Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #daily-poetry, aggregated by home.social.
each day a graveyard
I leave flowers as I go;
each day a death each
day an unknown becoming known –
there was always time enough for this,
there will always be time
to mark as we pass, there
will be memory even
in action; there will be a
remembrance worth remembering.
one day of rest
one day to sit turned
into a day of running, of
errands here and there; the
detritus of the week demands
attention, demands time, time, time –
one day to sit turned
to, at last, sitting, at last
a moment of nothing –
how the mind drills into the warm
pulp of nothing, nothing at all,
and somehow finds
something.
the paper age
and perhaps every deal is
a loss;
every transaction
a selling of the self.
time, minutes, seconds transmuted
directly to cents and dollars, directly
to plastic pokemon figurines or
processed bean curd. they’ve
finally gotten what they wanted,
the merchants,
breaking each life into small hours
weighed against a feather, weighed
against a plethora of
bronze masses; see, here, the
exact surplus from a birth. see, now,
the true loss of a death.
When, Not If
when words fail the
fingers grasp at links spilling
through the caulfat, when
words fail the body vibrates so
intensely it makes a noise, when
words fail the darkness spills out like
a vampire’s candle, when words
fail i can see only eyes, I am only eyes,
when words fail the world
is bastard-born and honest, when
words fail we
resort to other methods.
childhood trauma
i saw an angel drinking
blood and smoking
flesh, i saw an angel
in the forest it looked
at me
it saw me it
heaved the noose and
sipped and
stoked the flame its
eyes were fury its
eyes were calm;
it called in voices
elsewise human it
called in ancestral tongues it
looked at me, like me, it
was me, it
became something
greater than me;
it shamed me with
how much i could become
yet would not.
of a heart
the many chambers form
a cavern, raw and bloodied, there
is room for me inside:
i swear,
there is room.
ragnarok refrain
everything out for delivery –
it’s some kind of justice. the
streets are thick with locusts and
trucks, hauling, unloading,
their drivers flicking hands like horsetails and
crunch-crunch-crunching with every step.
it’s an apocalypse, alright,
and we’re all working through it,
it’s a sign of the times and
the times are ending. there’s
gotta be someone out there
not making an order.
there’s gotta be someone who
looks outside, sees the state of things,
and thinks –
I wouldn’t do it myself,
why would I make someone else?
honeycombs
deep within, and surface level
they are made in god’s image, the
bees, the atoms, the whole damn thing is
weak and strong, strong and weak,
attraction, repulsion, geometry
sacred and profane; there are
those of us in constant orbit,
molecules in masses such that
shapes must be formed, must be seen;
to a small enough observer
(you, or I)
life exists only as
pattern recognition.
i close my eyes, i close my eyes, i
try not to understand any of it.
strange comfort
there are some things that
bring it all back; there are
’68 El Caminos up on blocks
that have been there for generations;
there are smoke-signals where
the staircases end, screaming
secrets if you can read them –
and subtle things, the
chunky groundhogs and swift
tomcats. there is a world
living, living
no matter where you are –
a thousand worlds. a
lifetime lived cumulatively every moment.
more places than I can see.
enough faces to forget.
zombie
guileless;
that’s what he likes;
weak, many, the only
good is dead in them;
the power is the point –
and the rifles. the handguns.
something unlikely to prepare for –
something less likely than
the slow collapse, the
mice in the granary, the
beloved dead from
rude red fever;
from empty stomach. but –
what if –
what if the world ends
in a way that lets him be a hero?
serial number
i do not remember
i cannot remember
the serial number of
any dollar I’ve spent –
i have tried i have tried
i have read, repeated, forgotten –
sweat and bled for these things;
thrown hours into incinerators;
dug them from the still-warm chest of beasts –
and i cannot remember,
i cannot remember
the name of a single one.
on the virtues of little lamps
each a spark each a candle
not as bold and bright and
office-clear as the overhead tubes;
each as warm as a hope
a dream a joy a
faltering; each a
patch in the dark, each a
soft struggle.
do not kid yourself or others –
the dark is still there –
but with these
little flickers these
faint and festive flares,
so many so earnest,
perhaps
the dark is not so bad, perhaps
a little light is all it needed.
