Your favourite collaborations from DU poets.

“His voice drifted across the room
like smoke rings dancing on a gentle breeze
I sat, entranced, not just listening
but hearing, really hearing
every word that caressed and tumbled
from his lips
 
He spoke of trees and broken hearts
he whispered answers
to questions I’d never thought  to ask
and still mesmerized by the resolve in his tone
I couldn’t keep my eyes off the beautiful shapes
his mouth made …”
in my mind’s heart and vision, I spied her
in the corner alone and in dream concentrate
while I spoke my scribe to the crowd all huddled
deep within the bowels of the city in this
hollow where heretics, patriots and thoughtful
bards would come to share their bleeding souls
in voice for only the chance to be heard.
 
This place has always brought in the cold
the cold and searching and she appeared
neither to me.  I continued with my Poetic
Slam but speaking only in motions for her
eyes seem to shine through the low lighted
candled den of philosophical heavy misting
and I longed to discover her story her
wants if only for this night…
 
“I allowed my gaze to linger
to drift and the pause again
ensnared by the magic his tongue spun
like a butterfly trapped in sticky webbing
only wishing never to be freed
but rather devoured mercilessly
and the last notes of his voice resonated
through the underground, through me
I craved to know him,
the gentle soul that sang to my own
like he knew my pain and my fears “
 
As the final stanza dripped from my lips
like when I tried to drink to fast my eyes
rarely lost sight of her, her Beautiful
face of seemingly innocence and wonder.
 
I slapped the skin of the few fans I had
there and hugged back some strangers who
liked my shit when my time was up.  And
ordered 2 shots of my favorite scotch
and whatever “she” wanted. As I strolled
over to her table she look up at me as if
her eyes had never left me.  In closer
scent, I saw she held secrets and without
a word, words, beckoned, begged me to
ask the questions that required no answers.
 
“Hi.”
 
“In that one word, that simple greeting
I felt he’d spoken a million poems
sung a million songs, one sweeter than the next
each compelling me to spill every heartache
I’d ever known
knowing he would listen
that it would be as natural as breathing with him
 
ignoring my wine glass, i drank him in
savored every inch of his face
as though I’d thirsted only for him
all these years, for the unknown
suddenly revealed to me in prose…”
I studied her features in an infinite gaze
while I measured my desires of what exactly
caused me to want her, to want more of her
than the traditional expectation of a man
and a woman meeting under guise of friendly
conversation and a drink.
 
Her grey-blue eyes sparkled through the
smokey dark with the anticipation of more
more than words…perhaps something new
different; I too, wanted to play…
 
“I’ve never seen You hear before; Do You
write poetry?”
 
 

 
Torturous,  this wears wet
bleeding out loss in life
be it not draining and soaking
hung out drying
watching sunrises
stead the settle, knowing
this, fills the hours
there, no holding it back
rolling thunderous black cloud
what keeps thee free being,
wracked by its wrath

Dirges and cries of sorrowing hearts
Of those that strew the petals of roses
Upon the mile that stretches far
To the garden where none astir
Where hearse move over fallen tears
What gods listen to the chanted  prayers
not one who raise Lazarus
but one who writes the RIP
For dead he is and dead will be
Interred within where darkness blooms
Cried tears, a sea wouldn't raise him still

Laments lay at eternal fall
Gabelle salt tax the Dandi March
ever crossing, forming time lines
scarred singed befallen boughs
wearing this very everyday
which is the true carrion
they that become light
or the carried carcass seared
smouldering, ashen within ashes  
pull the string that says
continued journey should always be

Lamentations and wailing dirges
Such display of beating chests
Ashes on hair and ripped robes
Only those left behind mourns so
The one that left is far from bereft
For there, another mystery lays
Beyond the grave, the moral sheen gone
Nothing hinders, nothing worn
Just spirits that waft through the clammy air
So bemoan not those who left,
But mourn those that’s left to moan

the passing bells' constant din
ambience within the sphere sound booth
shaken not stirred, aware awake, Your say
wearing whys' witless what isn't
to days of the burning pyre, final rest
holding aloft the torch for life, ever present
tending to needing, nary the needless
doing dare a dance upon the wicked stage
juggling acts, magic, smoke  
looks within mirrors, ringmaster yells
come ye come all the greatest show of all

(Collaboration by Indie and Rachel O.)

