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je ne sais quoiagainst my chest you make a soft semi-colon as my hips
     press into yours and you yield like damp paper

and against my chest the pulse of us
     a filament-hum in a sixty-watt bulb

and my chin against your neck, an impromptu bookstop

and your cheek runs against
     my stubble and it is an embossed leather cover

and our noses meet

beads of sweat on my brow roll against yours and we are
     a printing press

until our dilated eyes meet like magnifying glasses
     and our lips touch like the curves of an

Notes on nightCupped hands could hold
a moth's night,
a moon waning somewhere between
middle and index.

In fear,
the dust,
the cuddling craters,
the end,
would become the flight.

fatefatalism stalks me.
its chalky finger-bones
scrabble at my windows,
greedy to pry panes
and rend gaps—
mouth agape
to vent its algid breath.

conjured,
like a voodoo zombie
of the bayou,
by pious disciples
to the temple of matter.

they strain to evade
the burden of their choices,
worrying at the knots of destiny
and scattering dust
to fill in our footprints.

in a sly reversal of legerdemain,
they entice hands from rudders,
with their relentless mantra:
"free will is illusion!"

but illusion is smoke,
and stars still burn in my chest.
not nebulae, but hard points and brilliant.
I pass through them,
burning the fog

The Skull: A Love StoryBuried beneath a debris of odds and ends - discarded carnival masks, willow patterned tea cups, toothless combs, and mauled little clown dolls - a curve of yellowed ivory, like an old woman's tooth, peeped. Smoothly translucent, surprisingly so, and he wondered if a bit of bleach upon an old toothbrush might not wear off the yellow sheen and convert it to a gleaming alabaster, like a bust of Nefertiti, and indeed there was something of Nefertiti to its cast, something exotic; a slant to the eye socket, perhaps? And he wondered, and pondered, and rubbed the cheekbone (zygomatic process, his mind faintly reminded him) and debated how much such

ZipperIt happened again, so
like a zipper, I put myself back together.
I was cold, sleeveless.
The sky was sliding off my back,
like a heavy down coat.

My sleeves came off again.
Leaves slipped off the arms of trees
like Band-Aids that had lost their stick.

-

Snow churned its hair in the wind.
Snow perched
in my hair, stretching its wings.
Then a cloud of snow was leaving my chimney.

Winter it was ice all over.

-

It happened again, so I put myself back together.

The moon nearly shattered my window, wind was so strong.
The moon a photograph.
The moon a falling leaf.
The moon curled up in snow.

We zip it up, and turn

Unnecessary RoundsIn the fall I'd make unnecessary rounds
over that scuffed, speckled tile
in case you were namelessly there-
an anonymous book browser,
a stranger buying milk.

I saw all these walks of life, at noon
or at eight o'clock or nine.
The protruding stomach pregnant
with hamburger-death, stretching
at the filthy shirt with a belly button eye
(Cyclops, do you still blame Nobody?)
and the young man's thin white leg with the
long tendon swimming a delicate breast stroke
under smooth cream-skin, under the fluorescents
hairless and illuminated.

Even lonely people need groceries,
need some fuel for their night ramblings
and nail biting,

My WinterCardinals will
                drip
from the branches like
berries
and the sky will turn to smoke.
The ground crunches under your feet and it’s
Almost as if you could
         sail away
across the ice.
Brandished behind screens of glass
are fists of ivory
They are covered in scratches and
         bloom
from the dark like magnolia blossoms.

Skip to the Last VerseI went to Catholic school all my life
And thought in agnostic terms by 5th grade.

I'm now what you'd call an existential nihilist
But I believe in inalienable human rights.

Tuesday early morning I took my dogs for a walk.
The pimp stopped his car to let his whores out to pet them.
He told me how pretty my girls were
I told him his were too

When I got home I got myself a drink,
The last hard liquor in the house.
I can't decide to be proud of the 'functioning'
Or ashamed of the 'alcoholic'

Next, out to get the newspaper
and heckle the meth dealers next door.

It's fine because I was stealing the paper
Off the neighbor's porch.

Existential crisesThere was an odd feeling that washed over her on Saturday mornings. She sat dazed between unfinished paintings, white canvases with specks of reality, and piles of unorganized papers; they seemed to magically grow and multiply as if by an imaginary stroke of the hand. Some were bills she always forgot to pay, or letters from Dylan that always ended up, with the envelope still tightly shut, in the trash. You can read a person's personality, right to its gritty core, simply by examning their trash. She had Ding-Dong wrappers, ice-cream containers, sketches of people and people that were no-longer, and a rotting carton of orange juice with a lon

Happy BirthdayWhen I breathe into the empty blue morning, my breath fogs up in the too-cold-for-this-time-of-year air and I wish I could pull it back into me. I'm not quite awake and not quite asleep, but I'm conscious of the day and the time and the rain that prickles my face through the open screen window. I wish you a quiet happy birthday under my breath because I might have lost the right to make you happy, but I'll still wish it forever.

Your name on my lips hurts and it's a struggle to move the air past my vocal cords in a way that will actually produce sound instead of a whisper. I keep you so close to my heart that every time it beats it touches y

A Coward's HeartWere confidence placed in boundless joy
and night airs sweetly scented…
dancing to a rhythm band
reveling in senses,
then gentle,
hopeful heart's desire
would ease my
looming
dread.

