[x]

summergirlNow read aloud over here. Do give it a listen, won't you?
i. summergirl,
you are crowthroated and tumbling
through the aspen grove
hair on fire with sunrise, lungs
full of sky.
eyelashes like wildflowers
and every morning brings
a new spray of freckles
and a sharper curve to your collarbones.
the cornfields hold no shadows
for your lighthouse eyes
and there are no endings in that
surefooted smile.
ii. you have grown
so fast.
autumn finds you with broken ankles
leaning on an oak branch
and watching the skies.
crow to sparrow--you are quiet.
summergirl, there is peace in silence,
perched treetop,
fallen antlers in your hands.
you will come to mourn your deer.
keep them close.
iii. by winter you have paled,
and like the streams
your eyes have frosted over.
you feel the chill--
there is no need for sight.
summergirl, th

SmokeYou smoked, and everyone hated that. The cigarette would hang loose between your knuckles, tendrils of smoke mimicking the tracery of veins and tendons that stood out along the back of your hand. You could do the most graceful French inhales, and sometimes you'd lean in close and grab me and kiss me, blowing warm smoke into my mouth. The scent would always cling to me—I'd drag it back home with me and there would always be a fight over it.

You were sparrowlike, all taut pale skin and prominent bones. Your hipbones jutted slightly—sharp elbows, sharp knees, a sharp jaw softened by cornsilk hair. When I ran my fingers down your back

The FountainThere were sixteen tall windows. She'd counted them over and over when she was small, her chubby finger outstretched as she spun in tiny circles. Eight walls, sixteen windows, thirty-two black curtains—the arithmetic of her childhood.

"Eight window seats, Daddy. Eight buttons on each—sixty-four. I counted."

The fountain stood dry and dead-center in the middle of the black and white tiles. Eight sides, eight lion-mouth spouts. Sixteen limestone mermaids poised gracefully around the edge. Four thousand and ninety-six blue tiles. Five hundred and twelve white.

And two doors. Always the two doors, huge and solid and radiating a sense

PilkunnussijaHere's what I think:
There's a certain joy in not doing this face-to-face. For one, I don't have to leave my apartment and I have the quiet company of my goldfish and my goldfish alone. (I don't like people, which is why I love books. You can understand that.) For another, I don't have to see your presumably crestfallen and injured attitude when I tear apart the prose you cried and bled and sweated over for weary nights on end. But really the best parts are those uninterrupted hours alone with your manuscript and the shred of you that lies inside. It's a small shred, but an important one. It's the one that tells me who you are and what you think and how you feel and I never have to look at you and be disappointed when the real thing doesn't come up to scratch. As I sit there, un-tensing and re-tensing and tense-shifting and shift-entering (and damn it, wishing English were like German so I could get rid of those clunky space-wasting n-dashes--oh, damn there they are again) I feel li

all that hasn't happenedPretty please listen to the audio.
i want to remember
the rumbling piano baritones
high notes like hailstones--your hands
running soundless scales.
i want the summer seas
november tides
the vineyard overlook, the olive
trees and sunwarmed coasts.
remember
we filled the empty pages
with whole notes and halftones,
oceans and lovesongs.
we lived, we live
inkstained and drowning
through nights thick with words
and days shot with sound.

north pacificAudio version thisaway.
icewater and tumblestone beaches, and i wonder, clifftop,
if the fog tastes like forest.
the ocean carves its histories
in the driftwood--creation stories and
lullabyes worn smooth,
bleached to a polish.
it might be sand shifting but maybe--
maybe i can feel the whalesong,
low and deep
thrumming in the hollow spaces of my bones.
i envy the seabirds
who have more room to feel.

