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Star SwallowerShe's
an enigma.
her head, a stadium drowning with applause.
yet its seats are empty like the notebooks
where armies of words should be marching.
instead she dismantles clocks
thinking she can play with time.
behind the mountains lurks a darker reasoning
a twisted labyrinth of rationalizations
hidden from the suns brilliance.

Years alone beneath the bleached fluorescent
reading those already dancing in the moonlight.
she is living a literary half-life through them
hiding from the symmetry of the writer.
licking salty rocks of excuses.
saving her secrets for posthumous excavation.
decades of productivity left for moths to chew.
you're throw
for onceCold

blackempty

like the cavern where crimson vellum once resided

Drenched in reticence,
your empty blue eyes do nothing
but freeze the blood in these veins

surrounded by phantoms,
i lie in the dark next to your fading silhouette
between sheets that hold so many memories,
they are empty,

like the chestnut eyes that bore into yours

And as the rain              falls harder
as it falls faster

washing down the streets
through deep alleys,
down endless roads,

for

once

just

once

i pray it takes me with
preludesi.
blue rose into the city backdrop
like balloons, a million for the
morning sun prelude.

ii.
i've not slept a dream
but i have cried a salty face
and letters spilled like beans
into my moleskine,
almost as virgin as i once was
with few stories between my covers.

iii.
the kettle's belly boils
like my head upon a pillow.

iv.
i am guilty for rarely finishing my tea
even when i use the small mugs;
pour, rinse, repeat.

v.
perhaps today i will play dead.

vi.
perched behind my blinds
it dawns on me that i am surrounded
by walled neighbours, strangers,
they're just preludes to lovers
the way i am always
prelude to the one.
Apologies to LaoEach day is its own microstep--
since I woke from my mother's womb,
I longed to mimic new words, trammel
the sound until it blossomed

like a newborn, and oh how I birthed
stories--told them how I wanted
the author's sacrosanct title
once I've grown. But growing meant

learning the practice of citizens
and their due contribution: beast-slaying
nature of please, thank you,
an apology: sincere

or not. Then there is time--the first
breath of nine, exhalation
of five, the suffocating mandate
of overtime. You grow used to it:

the cyclical disappearance of parents,
pervasive need of sleep, a home-
cooked meal's gradual transmogrific
despondenti.

"are you sleepy today?"
"yes."
"but you were sleepy yesterday."
"i know."

ii.

she stirs her pomegranate green-tea until it turns from clear to purple
setting it on her bedside table and climbing back into bed again.
her fingers follow the bluer-than-usual constellation veins on her wrists and down
to the freckle on her forearm and then the scar on the inside of her elbow
crossing the tendon as if it were crux.
and then she remembered that God hasn't been with her lately.

iii.

today is long and sunny but when she steps outside the humidity creaks her bones
and her skin starts to inflame.
she assumes that if getting the mail
The Best is Yet to Comeif we grow old
there will be a sigh
an attention to the change
as your muscles slacken underneath
your faded, favorite shirt
the one that's threadbare, "holy"
in a sense less than divine
I'll have washed it for
the thousandth time
our eyes will crinkle, wrinkle
in ways that start to match
and we'll hold hands and ask:
when did the nerves and veins
begin to let our hands get cold?
-if we grow old
The Cat on the PorchYou asked me why I do not believe in ghosts,
celestial at four in the morning.
     It becomes the common hour,
not a biting static shock in the eye veins like I anticipated
but dangerously vogue and precious
like a real diamond ring or sapphires on your breast.
No wood pecking or oil teasing or misshapen duck bills bleating
just clay, but lighter, lightest
and bright
seductive and crestfallen.

They bled Peter and Pangloss over a river.
I was wearing white for the funeral
humming 'home', the matronly letters
soothe me
clotheshorses and moonlight,
Mayan jewellery in my cabinet
the mother tongue kissing my molars better

     But then there
All the Things You Never KnewIt was your favorite thing to say. “We know everything about each other. Not just the good things, but even the bad ones. We have no secrets.” And the way your eyes lit up when you said it, how your arm would curl around my shoulders and squeeze me against you… I couldn’t say anything. I promised myself that I would when we were alone, but the moment always seemed wrong and eventually the fact that I still had secrets became a secret itself.

