Fishmonger, I breathe into your lungs by imagining you into existence, your shelf of white beard, chest hair like the steel wool I scrape against my dishes. I imagine you and another heart starts up in my head, another soul conjured from nothing, or from a word. Imagine a red-headed hot-air balloonist, an Amazon fulfillment center employee who goes fishing on Sundays and never catches anything, someone’s grandma who used to work at a tomato soup cannery, and your head, too, will fill with bodies. Where is she buried, the one who first bathed in this glacial lake? Where are the bodies that carved this temple out of a mountain in India? I imagine their femurs stretching like a highway beneath the dirt, and suddenly my mind sags with the weight of them. Bodies living and bodies dead crowd that labyrinth of flesh, crown my thoughts with brains that can imagine. Matryoshka dolls, we hold ourselves inside.
Instead, he said, Brother! I know your hunger. To this, the Wolf answered, Lo!
Ohh that's a really strong start, @fortis! I love every image in this one - they're all so unusual but so very effective, like the "shelf" of white beard definitely helps me picture the fishmonger! At first, I interpreted the theme as being about how we remember other people and then they become a part of our lives and identities. But then I realised it could also be about fictional characters, especially in that first line, which is also one of my favourite lines from this poem. <3
2. Saying "Amen" Is Like Bursting Out From Deep Water a villainelle
I go to the lake to say a prayer and fill my pockets with rocks. I do not need air.
The lake's slate crests are snowcapped with dawn's lilac glare. Saying hello to God, I step off the dock. I enter the lake to say a prayer.
My clothes are heavy, my feet are bare and clusters of mussels cut them where I walk. I do not need air.
I sit cross-legged in sand, and there close my eyes against the murk. I talk. "I've come to the lake to say a prayer."
The pulse of water tosses my hair. If I cry, the lake does not mock. I do not need air.
I'm empty of everything; the lake doesn't care. So rise, rise! unloaded of rocks. I went to the lake to say a prayer. I scream "amen" into midnight air.
Instead, he said, Brother! I know your hunger. To this, the Wolf answered, Lo!
I think I'm already off the rails tonight wondering if you can plagarize yourself and how far creative liscence goes when it's never explicity said that the lines drawn should protect you from yourself if these words would flow freely like a thesaurusized river, I would not live in fear of drought. I am already so far from the tracks of thought. i am so far off the rails tonight the crash was never seen. Just yellow eyes of pygmy owls startled from within their cacti holes. I am lost amid the sands.
ghost cat
Spoiler! :
bloodstains on the desk again and cat tracks in the ink too bad this cat's my only friend She's such a pain I think.
It's such a shame, this cat's a ghost I'd love to pet her fur She's more mischeivious than most but I love to hear her purr
she yowls at the moon at night, baring teeth so sharp and cruel Her eyes glow with an eerie light they sparkle like two jewels.
I'm gonna love this house
Spoiler! :
I'm gonna love this house. I'm gonna trace with my finger all the grout between the tiles, I'm gonna paint it on a hundred canvases and cover the walls with them.
I'll never leave this house. You'll find my fingerprints under the wallpaper, I carved my name into the floor. My breath has soaked into the butter that's been forgotten in the fridge.
I'm gonna haunt this house. I'm gonna squeeze into the wood grain of the support beams. You'll never hear the end of me while my blood still stains the carpet. You'll never wash me out.
I'm gonna save this house. When they come to tear it down I'll make its bones as strong as steel. When arsonists scrape matches on its siding, I'll make it rain.
Instead, he said, Brother! I know your hunger. To this, the Wolf answered, Lo!
Some more poetry doodles. Wasn't able to write anything decent today.
??
Spoiler! :
I have some weird, arcane knowledge of birds and trees like I identified a downy woodpecker and some black-capped chickadees how do I know that these are bald cypress and those are cypress knees? It also goes for insects, I can always tell the hornets from the bees.
bitter
Spoiler! :
I am bitter about the happiness I see in other's faces they sashay down the stairs she swings around a lamp post he spins her against him.
That couple holds hands, that couple has the smileyest baby I've ever seen those two just hold each other in the dark as if letting go will split the universe.
and i taste bile and hate myself for it.
i asked for one thing.
how dare you tease it then yank it away
Bad day for writing
Spoiler! :
Today is a bad day for writing. I can't find words that fit. If I try to talk, nothing drips out. I'm forcing words to march in rank. It is not artful. It is not art. It's just word and word and word. And not to m_ntion, my "_" k_y is brok_n.
Instead, he said, Brother! I know your hunger. To this, the Wolf answered, Lo!
While God Created, we were writhing in an ocean of formlessness while He forged the sun, we saw without eyes and heard without ears while He spread the sky like a curtain, we raged and tried to rend the veil while the Earth gathered itself under His direction, we clung desperately to each other while the lava flowed and he called the rains, we evaporated while He mixed the oceans, we ripped open our not-skin and bled our not-blood while He formed Adam out of clay, our bones were peeling off our bones while He banished them, we were chafing against ourselves in a dark and hateful place while He burned within a bush, we couldn't comprehend the concept of having hands while He watched His son weep, we gnashed and couldn't bear it while He said that His creations were good, we fed ourselves into His terrible machine and we arrived in the bodies that we'd learn to destroy in time
Instead, he said, Brother! I know your hunger. To this, the Wolf answered, Lo!
Dear Marge, remember last July and all the green zucchini washing up? The hauls from nearby neighbors' gardens overflowed onto our porch. The veg that they bestowed was not unwelcome... till it was. We drowned within zucchini seas. We screwed around with every kind of dish: zucchini bread and pickles, roasts and casseroles. We fed on squash till we were sick, but still the whales (the biggest ones) continued to assail our porch. We took them in, but sickened by exotic recipes (jam, "apple" pie, and "meat"balls), we left them on our table. There, they turned soft and rotten. Unable to bear the shame of food-waste, we started passing to our neighbors any newcomers: reverse burgling zucchini and cucumbers.
Instead, he said, Brother! I know your hunger. To this, the Wolf answered, Lo!
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