pyrite girlNote: Pretty please listen to the audio version for the full effect.
you noticed things
little things that came sneaking slyly in
smiling crooked like good children
with bad deeds freshly done.
of course you loved her all the same,
your little lighthouse among the tendrils of east coast fog
she tasted like mineral water
concrete
new pennies
and you lived in soft, sweet depression
intertwined
gazing out at a broken world from a tenth-story window
and breathing in the cigarette smoke.
your little pyrite girl
bright eyed and dark mouthed
a tiny dirty moon, dragged through the gray city snowmelt
and left to dry in the glare of rooftop suns
"who would live here?"--
musings from the tenth floor
and you knew the answer.
broken cities feed on broken souls
and even they need angels.

lightsdon't be fooled--
the sky is not static.
there is an infinity between any
two points,
infinite hex codes
between the bounds of the spectrum--
infinite blues.
this is the great secret of the universe, this
cosmic light show
we can't detect--
the changes too small for our
wondering
wandering eyes.
perhaps there is someone out there--someone else
who notices
even if he cannot see.
and perhaps
his blue
is not my blue--perhaps it all comes down
to perception,
to the chemicals
electrical impulses
the spin of individual molecules that all add up to become
blue.
our own blue.
maybe it's all on us.
maybe
the cosmos isn't trying because, really--
if i were the cosmos
i would have better things to do.
maybe there is something
beautiful
in that.
in us.
in our ability to overanalyze
and oversimplify--our ability
to realize we know nothing
and forget
and try again, anyway.

The WeekendI show up unannounced, like clockwork, and when you let me in, the act of opening the door flows smoothly into the act of pulling me against you. This is our weekend. We won't leave this room for another forty-eight hours.

You pull me over to the couch and ask about my week, and we trade stories of minor frustrations and negligible disappointments. The sun sets in a glory of flame, and our weekend officially begins.

Usually these things are unplanned—just a shapeless succession of quiet moments—but you've planned something this time. You have a horror movie. Popcorn for you. Crunchy fruit-shaped candy for me. "You know me too well

with thanks to salingerAudio version.
it's on those cold mornings
when you are nothing but indrawn breath
swirling and knitted up inside too-big
skin and weightless bones--
when the horizon arches up against
the half-thawed tendrils of sunrise
and smiles
with golden teeth,
and smiling, begs--
it's on those cold mornings
when leaving is easiest.
the car will be cold, and you will
shiver, and the engine,
much too loud,
will smack of blasphemy
but you will find peace in the steady roll
of tarmac and the yellowing light
spilling across it,
with dust motes kicked up and carried
like fish in the undertow.
when you come to that first
crossroads, it will shock you:
the way the decision hangs there
trembling and desperate--
but there are no right answers and you will not
hesitate. and each successive choice
will be made of its own accord,
and you will roll the windows down,
and draw down the scent of ear

syracuseListen to the audio version for the full effect, pretty please.
cloudshot sky like an oil painting and i am watching the
seagulls. i--
darling, i will swim for you
and swallow every whitecap.
i will pluck myself a coat of pelican wings,
sew them up with salt and spray--
become icarus for you.
you are calling me across the waves, love--
but you pull against the ache
in my bones, the hollow--
the clawing out for unseen sunsets and unturned tides.
i hear you, love
give me time.
i will always listen.

into the deepAudio version over thisaway.
and the world will crumble, darling, but we will watch the stars--
watch the coasts curl up at the edges and the foam-slick sea drag them under
and history will bloom in brass and copper nebulas,
untainted by the tortured earth and its pleading
flecks of ash below.
but we will watch the stars
watch the galaxy unwind, spirals stringing out
the taste of ozone and plasticities.
the heaving sea will recede--the glaciers
pour their hearts out
the dunes rise up to the sated horizon.
we
will watch the stars.
and the hungering infernos hold no sympathy.

SolsticeOnce upon a time, when you were still sunlighthouses and shimmering existence wherever you were needed most, you found him. He was November, shaky on his first last legs, and you saw through the mind-twistings he feigned to the mind-twistings that were really there, knotted up in his dreams.

