can expand, contract,
it can rust. It can
voyage through airspace for miles,
then tumble, tipsy, into a garden next door.
Don't sing praises for love,
love as fickle as a signal;
it can sway, and somersault away,
it can rust.

It seems that with every
day I get worse news,
but maybe the spiral will
end one day once I reach
the bottom of this thin
staircase to the bottom.

i am certain
the birds have sung
poetry more beautiful
than every word
written in human language.
how could they dare compose
anything less, for they
have brushed the sky
and lived to tell its story.

Now I wonder whether
I came down to the Earth
Or up; if up I came,
I pray that I fall back down,
And if down I tumbled
Then I pray for wings
So I can fly away and
Take the clouds with me.

Sitting on a lone hill, I yearn
For the sweet salvation that comes of
Unburdening oneself to those who listen;
Pillar-people, holding us up in the night's turmoil.

Dark clouds gather,
Gather like the carrion over the fields of death,
Looming over me, threatening
And consuming joy, until they come;
Atlases of my soul, lifting the sky
Holding the storm and sleeping earth apart.

Cool Disconnect

We might have been
in love, I don't know; I guess
one rarely does. Frost is a process
of exposure; who knew
water vapor becomes crystal
if the air tries to freeze.
There are some things
you only know in hindsight,
feelings spinning in between
air particles, but left too long
in winter; crystallize. I am slow to realize
seasons changing until the air's too cold to breathe,
hold my breath, don't let the truth sting,
dizzy on lack of oxygen, clarity;
crystallizes. But I don't really know you
anymore. It appears some change of form
has taken place, before the frost
had any time to melt, it was already gone.

I've been seeing a lot of poems in the "worst poem ever" thread, let's get this one going again too!

Vision of a Visage

A bruise-shade of blue
floats up from the glass
lake surface.

Where were you
when I saw this? at home,
maybe asleep.

I saw your face in the water,
brimming with rage
overflowing -

black ink lines billowing
out, sparks from a flamethrower
into indigo nothing.

Maybe a dream, or
maybe my guilty conscience.
Maybe it doesn't matter.

My leg twinged on a walk
earlier today, and so now
my eye carries a tear that
doesn't want to fall and just
wants to linger and make me
feel like I'm crying when I'm
fine.