Box of Sky: skeleton poem 2 by Amanda Deutch, after JKD's Chrono/ Meter Chronicled

by definition nothing is repeatable.

naked
****the performance began

gulping

when you were alive
we used to dance on old loading docks
these bones
yours
and mine

New: Fraudulent Ceiling by Amanda Deutch

February, 9, 2008 Day poem

Fraudulent Ceiling

almost borealis. I light the birds on fire. . all my
greasy little fingers. slip on red. from temperature
change. inside blood rushes to skin. turns pink.
“somebody took leave of her shoes.” somebody soaked
into her skin only to have it slough off in pieces along the
trailing open. torn skin minerals. root systems.
in cities. trees speak. volumes to anyone who will listen.
skin a vehicle as much as any bus or taxi. so unreasonable
in the street. beside busted television sets and a nice chair.

To not be taken to by JKD

After “A fragment (not yet perhaps to satisfaction)” by Nicholas Manning, posted Feb 9th, & “Dust from the Mirror” by Sean S, posted Feb 24th

*
an arena shared by
this possible
this

sky clattering
labyrinth of dropped
mails,

..................a voice
has potential
only an arm’s length, a cleared
throat rice paper distance

red tattoos under blacklight
knuckles
perfume
like coins in a box

dropped cause
you said, like
this

walls of mirror
invisible doors in
a fluttering

acknowledgement
in media res
of this, possible
only refusal cracked

guttering
pale as a slipped
skeleton

glass
in a jar of light
this wick,
this

you, trapped
coven
to go back. go.

or share out
shell round
pieces of
bereavement

sticks
like moss
to your maroon
dress, in short
say
history

or a plane, this
surface
diameters between
in no way

a direction to
shadowplay,
screen this palpable
wrist, this signpost
out

dust from the mirror by sean s

after Dust in her... by JKD

The sky clattering like dropped coins in a box,
a labyrinth with walls of mirror, doors visible only where

you cannot see yourself. rice paper steps, dancefloor
tattoos, knuckles' perfume on a glass jaw,

an arm's-length ballet. your black reflection in the wall,
or the shadow of a lover, a slipped skeleton.

a fluttering, guttering wick. a passageway indexed,
dead end, turn around. go back. go.

man in the evening by sean s

after Roppongi by Maitresse

What am I doing here, my lap a garden for a highrise cat,
trapped in a leaky apartment with a ballpoint for a fur
coat, plasticking unsnug panes against
the pawing arctic?

such a saran wrap, such a calico

What am I doing here where rodents squeal through
closed cupboard doors, shrilly scrape at my
female protector?

such a bachelor, such a loaf of bread

What am I doing fricking bitten and kneaded and provided
warmth by a four-legged, docile, clingy, slightly declawed
barbarian?

such a well brought-up urn, such language.

Occasionally she opens a yeasty greek eye at me
as if to say: You will pay significantly
more rent for your next place,
you will no longer leave me alone for days
with your maidservice friends, and you will
desist with that uncouth tongue of a lint brush,
worrying my hair off your garments and rugs.
Now scratch under my chin. Darling of course
you may write about this, continue on
after your torsos, your ashes beneath
the compound eye of nighttime stars. After all,
the insect of many streets creeps inside
your walls and in a moment my imaginary words
will be unrevoiceably in memory.

