Submissions by Ahavati (Tams)
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Poet Introduction
Don't make me take my pearls off.
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
18th May 2015 5:34pm
18th May 2015 5:34pm
12 R 3 BC
This road with its sharp tongue twists
and mid-west terrains, cars welcomed
by open hearths and business parking lots,
or swallowed by the cracked throat of narrow dirt
paths. There's an abandonment here of forlorn
pavement, rogue weeds overthrowing guard rails
and worn asphalt strangled by merciless roots.
The farm houses are tiny against the grain of wheat
labored into the landscape by pregnant mounds of earth.
Old bridges sagging under metal weight, a listless flag
dangling over yesterday's...
and mid-west terrains, cars welcomed
by open hearths and business parking lots,
or swallowed by the cracked throat of narrow dirt
paths. There's an abandonment here of forlorn
pavement, rogue weeds overthrowing guard rails
and worn asphalt strangled by merciless roots.
The farm houses are tiny against the grain of wheat
labored into the landscape by pregnant mounds of earth.
Old bridges sagging under metal weight, a listless flag
dangling over yesterday's...
999 reads
13 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
17th May 2015 1:12am
17th May 2015 1:12am
Phlox Oakington Blue Eyes
You reminded me of phlox
rounding a Sunny-side curve
to an old friend's house;
not Scarlet,
popping defiantly as grease
but Oakington Blue eyes -
denim, the color of torn Levis
and shirts worn in the 70's;
frost-hardy under the pressure
of ice and notorious for slow
warmth until conformed to bodily
contours with an aged grace.
It's been three plus decades
those curves still exist
as does the house
only with different occupants.
Our friend, your love left us
into the wind of...
rounding a Sunny-side curve
to an old friend's house;
not Scarlet,
popping defiantly as grease
but Oakington Blue eyes -
denim, the color of torn Levis
and shirts worn in the 70's;
frost-hardy under the pressure
of ice and notorious for slow
warmth until conformed to bodily
contours with an aged grace.
It's been three plus decades
those curves still exist
as does the house
only with different occupants.
Our friend, your love left us
into the wind of...
912 reads
5 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
15th May 2015 5:22pm
15th May 2015 5:22pm
Christmas in Vietnam
1964 - Second Tour
Christmas lights in Vietnam
were automatic weapon fire
blinking within the perimeter;
While back home in America
I broke the leg of my first Barbie
bending it too far back, my cow-
licked pixie at morning attention
transmitting code-aviation across
a cracked oatmeal bowl, a crippled
doll, a divided country, an ocean,
a continent, a gulf, a peninsula,
and Cambodian border to intercept
and slit the throats of ricocheted ...
Christmas lights in Vietnam
were automatic weapon fire
blinking within the perimeter;
While back home in America
I broke the leg of my first Barbie
bending it too far back, my cow-
licked pixie at morning attention
transmitting code-aviation across
a cracked oatmeal bowl, a crippled
doll, a divided country, an ocean,
a continent, a gulf, a peninsula,
and Cambodian border to intercept
and slit the throats of ricocheted ...
1380 reads
15 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
14th May 2015 3:38am
14th May 2015 3:38am
The Ecstasy of Gold
1964, ( somewhere on Route 66,
New Mexico, enroute to New Jersey )
I dreamt of elongated aisles aligned with molded
silver and a nut-wrapped sticky something
that wasn't leftover chicken or deviled eggs
with pickles and paprika. I was just a little girl
neonatal, like dough left to rise in warm glass;
an armadillo tongue curling up the inside
of my mouth and a continual loop transmitting,
"Desert sand, endless...a foreign and barren
tumbleweed mulling away distance." But it
was...
New Mexico, enroute to New Jersey )
I dreamt of elongated aisles aligned with molded
silver and a nut-wrapped sticky something
that wasn't leftover chicken or deviled eggs
with pickles and paprika. I was just a little girl
neonatal, like dough left to rise in warm glass;
an armadillo tongue curling up the inside
of my mouth and a continual loop transmitting,
"Desert sand, endless...a foreign and barren
tumbleweed mulling away distance." But it
was...
