Aley's Corner

I might as well make them public. I'll put up all my attempts here once I'm satisfied with them.

By satisfied with them I mean feel free to rip them apart if you so desire once they're up here.

The World Wakes Up

Thaw the land from the trap of cold
the pause of the world.
Play the tape, let dead be dead
as corpses rise from the
white washed lands,
a fantasy realm where things lay quietly
aside from us, and the cold wind.

Welcome back the smell of dirt,
mud underfoot, squished between toes,
dragged around like seeds
before they sprout. The crisp
chilled air
still lingers.
Humidity returns
as rain pelts into ice.
The smell of moss, young air.

Pull out the earplugs in since late.
Send forth the songs of birds.
Thaw the thicket, the ditch, the forest.
Welcome back the geese, crickets, the doves,
the crack of ice, moaning of trees, and roar
of cars- teens just out of Driver's Ed.

Throw open the house
Wash away the death of Winter
Welcome in the Spring
Brush off the jacket which sat since Fall
Watch the trees wake up
Rake away the snowy days of night

Join me in the vengeful world
where flowers bow to frost.

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This one isn't going to show up right, just look at it when I posted if you want the real formatting.
Stair Idly

I can see
their lips
I can hear move.
their voice
I can smell vibrate in
dinner cooking my ears.
I can feel on the stove
the warmth with love.
I stare of home.

I can't see it though,
Why can't I see it? Why don't these words
spell things I know? I know so many words aloud
I know that I can understand, so why is this so hard?
They say it's because I'm dumb
when they read it, and I don't understand.

I know that even if I fail right now,
it's not because of that.

It's because of something else.

There's another problem here.

Time,
it takes time
We don't have time for time.

Feint

Solid land presses up
against my feet. I hear that
I am not straight.

Every day I walk on a sheet of ice.
I'm still on solid land, sliding around,
hoping that soon I'll be on snow.

Just hold off half an hour
I'm driving home.
Wait
I'll be home soon,
deep breaths.
Water, lots of water.
I'll get there fine
I have to- right?

When I run, I fear
a drink in the lake where
I'll spin in vertigo to
the depths of the lake.

Ice will cover up blood from my fall
my body, lost to limestone caves.

The first is very beautiful, especially the second stanza, both in words and form. Lovely!

I love the imagery of the first. I really get this sense of banging open those shutter windows and like broadway-musical-singing to the top of your lungs while birds chirp along with you. Hehe.

Stair Idly - Love the first part, just so clever, and the word plays <3 and form/content-wise, it's great. The second part seems telling though.

Ooh the third one does some interesting things. I particularly liked the vertigo spinning/dizziness. Limestone caves is a good image to end with.

Middle Fish

Lights blind across the black
of this old dusty room.
City-life, but this place is not a city.
Country-life, but the woods aren't thick.
I can walk to the grocery store,
but there is no bus.
This is where I live.

I see these people at the market.
The fish in my tank.
I am just a tetra
mixed in with gorami.

I've caught Fin Rot,
Dropsy is still an ailment I'm trying to fight.
I've eaten Ick, seen Pop-Eye.
I made it just a tetra
in a sea of gorami.

Instead of worrying about
which gorami will finally swallow me whole,
I accept.

Beach

Standing at the beach
balancing on sand
water holds in.

Toes squish into warmth,
breaking to chill
but nothing is enough
to quench the heat.

People scatter like flies
on a pile of shit,
searching for their take,
unwilling to wait.

Down further there's a dog
ready to pounce anyone
that travels near.
He's chasing balls,
how long will that last?

The dog's owner is absently
sunbathing the leash beneath her paperback.
She lays with her arms up
exposing hairy pits.

If the beach were less
than our society...

Experience

Petals line the tracks
as sacrificial skins.
On each a verse is stained in ink.
Some whisper Oh to be ignorant,
others Why am I...? Right-paper.

The sticky tracks
create circles of poorly made holes-
their goal, to capture the car following them
leave them to the petals.
Some stuck cars (burned connections,
people trapped in suction-cup
pits of doubling back) try getting out
pushing their cars free.
Others get a helping hand.

The petals are driven over
when paths retrace themselves.
Mud smears away the memories.
They're ripped, shredded,
stick in the tread- shattered,
mashed together-
others are just replaced,
covered by
more petals
falling

out.

In this riverbed of dug tracks,
all petals come from the same flower.

The Farmdog's Children

Hansel sucked his bread as
he sat in the cold dark woods.
Gretel thought about home
longing to return.
They huddled around the fire
watching the faeries play as shadows.
They were too far from home
to know their way back.
They knew that no guardian
would take them in willingly.

Gretel huffed as she remembered the words
falling from that wicked woman's mouth.
'Just leave them in the woods,
there are too many mouths to feed,' she
said as if they were just dogs.

Into their camp growls echoed.
The children quivered wishing that
their father was near
but he wouldn't save them.
The shrub rattled and bashed until a horrible foot
slapped down against the leafy ground,
claws digging in. Following the paw came a leg
and a head popped through the underbrush.

Out came a ball of fur, birthed from the thicket
and that fur woofed lazily at the children.
"Saltan!" cried Hanzel, and lunged at the old mutt
"Did she kick you out too?" asked Gretel,
breaking off a piece of her bread and holding it out.
The aged dog groaned and flopped down near the fire.