Chrono/meter Chronicled (New) by JKD

After Writers' Almanac* radio post Feb 21st 2008

Stop all of the clocks, he said, she said, they were, yes, obscenely educated,
Cut off the telephone, to be able to hear the head, the self. Then, we write
To taste life twice: in the moment and in retrospection, she wrote. It’s like
Preventing the dog from barking, the cake from baking, the street she lived on
Referred to not by numbers but by the name of her corporate sponsor—
Fiction is. Dancing, with a juicy bone, out by the dog house
With the house howling and the scraggly mutt covering its floppy ears
Is foregoing what it is to be a human being, to be virtual, above all,
The human, resonating in the silence of the pianos, bound
With muffled drum? As Auden once said, "Words so excite me”
As per example now, the stairs and the marble and the city horns
Trumpeting their past golden forward as from Invalides where
Nin peeks up from her cradle in Neuilly to spot Miller in the 18th.
To hate any language that is not as enticing as that pornographic story,
The first one, slipped under the covers, for example, to excite you
As much as rhymed couplets in iambic verse once did, ballsy writing,
Can you do something about this, she said, is my situation reparable? Meanwhile
He said “Language excites me sexually more than any living person can”
Turn in the grey matter for some pink flesh and a violin, a lyre, a poet
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come in before anything else, ie:
A person is who is passionately in love with language. O never say that I was false
Or rarely spotted at the bar, or barely sleeping near the grate
Scratch, scrape our way in, you, she and he, out to the light, my nature
To leave for nothing, to never believe all the frailties that besiege this line
It is as if, after the fact, in the rumpled bed, the papyrus rolls were all left
So preposterously. To be stained by a sum of good words, and bedraggled wines.

*NOTE: After Writers’ Almanac from American Public Radio’s Poetry Foundation Program, read by Garrison Keillor. This passage uses snippets from William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 108”, & WH Auden’s "Funeral Blues", as well as bio notes & spliced up & rearranged quotes by Auden, Anais Nin, & David Foster Wallace.

Not Exactly Beautiful in the Lamp Lit Night: a roach poem, After Sawako's "Transclucent Skin" by A D

This one, male and alone. He is afraid of sound, hiding
for god knows how long
behind the dirty white bathroom sink.
There might be others there,
cavorting, mating, love making
between the sink and the wall,
but I wouldn’t know.
Nothing to eat there,
but plenty of rusty pipes leaking streams of water
to bath and drink from.
Now this one, fugitive, intrepid adventurer,
catches my eye. I scream. He runs.
Large, brown, not so tough as his stone cold rep.
My voice alone moves him in another direction.
Ageless and perhaps brave
he, a maverick among roaches,
out alone in stark bulb light
crawling now on the wall towards somebody’s bedroom.

rouge by Lisa Pasold

after "Sequins" by JKD feb 18 & "Grocery Disaster" by Amanda Deutsch feb 16

grown worm out of silk, red-feathered, writhing
tattoo winged snake. admiring herself
flash flesh from this angle, or that one, thinking
Betty Boop? Medea? eating cherries
bought and brought inside yesterday
from the pushcart vendor, a little soft now, over
ripe, resting the pits on her navel. whoever believed
it was an apple, way back when? had no
imagination. red lip, she rolls, hydrant streaks,
pollen, stands up stretching out the window
slurp and strut (spit cherry pit
onto the floor), hollering out lovely
into the filth of morning light.

Sequins by JKD

After ‘Scavenged Edit’ by George Vance, posted December 12th 2007, & ‘Grocery Disaster” posted by Amanda Deutch, February 16th 2008.

Her dress unstuck red flash-lit flesh bound
she wore tilling days torn, feathered, bare threaded
grocery or bodega-bound
in a solar-iced blackroom
finger-feeling into blurred silhouette. semblant.
custodial argue, meant conciergial cant
key of lost-utopia, a red, a maroon, a marginal
vous. As if here were a

split cart roll on the sidewalk under the fire spilt.
wears or worn out by, t’es où? whereby rouge and her
flushed cheeks hydrant-stret stet strut
the hard-starched hem (bed of the stricken
pickup, history of) her, or lovely
you on her back in the flash flesh
stem, or that stamen in the filth

pollen-coated morning (her mourned, her
mounted plight) quake. conceived
her s’well, yellowed, marigold, mustard scent. scant
etched into seeing a spec or grime off polluted
light do that, s’can’t, she can
too as if there were a ‘were’ here

New: fragment by Amanda Deutch

swimming in pigment
eating human flesh for money
bohemians bemoan their lost kinkiness

"New" Grocery Disaster by Amanda Deutch

This one is new to Rewords, but was actually written three years ago.