1155 reads
10 Comments
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
10th May 2015 11:23pm
10th May 2015 11:23pm
Spawning
I hesitated while burying my first secret under a bedroom
window at dusk the night before we deserted Sculthorpe.
I needed to leave something of myself that he might retrieve
rather than telling him face-to-face. It became the property
of rooted grass the color of mandrake we would never taste.
(It only gets to be the color truth when impaled with fate.)
I had my first kiss 4348 nautical miles (which sounds closer
than 5003 regular miles, and less painful than 8052 kilometers)
away from that place. I hesitate to remember anything, his...
window at dusk the night before we deserted Sculthorpe.
I needed to leave something of myself that he might retrieve
rather than telling him face-to-face. It became the property
of rooted grass the color of mandrake we would never taste.
(It only gets to be the color truth when impaled with fate.)
I had my first kiss 4348 nautical miles (which sounds closer
than 5003 regular miles, and less painful than 8052 kilometers)
away from that place. I hesitate to remember anything, his...
1233 reads
16 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
7th May 2015 4:38pm
7th May 2015 4:38pm
Natural Selection
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With raving, shriek'd against his creed
-- Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H., Canto 56
Centuries are linked by millions
of words that are mined for meaning
like the pure carbon of a diamond,
a black-lunged reason to believe
amid a paralyzing atmosphere of
appointed days, where even the gimlet
eye of God doesn't augur the taste
of copper from an empty cough.
Within one nucleus of our breath ...
And love Creation's final law
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw
With raving, shriek'd against his creed
-- Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H., Canto 56
Centuries are linked by millions
of words that are mined for meaning
like the pure carbon of a diamond,
a black-lunged reason to believe
amid a paralyzing atmosphere of
appointed days, where even the gimlet
eye of God doesn't augur the taste
of copper from an empty cough.
Within one nucleus of our breath ...
873 reads
5 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
6th May 2015 5:52pm
6th May 2015 5:52pm
Starz
I've seen them, alone and falling
as though excommunicated
by some angry church, burning
from judgment through the atmosphere
until swallowed by the deep
throat of outer darkness.
As a child I would wonder where
they landed. I looked for any sign;
glints of light that would reveal a colony
of outcasts; soul mates I could migrate
with, like a school of silver fish darting
in time across an ocean wall.
I thought I found them once, thousands
of them floating listlessly on a pond, ...
as though excommunicated
by some angry church, burning
from judgment through the atmosphere
until swallowed by the deep
throat of outer darkness.
As a child I would wonder where
they landed. I looked for any sign;
glints of light that would reveal a colony
of outcasts; soul mates I could migrate
with, like a school of silver fish darting
in time across an ocean wall.
I thought I found them once, thousands
of them floating listlessly on a pond, ...
1282 reads
10 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
30th Apr 2015 6:31pm
30th Apr 2015 6:31pm
Last Rites
I wrote once of Love because I believed we could
slay our demons one by one. In the after years
of self birth and altered names, we never changed,
simply realized spirits could actually dance.
There will always be the yearning, the scar tissue
that forms over the chagrined thought achingly tender
to the touch years after effects have worn off,
until one day another decade numbs the nerve.
The bite grows less sharp, the pine needles brittle
from time under olden steps; the cacao, now white, flaked
dryness down the...
slay our demons one by one. In the after years
of self birth and altered names, we never changed,
simply realized spirits could actually dance.
There will always be the yearning, the scar tissue
that forms over the chagrined thought achingly tender
to the touch years after effects have worn off,
until one day another decade numbs the nerve.
The bite grows less sharp, the pine needles brittle
from time under olden steps; the cacao, now white, flaked
dryness down the...