"Well now that Saltan's here nothing will hurt us
even if we never show up again at that step
and all the pebbles are stolen by the crows," proclaimed Hansel.
Gretel shook her head. "But we may never
eat again, or have warm beds. How will we live
without food and water?"
All that Hansel could say
was "We'll make do."

Jocasta's Bangles

My shoulders are heavy with the weight of eyes.
They glare across the room at my screen.
How am I going to escape this? How fast can I minimize these things?
Why do I need to? They're nothing bad! I'm not doing anything wrong.
Are they reading it right now? What are they doing?
Why do I care if they're reading it?

The eyes slash across the screen, linger as they
jab into the half finished ideas.
Can't they just move on? What are they looking at?
What do they think of this? Do I dare suggest
that they read over my shoulder?

The one time when company of just one other
is as oppressing as a room staring,
anticipating your next move. Thank god
Writers Pads are without the anxious waiting
of seeing them stare towards the screen.
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Jocasta's Bangles 2.0

My shoulders are heavy with oracles.
The eyes slash across the world, linger as they
jab into half-finished ideas.
They observe before history has unfolded.

What trouble they cause! These oracles!
They are flies on the great shoulders
of Free Will, scolding her and fixing her design.

The one time when the company of just one other
is as oppressing as a room staring,
anticipating your next move. Thank god
Writers Pads are without the anxious waiting
of seeing them read the screen.

Pretend this is for the 9th
Exponentially Bad

Light bounces through the space
enters these orifices, great globes
reflecting the vibrations, calculating
what the beams are supposed to be and
translating them. It performs as
a master computer stuck within a larger sphere,
bent out of shape that spills down into
these blobs like a lava lamp.
The blobs don't matter though
the larger sphere doesn't even matter.

What matters is that these little orbs
-this great computer-has a fatal flaw.
It's missing something crucial, some key
component to the equation that it's using.
It's almost like it's forgetting the exponent
so the answer always comes out flawed.

When equations go bad
you have to start from scratch.
I don't want to start from scratch though
so I'll just muddle away with my eyes
trying to see where I am missing my exponent.

Paradise

Summer, the bright sun on the flowers,
flashing like stars across the field of green.
They freckle the earth with their faces blanketing
the hills and valleys. Such wonder
could only be ruined by the loss of mystery.
Even as the weeks change and the flowers wilt,
unable to maintain perfection, this gulf of beauty
remains paradise across the ages.

Every rock erodes and dives into the earth,
determined to renew its form,
prefect its natural design by pressure, melting
and reforming into something it feels is better.
Even in this new life, it is still perfect,
it is still land in paradise.

Fall brings the baring of branches
like a child naked to the world
for the first time. It is strong enough to
stand nude and still win in battle.
The tree's bear chest roars to the clouds
which pull across the sky with winds
that are determined to put the tree
back in its place among the bowing saplings.
Paradise is a wild place, somewhere
untamed by even nature herself.

It is a fleeting notion: what is perfect.
It is the last breath of air before the winter breaks
and spring comes back to the lands,
soaking through the frozen earth turning the soil.
It is the first sun of the morning, and the wind
gracing limbs, fur, hair, trees, and pulling free
the cloud of smog across the city lights.

Paradise is the sparkle of stars across the lake,
and every phase of the moon. It is the beauty of a single thought
a whisper in the minds across a group when they all realize
they know exactly what they want to do and no words
are needed before they stand up, and rush off together
laughing through the woods
to go cause mischief in the night.

Trapeze Net

Wrap me up tight in this blanket of silence.
Let the warmth encase me
like I dove beneath the water.
I won't hear what you're saying, my ears are covered,
and I can't see that you're talking, my eyes are shut.
I won't smell the rot, my nose is stuffed,
and I won't feel the tacky stick or dampness wrapped
in this blanket. The blanket is too thick for that to get through.

I can walk down the hallway.
across the street.
through the woods.
in the dark.
I can drive my car.
my family forward.
my generation to a new beginning.
All I need is my blanket.
my lucky sock.
a penny I found in the street.
a pass-me-down doll with it's eyes ripped out.

I don't ask too much
when I never asked for it from you.
This is my own thing, something I created
something I cherished and found myself.
This is something that has no meaning
without me, and with me it is worth everything.

Tardy Battle

Hurry through, there's something you're missing.
Make your way to the grand room before
the light has faded from the room.
Standing at the bottom of a cliff,
darkness is tossed across the crowd.
Climbing, up, and back,
reaching for some blankness within the sea
of flashing lights, reflections off faces, skin, glasses.
Some heads dance like trophies from a beheading,
others are still attached with globs of color, blanched.

Settle in and for just a while, disconnect from reality
with those surrounding you, embrace suspense of disbelief.

Devil's Mountain

Claws drag across the crumbling rock
it smashes down the cliff, cracking up
twisting like a ballerina in a pirouette
Arms extended reaching for stable ground.

Still claws gouge into the face of the cliff trying to
find that one rock which won't forsake them.
The paws scratch against the sandstone
it melts away beneath the force
sending them further towards the ground.
Each dig drops the massive beast towards the end.

Alas on the ground again, the bear stares up
Wishing it were nimble enough to climb the gravel heap,
hungry for the berries that grow through the rocks
the roots an exclusive net, which never included him.