"Between Darkness and Light," "Bad Bad Air," and "Take Not a Smile"

Between Darkness and Light

Tumbleweed laughter from
sugar scarlet sultry lips
red on black on white.

It's all gravy, for real here
in the wee hours where
dark dolls flourish and
madmen drool eating their own poems.

Twinkling stars
parallel cars
eyelids too far
closed out the bar.

Tiny unvoiced fear wisp moments
dance upon circumstance
debauching reason daring deliverance
grail quest gothic veneration
eating microphones pining to eat up
the stuff of life, sweet spot
feme fatale, it's mad really.

Crazy mad;
mad like alligator wrestling
mad like never land
mad like keyboard desire
mad as if one scream would shatter
the crisp worn edges seen
only here in spiritus sanctum.

If we could only stay here
poised on edge of night
between darkness and light,
Hypnos
Morpheus
Somnus.
We'd be always unbroken in
shamanic sleepless singing Satori
like the dichotomy of sugared lips
red on black
on white. 

02/2007


 

Bad Bad Air

Frozen spider web cracked moments
sliced, flesh like, off from time.
Peeled in an instant.

Hush hush hush as
the crowd slips away.
Circular.
Heartbreak like a thunderclap.
Heartbreak like a hand grenade.

Unexpected,
strawberry beguiling
absolutely no words will lips
let slip.

I own this moment.
Just as I own all proceeding ones
and those that follow.

Sobbing upon birded shoulder
deep side eyes of a friend
heavy booted footsteps,
bad bad air.

Broken inner-child caterwauling
weeping fisted steering wheel punch drunk,
muffled scream,
glass taps.

An infinitely heavy dark night sky presses
into the chest.

Shadows of men, millions upon millions,
drive.
The continuing on
continues on
broken unspoken.

03/2007


 

Take Not a Smile

Let them take the leaves
and the grass.
Let them take
shiny crystal timeframes that
shimmer like snowflakes
in non-moments between moments.
Let them take
earth and sun and moon.
Let them take reason
and circumstance and serendipity
leaving only blind fate
machines
like floating exploding number
membranes.
Take everything visible
Take the invisible.
Take truth and death and beginnings and
sentences that lead
only to other winding ones endlessly.

Leave me this though;
Leave me a smile
and a word, spoken
smoke whisper picturesque rapture.
Leave me a smile
in dark night dim light
fire flight.
Leave me your smile
and it will burn in the airwaves like
chemo brushstrokes and spilled atoms
with an endless
exquisite delight.

03/2007


 

These poems are selected from Machine Of Almosting: Poems 1993-2016.

 

 

 

Edited for Unlikely by Jonathan Penton, Editor-in-Chief
Last revised on Saturday, August 24, 2019 - 19:21