Grocery Disaster

Her red dress
that she wore
she wore till it was
always.

monday tuesday wednesday
thursday everyday

a red dress just the same

torn and feathered

thread bare
and grocery

disasters
in the streets

over the years
from push cart fruit vendors
to bodegas and corner markets
then finally supermarkets

a whole complete navel
orange a squished grape
a spilt cart of apples

roll on the sidewalk under the tree

fire hydrants bow when her red dress
wears by

statch and stret stet and strut
starch and hem

lovely in the filth of morning light

the quake of rotten dreams
itching

bugs insect the hair

patience must

she wears

the same the same the same red

as it shifts and hollers

through an assortment of brand names
and cities

windows scratching to see into
her hollers

holes

birds a spec pigeons
grimy shoot out from her foot steps
into off-grey polluted light

4/19/ 2005

new: pacific boom

by gvance

crisscrossshadow movesover opposite wall
movesback
craning to morebuild........snuff grass&like
morebuild moneygrubbercubes
juts higherthan its uprising bétonbébé
when gone unremembered
: manifest in the lowcloudsmog
of the maker’s hardhat


^^^^^^

Triangulation by Sue Chenette

after JKD’s "Overland," posted Feb 6, which is in turn after "drafts from Winter Constellations" by Nate Pritts.
.................
as if in the wind-tossed grasses
inheres
...............some crystalline geometry
.....................susceptible to triangulation
............
.....................the dealt world, its wick and flame
.............
beneath the sky’s cobalt clatter
..............
*
......................
But always iceblink
a shimmered horizon—
..............twined paths and yin-yang clues
..............constants refracted under lake water
............
Our deceptions opening doors into strange light
................
*
.......................
The stars spiked, windblown
patinad with myth
............
witness to our displacements
.............
..................what became of stone?
..............
Once, a woman, traveling:
...........................
*
.................................
followed a trace of glazed spice
mulling star-formations and window-glints
..........
their dislocated and sporadic clusters
...................
*
........................
early sun, moonlight burning through
a rage for some defining order
..........
.........................falling
along long distances
.......rusted reflections of bodies rolling in sleep
....................& then afterward
........................................& further
until then;
..........................
*
.............................
skeletal dance in wind-tossed grasses
............
staggered and jagged, cleft, flung
...........
how to keep
the wind-wrenched night in check
.............
....................... ..embers
rekindled to an ordering rage
............
..........................small patter of sparks
..........................against the wide sky
..........................
*
..............................
Birch trees bend to their waists
in the gusting wind
............
..............................poems like closed eyes
............
............apart from the fire’s whispers
............the rustle and fall of small deceptions
............
slips of peeling white holding moonlight
..........................

a fragment (not yet perhaps to satisfaction) by N Manning

Nicholas Manning

which will not be taken to the house
that night in an arena left shared
not by any bed only
to rise
what day
as * the bullet
among the . . . love me :
little ball which does not die
and the only statement * possible
that of the positive refusal
acknowledgement
of what
is never there
blacken lung the grotto is
not covered by * an explanation
treated not as the proponents of the props
would have eternal to unchangeable
but as those
who wish to sculpt * the arc
knowing that the arc begins in media res
and fires out its never-landing golden arches
as history in no way directs this out
as the air upon * by thrilling
making course according
while acceding
to my laws
which are perhaps not * in essence
but if not taken as malevolence
then known to be changeable
and acknowledged
in short
to say that there is nothing there
then that nothing is born « to make »
in arabesqual flow * -ers not
by any effects traced to
but by
some solution
to the oldest problem *
and in this possible
cause

Charade Seized by a Man by JKD

After “Down to the Line” by Jonathan Wonham

Glance over to roadside stopgap, cement gardens thumbing transport, I, paralysed, wince interiorly, a child squeezed between doing time and placing blame for his never flawed, happenstance, thawing in knee-high thickets lime-green shade swallowed at snowdusk. Waited, or a grating. Should a well brought up girl mystify? Holder of myself, quiet, frayed, too barbarian, each star questioned too wordily for the supplied key-carded, coded vocabularies. Eye following a line, a cue, resting its elbows on unseen bars sometime between a tourniquet and the rabid shoals. That briny scent’s the seashell of a girl's strong handbone, a handout muffling a rag, the taste of his eyes, her ear. Shouts of a high capacity for captivity. This narrative’s opaque down to the fine print, signals waving to a blur of brushed-past truckers, smell of sweat, grease, strawberries. Sequined aftermessages didn’t fit her tiara, or into his hip flask, but that was ok—they’d keep playing at any cost, until the highway closed or a forest came overcrowding them there in that low-throated howl a dark furry mass.

