Poetry competition CLOSED 21st February 2015 2:11pm
WINNER
toniscales (Lost Girl)
toniscales (Lost Girl)
RUNNER-UP:
LobodeSanPedro
Page:
Best 5
Anonymous
<< post removed >>
Anonymous
<< post removed >>
http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/images/uploads/poemimages/188863.jpg
On Isolation
Now is the time when light
slows its breathing.
When the wind braids
the trees into chords
of dissonant longing
like fragments. Like echoes.
The tempo of things
slows imperceptibly.
The eyes of loneliness
are Casati's, smoky
at the edges. I watch
the sun pause
above its carapace, turn
its head as if waiting
for a voice.
A pearl of laughter,
glassy-smooth, shatters
from within the park.
I fold back into myself,
a glove too precious for use.
When the mask is worn
too long,
poison blossoms
like a porcelain heartache.
On Isolation
Now is the time when light
slows its breathing.
When the wind braids
the trees into chords
of dissonant longing
like fragments. Like echoes.
The tempo of things
slows imperceptibly.
The eyes of loneliness
are Casati's, smoky
at the edges. I watch
the sun pause
above its carapace, turn
its head as if waiting
for a voice.
A pearl of laughter,
glassy-smooth, shatters
from within the park.
I fold back into myself,
a glove too precious for use.
When the mask is worn
too long,
poison blossoms
like a porcelain heartache.
http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/images/uploads/poemimages/188655.jpg
Minerva
She is
the book falling open to November,
sweet hidden wickedness of rhododendron,
her mouth a tuberose, pale.
Sucking.
She swells upon the eaves.
They touch at her thighs
to feel the texture of acrylics,
something frail, transitory,
beautiful.
She walks the beach in August,
sudden music out of nowhere,
houseflies and hypodermics,
the shadows that rustle
behind shower curtains.
Her need to be compelling is painful,
something purple and waxen,
a delicate blush.
Still, she writes the way
her body should look,
provocative, breathless,
stirring agony in its wake.
Minerva
She is
the book falling open to November,
sweet hidden wickedness of rhododendron,
her mouth a tuberose, pale.
Sucking.
She swells upon the eaves.
They touch at her thighs
to feel the texture of acrylics,
something frail, transitory,
beautiful.
She walks the beach in August,
sudden music out of nowhere,
houseflies and hypodermics,
the shadows that rustle
behind shower curtains.
Her need to be compelling is painful,
something purple and waxen,
a delicate blush.
Still, she writes the way
her body should look,
provocative, breathless,
stirring agony in its wake.
http://www.fotothing.com/photos/be0/be09b076109d5620b37640cbb1e680a8.jpg
Walking at Midnight on New Year's Eve
The sparks fly upwards into the sky,
scintillating lights that change hue
like galvanized chameleons.
I wonder about the others
who are aching as I am,
who own a sadness not assuaged
by mere external merriment.
Perhaps at this very minute, some
are going so far as to end it all.
Bullets meeting skulls, blades
on wrists. Tiny pills scattered
from bottles.
I sit in the grass and feel
the weight of their leaving.
I know they have passed.
It is almost as if
they speak to me.
Their voices are like
the aftermath of the fireworks,
a troubling stillness
accompanied by the slight scent
of sulfur.
Walking at Midnight on New Year's Eve
The sparks fly upwards into the sky,
scintillating lights that change hue
like galvanized chameleons.
I wonder about the others
who are aching as I am,
who own a sadness not assuaged
by mere external merriment.
Perhaps at this very minute, some
are going so far as to end it all.
Bullets meeting skulls, blades
on wrists. Tiny pills scattered
from bottles.
I sit in the grass and feel
the weight of their leaving.
I know they have passed.
It is almost as if
they speak to me.
Their voices are like
the aftermath of the fireworks,
a troubling stillness
accompanied by the slight scent
of sulfur.
http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/images/uploads/poemimages/188305.jpg
School Days
Apples on a stick.
Make me sick.
You learn the rhythm, this way.
That way.
You and your friends on the jungle gym.
Penny Drop, Dead Man’s Drop.
Learn to hurtle your body
into empty space without a thought.
Your first sweet taste of death.
You and your friends in a burnt-out house.
Its scorched carpet, shattered chandelier.
Can you keep a secret, they ask, teeth chattering.
Your pockets lined with broken glass.
That's how he did it, that's how he did it,
he slammed her through the screen door.
You'll never know it was an accident.
All that red translucence.
In the bathroom, the mirror, its filthy words.
Bloody Mary. Her pale, furious visage.
The newness of someone's tongue
thrust down your throat.
Learn to twist your body in the swing.
Higher. Higher.
Till you can't breathe.
Till you learn not to speak of emptiness.
Because the boy three houses down
wants to lick you in a place you've never been.
Your stepfather's breath smells of beer
and something far more terrifying.
Your mother deems your worth
equal to that of the antique china,
an heirloom of legacy
best relegated to the closet,
too awkward and outmoded to display.
Higher. Higher.
Take one sip, then another.
Higher. Higher.
Learn to take one finger then another.
At night, wish you may, wish you might
while ghosts slide like tongues across your walls.