It turns out I wasn’t the only one.

I never told you about the crying or the cutting or the nights I spent awake staring at the bottle of pills. I was terrified it would b
Escape VelocityF = G(m1m2)/r2

Black – true black – is the absence of light. Darkness is defined by what it is not, by the lack of something else. When we say a black hole, we truly mean that; black. Blacker than black. An absence of not only light, but of time, distance, anything.

The night was scary when I was little. I hated the dark, but couldn’t bear to sleep so long as the light was on, any light, burning on the other side of my eyelids. I used to have nightmares about dark things in dark corners, shadowy figures with shadowy fingers trailing along my spine. I always woke up cold and fumbling frantically for the lamp, but the aura o
plumbumshe has a heart of gold
and she, a heart of lead
and she, a heart of uranium.

and they go walking sometimes, the three of them.

gold is confident in her worth,
untarnishable
bought and sold and bought and sold
the virgin whore

and lead behind,
heart heavy in her chest
guilt from bullets
and pride from pipes
and anxiety from irreparable brain damage

and somewhere off to the side treads uranium,
tumors growing,
white skin glowing,
thin frame for a dense core.
relearning          i. stardust scatters with the
direction of my pupils –
maybe secretly i am an
astrology teacher, waiting
for a sign to wink
happily at me.

         ii. excuse the rambling
nature of forgotten question
marks, but tell me:
would you like to be the
object of handwritten clichés
would you like to whisper
secrets in my palm
and would you
like to be the possibility

         iii. air brushes against my
skin like the torn petals
of a flower still standing.
[ hold your head up high, honey,
and tell tomorrow to wait just
a while,

         iv. so you can figure out
the difference between
patience and having all the
MonologueSpinal fluid seems to be seeping between the cracks
Of the dark hardwood floors beneath me
As if all the cartilage from my being
Has been used to paste together an arthropod heart
I’ve white washed my pupils and folded them
Into hazy envelopes and sent them off to strangers
earth circuitAnd when the sun sinks, the earth's skin crawls:

I.
I wonder if this awkward creature would notice me the way I notice him.
He's so tragic at his throne
I stare after him longingly.
And yet,
He never realizes that I'm the one
Who forever basks in his brilliant beams.
If only he knew how much brighter he could burn
[with me]
He'd light up the universe.

II.
I heard him speak of thirst, once.
The quenching lust of the stars had run dry.
So that night, I brought along a jar of acid.
(And how it gleamed in his glow).
I handed it to him, wrapped in taffeta ribbons,
screaming
I wish curdling joy
On my gurgling boy

 
6:30:09what i wouldn't give
to have my body sink down
into yours, cocooned
in the tumultuous quicksand
of human flesh.

i have never been so moved
as by your touch, the slinking seeping
brush. the universe dispels
and in the absence of everything,
i am less alone
than i have ever been.
rootslike drowned men who have lost their
clothes and faces, they lay suspended
facing the sun and grinning without
eyes through the ripples of the water.

those passing by wonder how they got here,
these homeless men without fingers or toes
long spindly stumps twisting into lost roots:

reaching to the east, to the south,
to the homes they have forgotten.
Browse More Like This
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More from ~coup-de-coeur

speaker for the deadi dream about death, sometimes.

grinning skulls with empty sockets,
acres of cut tropical forest.

from the sky, bloody fire,
and from the water, plagues.

starved children and vultures,
dead mothers and back-alley abortions.

streets with gaping maws,
buildings prey to the elements.

tsunamis, earthquakes, eruptions,
families in different countries.

i soon remember those are memories.
paradoxmy mind is killing me
and i am sure this hurts
more than if all my ribs
were shattered and you
ate my heart.

before you there was no water
and i had to content myself
with drowning myself in scotch,
in blood and in tears
and i loved it too much

after you, there will be no stop
to the downpour of burning
water and it's a delicious
contradiction, the way you
were before you dried up.

you had always been an
endless source of water, and
the sight of you dried up,
crumbling dust and blown
sand made me laugh.

i stopped laughing when the mirror broke.
xylophone ribs i pop pills like candies,
downing them with vodka.

        my life is a series
        of bad decisions and falls.