I breathe this vapor like prophecy
with disillusioned expectancy
for divulged secrets
that numb my pain; timelessly

smoke swirls, a phantom in a bottle
from my mindless exhale; nothing

all treasured discoveries revealed
solely to prophets or messiahs
no divination to the chemically fucked

unable now to know the difference
of consciousness

like time traveling to nowhere
and everywhere
where I am are nothing
and everything

here we can breathe  
eternity into our lungs
and melt under the weight
of our internal flames
one and none and everyone

my soul in a bottle, I’m the phantom
of my own exhale
divining endless yesterdays
because today, tomorrow does not exist  

© 2012

Folded, tucked in a corner
his parched throat shrills
infectious, contagious, lethargic
knighted and knotted in misery

when time stops
apathy doesn't.

how could you feel?
the torque his stomach takes
when a soft wail becomes a plea
and an oath becomes a stake
interfere; you're not a hero
you're out of place

by the boots of steel-toed injustice
we're all beaten
and ragged

discriminate and
salivate like a dog
spit we will
unlike on animals, still
one man's castle is
another man's pin cushion

bleeding their wounds
weakly latched to life
as fortitude fails
souls do wail

right - in their eyes

tears in his.

I know I can't quite grip her,
but a gentle hold alone
would extinguish her
instantly

she needs my insecurity
wrapped in armor,
my confidence disciplined;
like a saddle strapped
on white water rapids    

he’s a weakness I want to fall into
with strong arms to lift me to new heights
lost in the vulnerability of his wanting eyes

like a Cheshire smile on drunken lips
he whispers my desires back into my ear  
ruby bitten mouth, a hand on his shoulder
his hand lingering on a trembling hip

I’m close, but not close enough
waiting for him to put his money
where his mouth is
and show me a dark new world

I sense that bellow the spectral vacuum
of her sleepless night
is an indigo;
that can be greeted
with a fragrant arrangement of phrasing  

but to entice the morning dew
to appear on the silken milked poppy
of her dawn

I must excite the air

until trade-winds coast along her topography;
planting flags of conquest

he has a way with words
that leaves me wanting to melt
into the soft hazy carpet
my body burning deeper than my flushed cheeks
that caress the stubble of his chin
hands slip past clothing
to flesh that aches for sordid dreams

I’m weak and lost
in the landscape of his face
that speaks of more to come
as he lights my skin on fire
with ardent fingers

I want to feel the world promised on his tongue
and repay him in pleasured notes

and when the world is worded  
with enough flowers;
to pad the fall of collided stars,
my barb will be engorged to berry
and I will prick her til quiver

there are assassins
hidden in the nirvana valleys
of her thighs,
archers with intoxicant-dipped arrows
along her breasts

my army,  
exicted to ecstatic kamikaze;  
can't wait any longer

to plunge into her death

and get lost in the labyrinth
of his pulse
beating into me like a rose petaled breeze
where heaven floats
with pain fuelled ecstasy

I’m a feather in white flag surrender
open and filled with the life of him
that has me yearning for the destination
filled with teeth and nails
and tongues and the breaking of vows
as we prolong the ending
that awaits

my thighs wrapped around him in possession
and submission
like a drug
that leaves me begging
even as I’m enclosed
in the greatest of highs

finally,
when the friction from
frenzied, teeth-torn panties
cools

in the pooled collection
of our deliciously decadent discharge

I will plead for forgiveness

for taking so long

to sensually brutalize her;
from earlobe
to eager opening

I lie mellowed and aching
in all the right ways
my breath the only betrayal
to the steady calm my body portrays

I listening to the sound of his voice
whisper sleep like a lullaby
as sweat cools in the hollows of our bodies
that filled and exploded
into the glorious afterglow
of a night I won’t soon forget