Their voices like fingers in your skull.
Their promises, sweet as candy,
tangling in the wind.
School Days
Apples on a stick.
Make me sick.
You learn the rhythm, this way.
That way.
You and your friends on the jungle gym.
Penny Drop, Dead Man’s Drop.
Learn to hurtle your body
into empty space without a thought.
Your first sweet taste of death.
You and your friends in a burnt-out house.
Its scorched carpet, shattered chandelier.
Can you keep a secret, they ask, teeth chattering.
Your pockets lined with broken glass.
That's how he did it, that's how he did it,
he slammed her through the screen door.
You'll never know it was an accident.
All that red translucence.
In the bathroom, the mirror, its filthy words.
Bloody Mary. Her pale, furious visage.
The newness of someone's tongue
thrust down your throat.
Learn to twist your body in the swing.
Higher. Higher.
Till you can't breathe.
Till you learn not to speak of emptiness.
Because the boy three houses down
wants to lick you in a place you've never been.
Your stepfather's breath smells of beer
and something far more terrifying.
Your mother deems your worth
equal to that of the antique china,
an heirloom of legacy
best relegated to the closet,
too awkward and outmoded to display.
Higher. Higher.
Take one sip, then another.
Higher. Higher.
Learn to take one finger then another.
At night, wish you may, wish you might
while ghosts slide like tongues across your walls.
Their voices like fingers in your skull.
Their promises, sweet as candy,
tangling in the wind.
http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/images/uploads/poemimages/188947.jpg
Stopping by Frederick's on a Foggy Evening
She wants her every breath to matter,
life piquant as a good first line,
the sound of the sea in every room.
Her hair smelling of mangoes and
pomegranate, her sex of Api Etoile
apples and Ballerina roses. Medici-red.
She wants the Maitland-Smith four-poster
fringed with Noguchi lamps and the men
in her life, those seemingly-organic
shapes, insubstantial and wispy as clouds,
ephemeral as love. She dreams of cornices
and minarets, the Pulaski dresser’s surface
littered with Moroccan fig candles, vintage
embalming equipment, Papillon daffodils
in Sapporo bottles. The burgundy velvet
walls dripping in Bettie Page prints,
Massaccio‘s "Madonna Enthroned,"
a Siouxsie and the Banshees resplendent
in all their fuck-you bravado. She wants
her love life as deliciously ambiguous
as Bierce, as grayly surreal as Enrico,
and glisteningly decadent as Cocteau.
A vintage ’50s pink nylon baby doll
nightie to trace the shimmering intaglio
of her desire, cradled by a cerulean
chiffon peignoir, soft as the inside
of her wrist. Most of all, her womb
to stop seeming like the single cracked
Versace Medusa flute on the serpentine
mahogany roll top. Empty, useless,
scarred with the tiniest of hairline
fissures. Its flesh-pink glaze
dimmed by dust.
Stopping by Frederick's on a Foggy Evening
She wants her every breath to matter,
life piquant as a good first line,
the sound of the sea in every room.
Her hair smelling of mangoes and
pomegranate, her sex of Api Etoile
apples and Ballerina roses. Medici-red.
She wants the Maitland-Smith four-poster
fringed with Noguchi lamps and the men
in her life, those seemingly-organic
shapes, insubstantial and wispy as clouds,
ephemeral as love. She dreams of cornices
and minarets, the Pulaski dresser’s surface
littered with Moroccan fig candles, vintage
embalming equipment, Papillon daffodils
in Sapporo bottles. The burgundy velvet
walls dripping in Bettie Page prints,
Massaccio‘s "Madonna Enthroned,"
a Siouxsie and the Banshees resplendent
in all their fuck-you bravado. She wants
her love life as deliciously ambiguous
as Bierce, as grayly surreal as Enrico,
and glisteningly decadent as Cocteau.
A vintage ’50s pink nylon baby doll
nightie to trace the shimmering intaglio
of her desire, cradled by a cerulean
chiffon peignoir, soft as the inside
of her wrist. Most of all, her womb
to stop seeming like the single cracked
Versace Medusa flute on the serpentine
mahogany roll top. Empty, useless,
scarred with the tiniest of hairline
fissures. Its flesh-pink glaze
dimmed by dust.
Anonymous
<< post removed >>
I'm going to play with the rules a bit and submit links to my "best" five of 2015 (I'd like to think my best is yet to come. If it's passed me by I'll pretend I don't know.)
Runaway
http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/poems/192922-runaway/
headstone
http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/poems/191991-headstone/
Kiara
http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/poems/194217-kiara/
pitch black sunrise
http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/poems/189716-pitch-black-sunrise/
net
http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/poems/192953-nets/
While the impetus for these poems were other DUP writing competitions, none were named as "winners" thus I've entered them as a collective here.
Runaway
http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/poems/192922-runaway/
headstone
http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/poems/191991-headstone/
Kiara
http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/poems/194217-kiara/
pitch black sunrise
http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/poems/189716-pitch-black-sunrise/
net
http://deepundergroundpoetry.com/poems/192953-nets/
While the impetus for these poems were other DUP writing competitions, none were named as "winners" thus I've entered them as a collective here.