when things get worse,
i turn to sharp edges.

        it's been five years,
        and it's because of you.

the nights when i can't sleep
spill into the days with no sun.

        i didn't ask for a fairytale,
        i just wanted to be happy.
usul my hand reaches out to you,
fingers twitching like so many caterpillars.

your mouth twitches up in a smile,
and your laugh feels like wind on my face.

my throat is parched and my tongue, dry,
and it is you who holds the glass of water.

you reach out a hand to me, lightly,
and when you touch me i crumble into dust.

i think you will have fun sweeping me under the rug.
when the star kings die we never thought paris
would be the first to fall.

the eiffel tower was the
last battleground
before they set the sky
on fire, and it rained.

in venice, there were
plagues, terrible diseases
that ate you from the inside
and so we fled again.

in tokyo, it was the
water that killed people.
poisons in every drop,
and people stopped drinking.

in new york, the skyscrapers
fell, one after the other,
explosions rocking the
ground, and the sun shone.

i never thought i would
be the last one standing.
kwisatz haderach it is i who is the most
powerful person alive.

i am the one who
can bring water.
i am the one whom
the makers fear.

my warriors shall die
with my name on their lips.
my religion shall be
spread across galaxies.

at my feet will kneel
powerful men, emperors.
in my fist i will hold
the key to life.

it is for me that they
lead the jihad.
it is for me that
they kill.

i am what they created.

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January 27
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a second skeleton

:iconcoup-de-coeur:

i. introduction

i was born 4425 miles away from here.
my heart still lingers there.
i don't want to have it back.

i go through the motions,
don't ask me for emotions.


i once thought i could be happy,
my mistake can be forgiven;
i was so much younger.


now i know better
than to expect anything.
because the only time you can lose,
is when you love something.


that's why i love myself.
:iconcoup-de-coeur:
#100themechallenge 1: introduction.
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Daily Deviation

Given 2013-01-30
The suggester writes, "a second skeleton by ~coup-de-coeur achieves an astonishing degree of beauty." ( Suggested by ~craazhy and Featured by `thorns )
love 1 1 joy 0 0 wow 0 0 mad 0 0 sad 0 0 fear 0 0 neutral 0 0
:iconwdnest:
=wdnest Feb 19, 2013  Hobbyist Writer
[link] Featured here.
Reply
:iconcoup-de-coeur:
~coup-de-coeur Mar 2, 2013  Hobbyist General Artist
thank you very much for the feature! i appreciate it greatly.

have a great day.
Reply
:iconangelusnoir:
=AngelusNoir Feb 3, 2013   General Artist
I love the 'double take' effect this has....I could deduce many different meanings,at different times..I like that :)
Somehow it makes me think of the obtuse imagery of very early dylan thomas...but it's quite unique,you must have an interesting headspace :heart:
Reply
:iconcoup-de-coeur:
~coup-de-coeur Feb 3, 2013  Hobbyist General Artist
thank you. it's kind of what i tried to do, leave it open for interpretation so that each can find their own meaning and connect to it.

i'm honoured that you would compare me to dylan thomas, heh. thank you very much!

my head's not always the best place to be, but it does make for an interesting time, hah.
Reply
:icondoublethefun:
Mood: Love ~doublethefun Jan 30, 2013
"because the only time you can lose,
is when you love something."
:O amazingggg
Reply
:iconcoup-de-coeur:
~coup-de-coeur Jan 31, 2013  Hobbyist General Artist
thank you! i think that's also my favourite line, heh.
have a great day!
Reply
:iconthe-lost-hope:
*The-Lost-Hope Jan 30, 2013  Student General Artist
Congratulations on the Daily Deviation! :clap: Interesting turn of feelings through words.
Reply
:iconcoup-de-coeur:
~coup-de-coeur Jan 30, 2013  Hobbyist General Artist
thank you! i'm glad you like it. (:
have a great day!
Reply
:iconthe-lost-hope:
*The-Lost-Hope Jan 30, 2013  Student General Artist
You're welcome and no problem you did a good job. You too. ;)
Reply
:icondaletech:
=daletech Jan 30, 2013
Even with a DD, this needs more publicity. It's a gorgeous poem. Bless xx
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