Submissions by annie-lang
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
Poet Introduction
Annie has been an amateur poet for roughly seven years, writing mainly on the world around her in remarkably cheerful or strange terms.
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
18th Jan 2011 4:31pm
18th Jan 2011 4:31pm
And Not Before
We will go when I am ready
and not before. We will go south
or west, or east or north,
or wherever my thumb stabs
on the map tucked in the front pocket
of the jacket you haven’t worn for a while now.
And you will see the world as I do,
without your rainbows bouncing off
the walls of the waterfalls;
you will see the leaves in the gutters
and be sprayed by passing cars
when it hasn’t rained for months.
You will leave your office shoes by the door
and wrinkle your nose at country air
fouler than the city.
I will laugh and turn the car...
and not before. We will go south
or west, or east or north,
or wherever my thumb stabs
on the map tucked in the front pocket
of the jacket you haven’t worn for a while now.
And you will see the world as I do,
without your rainbows bouncing off
the walls of the waterfalls;
you will see the leaves in the gutters
and be sprayed by passing cars
when it hasn’t rained for months.
You will leave your office shoes by the door
and wrinkle your nose at country air
fouler than the city.
I will laugh and turn the car...
724 reads
1 Comment
SELF POEM
Published
18th Jan 2011 4:30pm
18th Jan 2011 4:30pm
Yellow Oranges
My mother paid for painting classes for me.
There were no artists in the family,
and maybe by coincidence, there were no saints.
I was only nine, and I don’t know what she thought.
In later years, she’d despair: ask where she’d gone wrong,
and what hell was this she’d walked into.
Painting classes were my hell. Endless hours,
designing yellow oranges and blue hearts
for a Valentine’s Day I never knew existed.
Ignorance is a bliss and a bore;
and then something to cry over, when torn away.
I stopped going when I was ten.
My mother...
There were no artists in the family,
and maybe by coincidence, there were no saints.
I was only nine, and I don’t know what she thought.
In later years, she’d despair: ask where she’d gone wrong,
and what hell was this she’d walked into.
Painting classes were my hell. Endless hours,
designing yellow oranges and blue hearts
for a Valentine’s Day I never knew existed.
Ignorance is a bliss and a bore;
and then something to cry over, when torn away.
I stopped going when I was ten.
My mother...
798 reads
2 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
27th Oct 2010 11:59am
27th Oct 2010 11:59am
The Atheist God
I descartes my body:
it’s a verb now, because
all that exists is my mind,
and in my mind I can
rule the world, rule the language,
rule the milling peopled chaos
that doesn’t exist at all.
Open the window, my self escapes,
drifting out of life and over
the steel-windowed city.
I am everywhere and everything
as the city exists here and only
in my mind; so if I descartes my body
then the only option left for me
is to be God.
So I am God, creating
lonely seas and skies in which
to lose my mind. And if
I could lose...
it’s a verb now, because
all that exists is my mind,
and in my mind I can
rule the world, rule the language,
rule the milling peopled chaos
that doesn’t exist at all.
Open the window, my self escapes,
drifting out of life and over
the steel-windowed city.
I am everywhere and everything
as the city exists here and only
in my mind; so if I descartes my body
then the only option left for me
is to be God.
So I am God, creating
lonely seas and skies in which
to lose my mind. And if
I could lose...
757 reads
1 Comment
SELF POEM
Published
23rd Sep 2010 11:47am
23rd Sep 2010 11:47am
Fishbones
The sky has fishbones –
skeletons swimming across the plain
and the city a coral reef,
dead and rusty now.
Perhaps the clouds are not bones
but cuttlefish; a thousand rows
of wispy bone and shell.
I have the attic room.
I sit in my wooden chair
and all there is
is an ocean above my head.
Which do I fear – that the window seal
is not watertight, or
that if I open it, I will be the one
to slip into the sky and drown?
skeletons swimming across the plain
and the city a coral reef,
dead and rusty now.