You were still birdsong then, and thunderstorms, and your bodyheat melted the frost claws that held him tight. You held onto him as his November deepened. When he howled, you howled with him, and the wind played with your voices and pressed the softness of your lungs against your cageribs—and then against each other's.

November became solstice, and

longhornmojave.
empty eye sockets stare out acceptance
and bleached grins pin you--
just another
beetle on a card.
they smile
because sand-choked winds will polish,
but not before they leave you raw.
here,
there are no hunters.
no feasts.
only the lucky and the scavengers--
the living,
living off the dead.

ChloeChloe was born in the pouring rain and blinding dark, under a thunderstorm that cut power to five counties and lingered for days. Her first memories were damp and earthy and fresh--watercolor paintings of wildflower fields, thunderheads, and pale yellow dawns.
She grew up with summers swimming in lurid heat and trembling cicada calls; in winters soft with snowfall and tree limbs upraised to the icy light. She was a tiny sun in herself, glowing effortlessly. Plants reached up to her, swayed with her voice. Given enough space and enough time, her hands could have delved into the earth and come back up trailing with trees and vines, with berries falling from her fingertips and thick pale roots curled around her wrists.
I met Chloe in the middle of one electric summer, when the heat was aggressively breathtaking and I had to continuously swipe sweat from my eyelashes. Chloe was a breath of undying spring--cool to the touch. She tasted like almonds and cinnamon and clean, wet dirt, and like

Browse More Like This

more ▶

More from *disrhythmic

nightmarethe foxes are at your bedside and singing--
feversongs,
songs of boiling thoughts
and broken muscles.
their lullabyes.
they sneak so quiet, and
somehow,
you can't quite
dream
anymore.

with thanks to frosttwo roads diverged in a soulless dawn
and you pull over,
idling on the shoulder of route 50.
it's a polaroid morning and
the world is as grainy
and sleep-heavy
as your eyes,
and one million miles
is not far enough.
it plays back, filmstrip,
blurred along the length of
optic nerves,
and here you are:
facing a choice between
on
and
out.
and this?
this loosejointed, hollowbodied
weightless ache--
this is what
gone
feels like.

rapid eye movementi am jealous
of my birdwinged half-sister.
later, birdwinged reapers--black,
looming quiet in every doorway. they
followed me from my hemmed-in waking terror
to the free reign of my subconscious.
far better suited to their purposes.
thunderstorms like supernovae out at sea, and
empty little boats tossed on emptier shores.
it rains, and the sea advances,
cresting the saguaros. someone is lost.
i don't know who. i don't know why i
care so much.
cliffs and skyscrapers. tightropes. sometimes
i am afraid of heights, and sometimes
afraid for those who are not.
the skinny girl
with the long dark hair is
always worth dying for.
sex. i am in turn
bemused, and indifferent, and bored, and
frustrated, more often than anything.
i like that i still remember how it felt to hug my dog,
right down to the cool wirecoat
and the warm fluff beneath,
and his immense
patience.
sometimes i wake up with misty
recollections and the overwhelming thought:
i wish it could be like this.
jungles with ancient

sun worshipand we, the broken-winged disciples
thrum closer, closer--
seeking warmth on our dust-drenched backs,
and reflections,
and a landmark in the wide and open
dark.
we breathe,
together
(closer)--
moths among the fireflies.

dance party of oneever the same, rob thomas
there's a bonfire in the drum
of a washing machine by the lake and
bottles tied to trees with sparks
glancing off like so many
fireflies.
the a la menthe, nikkfurie
most
get lost among the cobblestone
rabbit warrens or
take to the sea but our road
is lit by midnight cameraflash
and the neon,
with our tracks scuffed out among
the hush and rumble of
a city
where no one
knows our names.
travelin' on, norah jones
shoulders just broad enough
for six strings and a hollow body
and the weight of
all those words yet to be--down the
train tracks and through the
blue dawn, with that
crossroads rumble
in his bones.
don't let go, weezer
and the irony is
that they were always right
but we never cared.
are you happy now, by somebody whose name escapes me and i'm too lazy to look up (and covered by cassadee pope)
pretty little thing with a pretty little gun
and a smile like the devil on a
monday morning...
breathing, lifehouse<

