Prompt #70 “Speed Challenge”

Lustinian Ghita

1

When hair falls it’s soundless

And in this case the source is

Unwarranted and in this case

The source is inhumane

 

The sound of your fists

Like the slamming of a door

Never intended for passage

I must have loved myself

Less than the vacancy it takes

To knowingly let the devil in

2

Your lips move as paper

As the migration of origami cranes

Through a cyclone and

Everything you say echos

Like the execution

Of an infinite detour

3

If there were a vaccination

To preclude my existence

Would I consciously deliver it?

When magnified even saints

Look distorted and from that vantage point

Who can rightly say what I am?

4

In your sobbing breath

A whole choir of angels

Summons the guiltless dead

I have never been enough

Though to look at you

Looking so intently at me

Suggests that I could be

*

Since I did the 20 minute challenge the other day I just did a 10 minute challenge (everyone was at home trying to get my attention so it didn’t go so well haha)

Advertisement

Safety Pin

Zdzisław Beksiński

 

I wonder if today will be the day

I fall from your preliminary graces..

The ambulance came, its siren threading

With the motives of my recumbent pulse.

Dying feels nothing like release

When bred of obligation (real or imagined).

 

Every star ever sewn lays between us

The edges like the tips of safety pins

The sky, a subliminal regalia

For an entity scarcely witnessed

And just as bacteria can not perceive

Its host we are too modest

To reconcile the truth in analogy.

 

Sometimes all it takes is the light

Sliding uninvited beneath

My depressed lids and sometimes

It takes only one ‘I love you’ spoken

Without pity or ultimatum (real or imagined)

To restore one’s equilibrium.

 

11 Poems in 20 Minutes and House Update

Brooke Shaden

1

Innocence can neither

Be claimed nor extinguished

The older I get the younger

Everybody else seems

And we are all just scraping by

No matter how it appears

In our experience of envy.

Every war ever fought

Starts within a heart

So wounded that it cannot

Comprehend its own means

2

I think I might be

Beautiful after all

Because I have never met

In another man a mirror that

Could encompass me entirely

3

I don’t remember

Much after birth

It’s as if I’d died

Right there, unfinished

Wearing nothing but a shriek

And life is nothing but

A protracted declaration

Of all that we mean

But never achieve

4

Hesitation is the subtlest of poisons

Its occasional necessity makes

It especially hard to distinguish

I have imbibed more than most

And in every window there are

Two hand prints emblazoned

Like leaves suspended in

A perpetual state of Autumn

5

Your smile siphons speech

Perhaps I’ve always been mute

A shaft of lightening

Portentous and labyrinthine

Perhaps I’ve stood here

Intermittent as an exhale

Staring into the immensity

Of your salacious curvature

As lifetimes flit by unseen

6

I should have torn my sleeves

Left them folded on the duvet

Like a pair of decompressed wings

Anything to prevent the transmission

Of my ailing heart into your likeness

7

I hate the way you

Turn my tears into artillery

And if I am nothing

But a circuitous means

To an unsatisfactory end

What’s the point of pulling

The trigger?

8

Sometimes I follow

The flight of swallows

Thinking that if angels

Existed they’d also appear

Ordinary when dismissed

9

Every time I close my eyes

I see the blush of the universe

Undressing and everything

I need to know can be found there

In those bloody silhouettes

10

Who determines excess?

I’d rather my emotions be

Heightened than abridged.

There’s always someone

To edit my silences

No matter how gratuitous

The endeavor there’s always

Someone, palms twitching,

Waiting to refer my pain

To the next unsolicited suitor

And justifications always refrain

11

I have always been afraid

Of expectations knowing

That they are only ever

Defined when unmet

*

I saw this 10 poems in 20 minutes and thought what a great challenge “hint hint” I thought I’d give it a go I didn’t bother numbering them as I was typing and apparently I lost count. This was hard but fun. I didn’t have time to think or quibble with myself over vocabulary so it is all pretty much stream of conscious.

Inspiration for this challenge can be found here

Update

If you’ll recall from my last update the upstairs bathroom is one of our primary concerns (financially speaking it has in no way discouraged us from going through with the sale) and I’ve just received an update on the situation from Sam.

The insurance company suspects that the leak may be occurring underneath the floorboards, a misaligned drain pipe or some such thing. They are planning on drilling a hole in the living room ceiling to investigate. If the problem is easily rectified they will fix it which will allow Sam and I more time to save up for the remodel. If they find that the problem is serious they will have no choice but to redo the whole bathroom.

Now the insurance company doesn’t care about aesthetics so if they redo the bathroom they will likely keep the old bathroom suite and replace the walls and floors using the cheapest available options. The home owner’s daughter figured we might not want that so she said we can buy whatever we like and the insurance company will use that instead. So we wouldn’t be doing the renovations at all just picking the decor. Since the insurance company will be paying for quite a bit that does make renovating the bathroom cheaper in the long run (not to mention neither one of us has ever actually redone a bathroom) and since we would be paying for whatever decor replacements we want the sellers have offered to lower the price of the house. We knew we’d have to redo the bathroom so it makes sense to do it this way but on the other hand remodeling a bathroom is not cheap. We were planning on saving up a little first but we’ve decided to take the offer and hope for the best! I don’t know at this stage though if the bathroom will even require an immediate remodel but it doesn’t that should give us a little more time.

The Realtor is working on the contract now with the stipulation that the bathroom still needs to be repaired by the seller.