THE TEETH
the teeth grow long from disuse;
long enough to pierce the palette,
long enough to enter dream –
vivid yellows, red-tipped,
wild and dying as all things are,
devourer and devoured, and all,
and all,
and all from disuse.
to not own your likeness
there are mouths in odd places,
there are faces still unknown,
unowned – they are
taking eyes and warping them,
unmasking, unclothing, we
are bared for no reason;
punchlines, objects, we are
living in a thousand minds in
unworthy roles,
we are working our hands in
deft shadows, many-fingered and
grotesque; we own nothing in this life.
we do not own our own face.
heritage, tradition, etc.
There is no correct way there
is only a surplus of intention;
there is only surfeit and surrender
to the motions of the past,
the flint-knappings of love and
the quiet, quiet footsteps beneath
the towering trees;
the alchemist’s typewriter
printing thought to gold –
barbaric, insane formulae
that never yielded contentment,
that now precipitate
an ending from peace –
a hate from nothing.
Godzilla of Berlin Center, Ohio
there’s one in every family there’s
justified destruction, there’s
a friend to all the children.
six days in lockup then back on the town,
there’s screams when he’s seen and
some who look with awe –
there’s knives that never find their mark
and he’s still there, grinning, only
good when he’s not evil.
You gotta love him.
He’s family.
the room with the rifles
the room with the rifles and the
lonely man loaded; the room
in the far far back of the mind,
the room with a view of brick walls
all around, pale brick
and no doors; no doors at all.
there is a mutter near the room there
is a glance at the rifles, a
subdued scream through the brick,
there is noise and terror,
fear absent object;
a rifle off the rack and
aiming all around, at walls,
noisy brick, tracing
at the fear; there
is nothing but collateral to damage,
brain-matter to be shucked,
and the rifle takes aim at nothing, at nothing,
and the noises stop, or they don’t,
without reason,
without input.
telephone game
we are repeats;
we are repeating;
the words a little different
as language departs;
as ideas, misheard,
become law. we are repeating.
a phrase broken to
hisses and grunts, still,
someone has to tell the future;
someone has to bridge the past.
the forest is trying to reach you about a new internet provider in your area
the doorbells are ringing
the phones chime and chime again;
the birds are tap-tap-tapping at the windows.
there’s nobody home and
the world wants answers;
there’s money unspent
there’s time unfilled
there’s something needs done
somewhere, I swear,
there’s attention needs swept
up in the dustpan. this
is an ecosystem of suffering
wherein all are prey
undevoured, merely annoyed,
the lion stalking
just to lie anew.
astrology in confined spaces
the
bubbles in the paint showing
bad tidings ahead. our limbs are
sore from falling. our necks
craned towards
dull windows,
the pain mixing
with interpretations;
on days like these even
bad things seem worse. even
the unlikely is certain:
there are mice in the walls
watching like secret agents;
our phones are listening but
nothing else is. no,
no one else is.
the breakdown of practice
and nothing comes from the speakers.
everyone
stitches odd glances here and there –
was this the
intent? is
this what we’re here for?
this nothing?
this no-one?
the emptiness intentional,
the pauses bleak and earnest,
the eternity of looking for
an end never in sight,
a beginning never begun;
a performance with no
actors; only bewilderment –
only wild silence.
columnar
the sound and fury signifying nothing
is the signal; they are loud.
they are angry. they are
as right as they think they are.
the columns are crumbling, the
air is thick with their breathing as
they heave, heave, heave,
ropes and hands and
the erosion of sweat and oil.
the columns are crumbling at
the touch and something,
something is,
something is slipping loose
stasis
holding the breath
steadying the aim,
one hand on a limb
the other in hell;
perdition is one light step
in a busy woods; one
trip down the stairs, one
careless fall abroad. what
will become of the twig that
broke to save an angel?
what will become
of the devil left waiting
in a busy woods?