Perhaps the clouds are not bones
but cuttlefish; a thousand rows
of wispy bone and shell.
I have the attic room.
I sit in my wooden chair
and all there is
is an ocean above my head.
Which do I fear – that the window seal
is not watertight, or
that if I open it, I will be the one
to slip into the sky and drown?
914 reads
1 Comment
LOVE POEM
Published
7th Jul 2010 10:44pm
7th Jul 2010 10:44pm
Burning
The first was a firework.
Exploding suns, tiny in their brilliance,
in the pit of a night sky.
The flash and bang, and if
you stood too close,
the earth rocked beneath your feet,
like God's vengeance had returned.
You could see your face:
gold and red and purple,
white and flash, and sometimes
an eyesore blue in the moment.
And a moment was all:
the suns would die again,
their brilliance snuffed out,
and the silence would sweep back in.
But the joy, the involuntary smile,
the step back only after the burn,
and the throwing of...
Exploding suns, tiny in their brilliance,
in the pit of a night sky.
The flash and bang, and if
you stood too close,
the earth rocked beneath your feet,
like God's vengeance had returned.
You could see your face:
gold and red and purple,
white and flash, and sometimes
an eyesore blue in the moment.
And a moment was all:
the suns would die again,
their brilliance snuffed out,
and the silence would sweep back in.
But the joy, the involuntary smile,
the step back only after the burn,
and the throwing of...
837 reads
1 Comment
UPBEAT INSPIRATIONAL POEM
Published
7th Jul 2010 10:34pm
7th Jul 2010 10:34pm
The Little Things
I won't tell you of the greater things;
you'll find them out yourself.
We've all learned where love and hate are,
and when to cherish what we have;
when to sit back and relax,
and which battles to choose.
I can tell you of the little things:
the relationships where your biggest fights
are where the salad cream belongs,
and the friends you haven't spoken to in years
but still call bests all the same.
I ask you to remember
that when the taxi costs too much,
the rain outside would make you more miserable.
Indulge the guilt of imported food,...
you'll find them out yourself.
We've all learned where love and hate are,
and when to cherish what we have;
when to sit back and relax,
and which battles to choose.
I can tell you of the little things:
the relationships where your biggest fights
are where the salad cream belongs,
and the friends you haven't spoken to in years
but still call bests all the same.
I ask you to remember
that when the taxi costs too much,
the rain outside would make you more miserable.
Indulge the guilt of imported food,...
994 reads
1 Comment
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
31st May 2010 9:10pm
31st May 2010 9:10pm
The History Games
It’s nothing to do with time, thinks Aristotle:
just like a geometric line
is not made up of a series of points,
time is not a series of nows.
But let me ask you, Aristotle, things that I cannot.
My now is not yours; my now is now
and your now belonged to a world
that does not exist.
Your descendants are unknown
and you would not know them if you could.
Your name is a myth lost in the past
and the streets you walked are long gone.
If time is indivisible, then you were divided
and fell like invisible dominoes
to make a history that...
just like a geometric line
is not made up of a series of points,
time is not a series of nows.
But let me ask you, Aristotle, things that I cannot.
My now is not yours; my now is now
and your now belonged to a world
that does not exist.
Your descendants are unknown
and you would not know them if you could.
Your name is a myth lost in the past
and the streets you walked are long gone.
If time is indivisible, then you were divided
and fell like invisible dominoes
to make a history that...
841 reads
2 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
31st May 2010 9:08pm
31st May 2010 9:08pm
Heaven
There is no heaven at the top of the sky
because the world cannot be that small.
A blue free-fall to end at a gate
insults the black free-float beyond.
And how do we dream
of brushing our fingertips over the helium burn
of the stars and the alien suns,
if heaven hems us in to our goldfish bowl below?
because the world cannot be that small.
A blue free-fall to end at a gate
insults the black free-float beyond.
And how do we dream
of brushing our fingertips over the helium burn
of the stars and the alien suns,
if heaven hems us in to our goldfish bowl below?