Red Light District

mindlovemisery

To reveal my heart

Is to invite infection

Another layer

To stymy the flow of blood

Another truncated smile

*

Delivered with grace

Despite an abiding nausea

I retract my claws

And shroud my spirit within

The flesh can act unaided

*

Hope is salt water,

A necessary anguish

That can, if misused,

Result in fatality

Survival is tantamount

 

View original post

Candle

Nature’s Geisha@Deviant Art

I don’t know

The precise moment

When my wings

Were canceled

In the aura

Of a molten stalk

Like the elevated eye

Of a motionless crustacean

I remember only

The meticulous fragmentation

Of my scaffolding,

In other words

The heartless severance

Of my burgeoning faith.

My legs are useless

When unbuoyed by the salt

Of my transgressions

If only I were newly born

But the fetid womb still grips

Like a parcel of anthracite

Around my naked lenses

House Inspection

Actual House (I will show you the inside if we get it)

On Monday Sam and I preformed the house inspection. We’ve been informed of a situation with the upstairs bathroom. As I’ve mentioned to some of you the current owners are older and the man has had a stroke. Since the stroke they haven’t been using the upstairs much and have been using the downstairs bathroom exclusively. Well one day their daughter felt a drop of water fall from the ceiling. When we investigated we saw a water line on the wallpaper (there were no other signs of water damage anywhere). So the family has called an inspector from their insurance company to check out the bathroom. The preliminary inspection didn’t find anything but they have offered to have a more thorough inspection done encase (if there would be a problem their insurance will cover the repairs). We decided to go ahead and take them up on that just encase there would be anything serious (Sam brought a high quality moisture meter but there wasn’t any problem detected).

If we don’t have the inspector come then if anything should happen after we’ve bought the house insurance wouldn’t pay because we would have been informed of the potential problem. Obviously we don’t want that to happen! The house is from 1978 and the bathroom has never been redone (it is clearly from the 70s but looks fine). We will have to redo the bathroom at some point in the next few years in any case but we just don’t want a potential problem to spiral out of control. We also need to buy a dryer the dryer they have might be the first one ever made and strongly resembles a giant toaster oven lol The other appliances are normal/modern. I don’t think we will worry so much about the wallpaper in the beginning, it really doesn’t bother me and I rather like the crazy red paper in the closet.

The other big expense with this house is the furnace. It has a functional properly maintained oil furnace but we don’t want to burn fossil fuels. The family is using mostly electric heating even though the furnace works but electric heating is expensive. We want to upgrade to an ultra energy efficient, environmentally friendly system. The system we really want is 96,000 kronor yikes! It saves 90% but it will take time to save up for something like that. We will also update the electric box at some point (it is grounded and there isn’t anything wrong with it).

Anyhoo the house looked good and we love it! No contracts have been signed yet because we have to wait for the inspection results on the bathroom. We want to buy the house even if there is a problem with the bathroom because we knew with a house that age we’d need to redo them anyways. The house I am in now is 100 years or so (it had dirt sellers and no electric). At least this one isn’t so old that we have to redo the whole electrical system (a lot of houses here are very old). The kitchen has been redone in the last few years so that is a bonus and it has lots of cabinets. Everyone wants the blue bathroom suite in the downstairs when (provided we get the house) we redo that one but you know I like the blue.

Sam and I have been joking that if we get this house we will have empty rooms (we are going from like 50 Square Meters to 165 Square Meters) and cabinets and when we have a house warming it will be with the caveat “Bring your own chairs” For some reason we never have chairs (I plan to hit the second hand shops for some cool old chairs).

Wordle #23 Kite

If I were a kite
I’d be a skein
Of flimsy turquoise threads
An elongated waif
With percussive zeros
Stitched into the surface
Like an anodyne’s red print

I’d sail as a spade
Pummeling the intractable wind
As if it were a bastion
Of multifarious veneers
I’d skirt the powder
Of interstellar debris
As it wafts pre-personification

If I were a kite
I’d fashion bassinets
Of untenanted clouds
That I might remain amongst
My native contradictions
Like a funeral shroud
Or a trans-migratory relic

Inescapable

Parablev@Deviant Art

I am the only one

Who never departs

Unremarked

Each morning I enter

Precisely as I passed

And each night I fall

Negligent into the same

Faithful vestibule

Like a catatonic monk

 

If it were another’s madness

I would be more obliging

A sympathizing prophet

Willing to claim or dismiss

(Weather permitting)

But so long as the reflection

Is mine cowardice persists

 

And so long as a cage exists

There is always a tenet

Brimming with fatal intent

And all the money in

The world could not make

The exterior any greener

Than the interior permits

 

The earth is a cage of sorts

And we stand here reckless

Certain of only one thing

That to clear a passage

For growth is to habituate

To another level of pain

Nothing Much

Travis Louie

I am only the implication

Of a truth not yet composed.

Wherever there are statues

There are hearts that coincide.

Every morning another reaper

Finds his mark, it no longer matters

If the target still walks so long

As the eyes can be held down.

Maybe we are all the better part

Of nothing much and maybe

We are fine most of the time

But some days never begin

No matter how avid the adieu.

*

A quick one from me. This weekend will be hectic and then Monday I have the inspection I will try to write new poems if time permits.

Incubus (warning slightly explicit)

mindlovemisery

The moonlight slips unbidden into my womb

It was never my intention to serve him

Between us there is no love

Only the suspicious ache of a pernicious hunger

*

His insignia extends the length of my spinal column

My nerves remember what my eyes cannot conceive

*

In the same way that blood forges hope

By maintaining a predetermined course

He settles deviously on the chest

That the lungs may not drink enough

To arouse resistance

*

He is an intractable savant

The night is his emissary

His bastion as well

He drags his obsidian claws

Across my inner thighs

Thirsting the milk

Of an illegitimate desire

*

Being dreamless he depends solely

On artifice to communicate

It’s such an authentically human trait

To disguise through application

That one cannot but wonder

If he did not exist first as a man

*

Each night astounded by the realization

That…

View original post 23 more words