three dogs in the churchyardThe chain link around the graveyard runs straight through an oak tree. The bark looks crippled where it passed through the wire--mutilated in a faint diamond pattern--but you can see around the edges where it's fusing together smooth again.
The kids with the distant eyes always come here to smoke. You've never seen eyes like that. Distant, but not glazed, like they're looking into eternity and watching the threads of livewire possibility arc and writhe before them. The embers at the ends of their smokes cast cherry-red reflections on their irises.
The top of the fence is buckling where it enters the tree. You wonder if they'll have to cut it loose if they ever take it down. You wonder how far the roots have crept.
You wonder why the kids with the forever eyes never stand, vulpine, by the churchyard with its stray dogs and subterranean hum of faith--of vulnerable hope. Maybe all the life drowns out the eternity.
On winter mornings, they exist only in the pinpricks of light from the ends

View Gallery

Featured in Groups:

#WritersInk
What's your story?

#EliteLiterature
Elite Literature Collective

#Glory-Be-Project

#IntrinsicallyInked

Details

Submitted: January 2
Submitted with: Sta.sh Writer

Link

Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 38
Favourites: 25 [who?]
Views: 246 (0 today)

[x]

stolen dog-eared maps

by *disrhythmic, Jan 2, 2013, 4:04:19 PM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

Audio version.

we will run
directionless but on
until the sky recedes before us.

we will outlast the horizons
sink teeth into every sunset
until we chase
what chases us--
until the oceans below hold no demons
the galaxies above
no shadows.

we will lose ourselves
to frantic
fleeting space
until there is nothing left of us but
souls and
destinations.

stolen dog-eared mapsby *disrhythmic

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

First poem of 2013.

I owe Sam Beam a drink for stealing his words for a title, but hey, that's okay. I'd buy Sam Beam a drink anyway.

love 1 1

~~joy 0 0~~

wow 1 1

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

=MrsKyoya Apr 29, 2013 Student General Artist

Just added this to my wall along with my other ultimate fav poem ever (also by you <33)

*disrhythmic Apr 29, 2013

Oh gosh.

~elys88 Mar 27, 2013

halp I can't stop favouriting your poetry

*disrhythmic Mar 30, 2013

Oh gosh, thank you!

~thatlibraryguy Jan 14, 2013

This is my absolute favorite piece of poetry by you so far. Maybe favorite piece period. This is the kind of poetry to put in the front of a book, or write on a wall, or memorize and recite. I don't even normally like poetry, how do you make me feel these things?!

*disrhythmic Jan 14, 2013

Oh gosh, love, thank you so much!

~ColoringTheRain Jan 12, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

Sounds like something you would recite if you were on an endless roadtrip. Or a nomad endlessly walking through Africa, Europe and Asia. <3

*disrhythmic Jan 12, 2013

Oh god, I would kill for an endless roadtrip right about now.

Thank you!

*0hgravity Jan 7, 2013 Hobbyist General Artist

sink teeth into every sunset

--sink teeth sounds fantastic anywhere but coupled with sunset it makes a rather rapacious action seem elegant though still passionate.

I really like the spirit in this and the cadence of it. Makes me think of a particular music video featuring children (payed with pizza, hehe) running through a forest with adorned with homemade costumes.

Beam is the best. I'd buy him a drink too.

*disrhythmic Jan 12, 2013

Thank you.

That sounds like something Sigur Ros would do--am I right?

Drinks all 'round!

More from *disrhythmic

Featured in Groups:

Details

Statistics

stolen dog-eared maps

stolen dog-eared mapsby *disrhythmic

The Journal Portal

Polls

What is your preferred drawing software?

deviantART [dee·vee·un'nt·ART]

Keep in Touch!

Deviousness

Add Media

Style