905 reads
1 Comment
MISCELLANEOUS POEM
Published
30th May 2010 12:01pm
30th May 2010 12:01pm
Heatwave Fear
The leaves are shivering.
I don’t know the type of tree, nor care,
but the breeze is barely strong enough
to ruffle my hair or disturb
the sun-warmth on my face,
or let me ignore the pop and fizz
of champagne freckles beneath my eyes.
The leaves are shivering, all the same,
and I wonder what they’re afraid of.
I don’t know the type of tree, nor care,
but the breeze is barely strong enough
to ruffle my hair or disturb
the sun-warmth on my face,
or let me ignore the pop and fizz
of champagne freckles beneath my eyes.
The leaves are shivering, all the same,
and I wonder what they’re afraid of.
833 reads
1 Comment
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
30th May 2010 12:00pm
30th May 2010 12:00pm
The Skygazer
Back-flat spread out starfish,
eyes up-open and mouth down-shut,
limp sky-gazing like still driftwood in a solid sea.
Take the time out (off) to sky-gaze,
away from life and floating
somewhere that death could be,
weightless in the endless blue.
I am nothing here:
breathing (breathe in) and drowning (drown in)
in the dizzy sky
that is everything above,
around, around, (below?)
Here is the curve of the earth:
a world so small
I drown in the limitless.
Back-flat starfish; I beg you,
do not reel me in to shore.
eyes up-open and mouth down-shut,
limp sky-gazing like still driftwood in a solid sea.
Take the time out (off) to sky-gaze,
away from life and floating
somewhere that death could be,
weightless in the endless blue.
I am nothing here:
breathing (breathe in) and drowning (drown in)
in the dizzy sky
that is everything above,
around, around, (below?)
Here is the curve of the earth:
a world so small
I drown in the limitless.
Back-flat starfish; I beg you,
do not reel me in to shore.
859 reads
1 Comment
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
18th May 2010 7:03pm
18th May 2010 7:03pm
God
Sunlit garden. In the reflection of the glass
when you tip to drink, it seems
that you have your fingers wrapped around the sky.
The treeline wavers above, lost in wind and the Coke
as it smashes and breaks on cliff-glass.
Would you be God, then? Your hands
carving holes in the sky; your fingers
leaving black gaps in the cloud?
God sits in the sunlit garden, drinks,
and dreams of ugly things.
when you tip to drink, it seems
that you have your fingers wrapped around the sky.
The treeline wavers above, lost in wind and the Coke
as it smashes and breaks on cliff-glass.
Would you be God, then? Your hands
carving holes in the sky; your fingers
leaving black gaps in the cloud?
God sits in the sunlit garden, drinks,
and dreams of ugly things.
841 reads
2 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
18th May 2010 6:58pm
18th May 2010 6:58pm
The Bite of Summer
Sunlight, lemon-juice sharp, orange-yellow,
beats down cricket-bat-whack to the
burn-hot denim of your oldest jeans.
Your spine-curve relaxes when the pins hammer in;
rattle-and-pop of a sunlight crochet.
An hour or two, and your skin will be
a cross-stitch of freckles, pocks and lines
in the sand-dunes of dead skin cells.
Why do we ask for the bubble-and-boil
of heat on the surface and the answering whistle
of blood in your train-tunnel veins?
Lie spread out on razor-blade grass,
feel the hammer-and-tongs striking down to the bones,
and...
beats down cricket-bat-whack to the
burn-hot denim of your oldest jeans.
Your spine-curve relaxes when the pins hammer in;
rattle-and-pop of a sunlight crochet.
An hour or two, and your skin will be
a cross-stitch of freckles, pocks and lines
in the sand-dunes of dead skin cells.
Why do we ask for the bubble-and-boil
of heat on the surface and the answering whistle
of blood in your train-tunnel veins?
Lie spread out on razor-blade grass,
feel the hammer-and-tongs striking down to the bones,
and...
769 reads
2 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by annie-lang