1208 reads
17 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
17th Apr 2015 2:45am
17th Apr 2015 2:45am
On Love
Love is not a poem drinking coffee at dusk
calculating distance of space to close between us;
It's a ratio of silence at the gallery opening;
the dark-cornered guest with an understanding
we fail to emulate.
It mingles like an impaled olive, cemented
in glassine. Its grief outshines
beautiful lichen munching satiated on stone
when taken for granted, or aroused.
The reminder hurts, so we close its orange-red eye
with the sharp fingers of our mouth.
We reason its truth until shrunken to a memory
of a memory....
calculating distance of space to close between us;
It's a ratio of silence at the gallery opening;
the dark-cornered guest with an understanding
we fail to emulate.
It mingles like an impaled olive, cemented
in glassine. Its grief outshines
beautiful lichen munching satiated on stone
when taken for granted, or aroused.
The reminder hurts, so we close its orange-red eye
with the sharp fingers of our mouth.
We reason its truth until shrunken to a memory
of a memory....
1772 reads
26 Comments
STORY POEM
Published
16th Apr 2015 5:46pm
16th Apr 2015 5:46pm
Amnesic
The poem drained us, pressurized meaning from
marrow becoming a tsunami of DNA colliding against your
tourist distance, binoculars dangling over your shirt's
hibiscus saturating your lie into the mundane of us
before hijacking the last flight out. You'll show slides
back home. Guests will feign understanding while checking
out the new BBQ instead. Your melancholy undercurrent
of nature shifts the patio bricks beneath their feet;
you pretend to refill a drink while staggering toward
the memory of crest when we were face to face ...
marrow becoming a tsunami of DNA colliding against your
tourist distance, binoculars dangling over your shirt's
hibiscus saturating your lie into the mundane of us
before hijacking the last flight out. You'll show slides
back home. Guests will feign understanding while checking
out the new BBQ instead. Your melancholy undercurrent
of nature shifts the patio bricks beneath their feet;
you pretend to refill a drink while staggering toward
the memory of crest when we were face to face ...
1081 reads
7 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
15th Apr 2015 3:05am
15th Apr 2015 3:05am
Shakespeare in Love
Thinking I would suffocate from heat, or dehydrate
into a shriveled leaf, I wanted to crawl under a rock
as those little animals in the desert, content
to watch the world turn when I felt you cross over.
When rain came I was wanton to drown—
allow mud to engulf my shoulders, blocking
sound to sleep so I could join you, rolling
through light as milkweed until we were home.
Yet, just as heat is abated by rain, thus is rain
by heat, always in time to push the clock forward
another minute. How easily my hands could...
into a shriveled leaf, I wanted to crawl under a rock
as those little animals in the desert, content
to watch the world turn when I felt you cross over.
When rain came I was wanton to drown—
allow mud to engulf my shoulders, blocking
sound to sleep so I could join you, rolling
through light as milkweed until we were home.
Yet, just as heat is abated by rain, thus is rain
by heat, always in time to push the clock forward
another minute. How easily my hands could...
1231 reads
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
14th Apr 2015 11:41am
14th Apr 2015 11:41am
Absolution
The wind is a trapped bird entangled in distance,
a refugee gull blown inland by a category two storm.
That angers her, because in younger years
it would take a five to separate her from the shore.
She hovers over McDonalds and Rite Aid for processed energy
to sustain her flight home, diving for concrete water life:
fries rolling like eels between cars and hamburger buns
opening like clams from warm-waves of the sun.
Sometimes resentment gives way to memory: hermit crabs,
platoons of foam capturing the beach and...
a refugee gull blown inland by a category two storm.
That angers her, because in younger years
it would take a five to separate her from the shore.
She hovers over McDonalds and Rite Aid for processed energy
to sustain her flight home, diving for concrete water life:
fries rolling like eels between cars and hamburger buns
opening like clams from warm-waves of the sun.
Sometimes resentment gives way to memory: hermit crabs,
platoons of foam capturing the beach and...
1376 reads
8 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by Ahavati (Tams)