Overland (New, sort of) by JKD

This is a new rewords, but in fact it is after “drafts from Winter Constellations” by Nate Pritts, which was published in Horse Less Review #2, available directly on their site at: http://www.horselesspress.com/revspring05/pritts.html

Over the wind-tossed grasses
I adhere:
...............a triangular pattern’s
crystalline force your eyes—

cobalt blue irises folding in clatters
& here ...........................close

matter’s great deal of the world
exchanged
.............smoke-chased dark wick, flame.

*
But always ice-angles in
snow—
.........the winding path offers,
perhaps, a clue to the equation:

constants reflected under lake water.

We allow our deceptions openings
Arches allow doors light

*
a pattern
............of stars so close
we tried to hold back vivid
displacements,

........................stone-shifts
bodies of what one into another became:

glass, spiked, windblown, afternoon.
Once, traveling with a woman:

*
sporadic discoloration of clustered
star-formations all within the trace of
her glazed spice after-mulling
slice of an expression,
window-glint

*
early sun moonlight
you reflected through
a rage

for some defining order rusted

muscle trying to hold
the burning of fire, & then afterward.

To appear, farther along long distances
between the fallen

Bodies rolling in sleep, colder, until then

*
loved
You pointed out the night’s retching,
reach
skeletal arms over the wind-tossed grasses.

Staggered & jagged sickness we keep unchecked,
like this you

her, my, our hands, hips, lips
don’t matter a bit, boulders, jagged cliffs, flint

all through

until you looked like

*
Silent folds
to itself whispers as white rustles slip
closed
.......to hold
..................all this
...........................banknotes, poems, birch

trees standing to our waists
in the gusting wind, the bluff
of moonlight
.....................closed like eyes

We allow ourselves some small deceptions:
Snowfall closed off

Walls by G Vance

by gvance after JKD’s ‘Dust in her...’

snowsoapy riceleaves
flutterslipped lovers’ passageways
perfumed mid-coital labyrinth’s dropdance
trace indexed trapdoors to
blackreflected boxfloors

skimprints
hold
.................ceruleanday
at
redlit bay



^^^^^^

Dust in her... by JKD

After “Box of Sky: Skeleton Poem” by Amanda D

rice-paper notes like soap leaves or
lovers slip through snow flutters
black reflection in walls, labyrinths’
dancefloor boxed up backdrop
indexed passageways to trap doors traced
body, post-coital, perfume, imprint
of skin, skeleton, red lights
holding day at bay, cerulean blue of the
clatter

Down to the Line by Jonathan Wonham

After Drive-by by Barbara Beck, Roppongi by Maitresse and On She Sells by Sean S.

Glance over my shoulder
        into lonely wishing
               damnedest charade
        ever
               seized by a man.

Roadsided stopgap
               cementing my garden
thumbing every transport
               that I can.

Paralysed winces of a child
                      squeezed between
               nose-blowing and never
        doing
time.

        Flawed thickets,
               avenues,
                      swallow-packed banks.
               Offending snows
        of bobbing
lime.

Waited as long
               as a well brought up girl should,
mystified holder
of quiet
               frayed
                         stars.

Too barbarian, each
                      question
too wordily
resting
                      its elbows
               on unseen bars.

        Somewhere between
a stopgap
               and a tourniquet
money's laws
               dole out
                      shoals of time.

One briney
               promenade.

A girl's strong        handbones.

A wet rag muffling
               the taste
               of her eyes.

Berries
        in a maid's mouth.
                      Shouts
               of a high rise.

Captively opaque
                      down to the line.

informàciòs by gvance

after 'Not a...' by Amy H & 'Post...' by Sue C


by any other rose a sore or pome a mope
sweet's sweet's sweet's sweet

speechless in the land of the unspoken spake
> breaking space
< last particle of ∞ embossed with our name
or any other


^^^^^^^^