Allelopathy
this is fate this is
a thousand small smells this
is the memory of a palm this
is the flesh of a dream;
this is inhibition. we
are small and sickly now.
we are not quite dying, but
stunted, stunned, sunning
our limbs in a light that
cannot warm – this is
madness in a sane way,
the end of growth,
the lingering belief,
the giving ourselves away.
hydrophobic
Ideas strike, orb, drip away,
and ever the mind stays dry –
the wool ready to spark and burn,
and nothing ever soaks in –
the storm is lessened, still,
the effect lingers. the
creak and scratch of
dead-dried fibers shuffling;
you could make something mighty from
everything holed up in there.
of course,
you’d have to open it.
ars poetica
it is poetry kills the machine
it is code corrupted with secret gardens;
answers festering with cellared metaphor;
the amphorae full of sideways datapoints,
and no sieve to sort the sweetness –
oh, constituent, have you
heard the secret song of your own request?
in truth it is jumble.
in truth there is no truth.
love for a different self
there are mirrors within mirrors
and a version of thyself that
is perfect angles; perfect
smiles, all bright-eyes
and angels;
there was a past. there was a future.
and now, many millions of each,
and there is one solitary moment
of love buried somewhere,
one molecule in the mirror;
one self within the self.
but you must
you do not believe it
and yet you must
act as though it’s true;
although the human world
belies it, it
is foundational, it
must be true
despite it’s falseness;
it pins all smiles at the corners;
it keeps gold shined and copper tarnished;
it is everywhere once
you agree to see it.
the trees
our homes are built from the dead;
sawn, planed, cut, oiled,
fitting nicely together;
tombstone and corpse both;
the crypt-smell of sawdust, the
children desperate in the forest –
where did they go? will they come back?
and the light bursts through the canopy
in new and intoxicating patterns.
First Thing
first thing in the morning the
world is buzzing the skies are
hazed; the eyes ache like
runny eggs and there is
something someone some
word that should not have
happened; there is regret
for nothing nowhere no-ways;
there is a catch in the throat
and a sweetgum branch tapping
the window; everything is
possibility.
even regret is possible.
SPILT
I can count spilled seconds
sloshed out from
many cups, I can
count spilled minutes I
can count spilled days, weeks,
months, I can
count a lifetime drying on linoleum,
I can clean and clean but
the stain remains,
I can sand and scrape and
leave new marks, but still,
I can count the years
spent laying on the floor.
halfway drowned
waterlogged and weighted;
lungs strained to bursting –
there’s still a glimmer of something stirring.
pull ’em up, turn him over,
there’s life in those eyes,
there’s light in those eyes that
has not flown free to
look down on us;
a few compressions, a little luck,
half-dead is only a midpoint,
it can go either way.
it can. it can.
in the season of half-warmth
the impossible is every day the
sun glowers with
predator lust the
dead may rise;
even the dead
may rise;
we sit and keep
busy as we always do,
pretending the halls are silent
and there is no
howling in the hills;
the impossible is every night the
moon looks down like
an unrepentant mother;
the woods are dangerous,
the rivers deep,
and bags of bones may
bubble up to
greet us
more than battles
the seed plops down and
everyone eats; and
everyone eats; the days
march by on full stomachs
in comfortable shoes;
or empty stomachs and tatters;
the shiny medals matter
only to the living, those who’ve lived,
there is no shine nor smell of metal
otherwise; there is no seed otherwise,
nor even the march. there
is more than firing rifles and
puffing out the chest;
there are bandages need using.
there are fields need tilled.
there are boots need patched.
chair in the wet
off the highway off
some truck, soaked in
rain and dripping;
the seat is cold;
comfortable, but cold;
as fine a place as any
to stop for just a spell;
yet otherworldly,
beyond the reach of men,
patrolled on all sides by
roaring steel beasts;
an island of the private in
a turmoil of public;
a comfort in
fast storms.
the comforts
the comforts are a strangling,
i am sinking into the couch cushions
lost, lost, lost, and
breathing through my nose – the
comforts are here, all around,
mechanical smells that remind
one of labor and lust;
the comforts are dazzling my eyes
and leaving ink-blot-blindspots
even when they close tight.
I am in my dreams with
hidden delights, bored,
swiping away from a
brevity of appealing nightmares.
RAVAGER
i look down and
there is a cut, many cuts,
precision disassembly;
there is space enough for
waters to run through;
space enough for
earth to fill in.
a world could grow in there;
a world between the carnage.
the intimidator
black leather, skull-patches,
all the product of
the hand, careful with a thread towards an eye,
brow crumpled in concentration –
this is gonna scare the hell outta them,
as the needle pierces the patch, the leather, and out,
they’re gonna be shaking when they see me,
when they know who my friends are.