For sparrow I had kenned her,
dreaming tender love;
yet she a raptor
- nothing taming;
bearing talons,
passions
matched in kind.

A coward's heart I grimly bear -
from peace estranged;
this blighted soul
sore lacking.

For giddy love
- within my grasp,
it's sensual clamor bending;
now felled by fear,
then ravaged there,
and cast adrift
at last.

Where Only I am PresentI tread along the stained concrete
Of urban sprawls whose dwellers sleep
In pied quilts or a lover's fold;
Minds filled with easy, pleasant dreams.

Within the hour, young and old
Will rise for what the day might hold;
Some with vigor, and others less,
Against the winter's ice and cold.

The maples bow to winds' duress,
Adorned in frost, their Sunday best;
Though as for snow upon the ground,
Such sparsity does ill impress.

I cleave my path without a sound,
As if to shore the magic wound
Throughout the city's empty sweep
Where only I am present bound.

December 25thDecember 25th and I've had 365 days to forget
your aunt's incredible roast turkey and braiding tinsel
through your sister's hair and interpretive dancing
to cheesy carols with your drunken Uncle Mark.

Firelight flickered across the curve
of your lips, the shadow of your jaw
and boy, you were beautiful,
all smoke and cinnamon.

December 25th and I'm ignoring the urge
to mess up your sleet slickened hair
and the fact that your card now says "from"
instead of "love".

I almost don't notice the way your eyelashes
glitter with snowflakes
and the fact that you look adorable
while you laughingly attempt to make a snow a

RainbowPart I

Crimson caught me in the taillights at the end of the valley,
to tell me about the demons that eat underneath the streetlights
and she warned me that they would come after her next
- and we both had to agree; what would taste better than
her bright red meat laced with those Magenta veins of hers?

I let her know that Azure and I would be waiting with the others
at the edge where Midnight meets Dawn;
she, of course, knew that she wouldn't make it there in time.

Part II

As Mauve and I waited,
The setting sun was sucking away at our day,
shivering at the end of the world,
letting us know that our nightmares were coming.

Azur

VertigoHe sleeps the sleep of a man
who doesn't yet know that Love
sits sewing her shadow to the dawn,

nursing a subtle,
aching silence in his lungs
with her name, her shape.

He can't fathom how someone
can sit so deep inside him,
shelling the shadows of himself
as though there are moons at their core,

how he no longer believes
in falling lightly in love
but in committing himself
to inevitable call of concrete

or how she lingers like ink on his fingers,
like a story he's still figuring out how to write.

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Nectarines

by ~smurfofdoom, Feb 27, 2008, 1:13:08 PM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

I said I preferred peaches,
but you wanted a nectarine.
So we brought it back
and you portioned it out
and I found it wasn't better —
only different. You went back
to your city, and I held the taste
in my mouth for days.

Curl the knife around the pit;
gently twist the halves apart.
Admire the honey-golden forms
and the rich-veined flesh.

So what did I buy at the grocer's
on St. Benedict's Street? Not
peaches, but smooth nectarines.
It is different in this country,
where pleasures have become
necessities.
These days I cannot taste
except in memory.

Nectarinesby ~smurfofdoom

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

I wrote this for my poetry writing class here at the University of East Anglia, with Dr. George Szirtes. I am rather happy with how it turned out. Quite a quick poem, but with a bit of editing.

Please, give me feedback. I'm curious what people think of it.

Daily Deviation

Given 2010-12-15

Nectarines by ~smurfofdoom is understated and elegant. ( Featured by `nycterent )

love 4 4

joy 3 3

~~wow 0 0~~

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

~ModularBlues Feb 25, 2011

Metaphors embodied in all their juicy glory.

*meihua Jan 12, 2011

Great read.

~Sarah-the-writer Jan 6, 2011

Beautiful! Very nostalgic piece. Good work!

~the-photographicpoet Dec 18, 2010 Hobbyist Writer

Hey

You have been featured in the A,B,C's of Literature Christmas Special II

Hope you enjoy the feature and have a lovely Christmas

~buriedhourglass Dec 16, 2010

Beautiful.

~lopsidedown Dec 16, 2010

Brilliantly done. I'm adding this to the file on my desktop reserved for literary bits that inspire the hell out of me.

*jimfleming Dec 16, 2010

Well done. Particularly the first stanza...Well crafted wee story

~AElfrics-Cat Dec 16, 2010 Hobbyist Writer

UEA - the only uni I know with free-range bunnies running over campus! Ace!

Absolutely loved these lines:

_{Curl the knife around the pit;
gently twist the halves apart.}

Very clever how they follow the idea of leaving and loss from the previous verse - it's brilliant! DD thoroughly deserved!

~Aneirin-Aryon Dec 15, 2010 Professional General Artist

It's very interesting. Melancholy, like the memory of one dear and lost, literal or metaphorically. It poignantly creates a believable image, yet has a tinge of fantasy or the surreal. It's very good. ^_^

Not too direct, not to vague. I can relate with it, yet not fully. I like it. ^_^

~blizz-ma-tizz101 Dec 15, 2010 Hobbyist General Artist

Beautiful. I love poetry like this, that take a small thing and make it so big and important and lovely. Amazing.

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Nectarines

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