[x]

The ElementsI.
Wine as red as stained glass
is lifted up & tilted back

Empty cups
touch wood like thunder
having given up grace

II.
Blue veins
thread across wrists & palms
spent vessels returning to the heart

Fingertips suffused with pulse
lift to lightning's loveliness

Harvest MoonThree a.m. moonlight
across lazy dust motes; a
tree scrapes the window.
Your arm weighs on my hip like
whispered promises of love.

of the ground-

It was Sunday night when Geo climbed into my room from the fire escape. I was painting my toenails and listening to the sounds of the city: police sirens, pulsating bass, the kids in my tenement running guitar riffs back and forth with the street musicians on the sidewalk. That was the year I turned sixteen and took a two-month vow of silence to honor the death of autumn. A premature snow had robbed the season of its delicate warmth and color, forcing the maples to weep their leaves into the gutters. All that rainwater, all that decay. How could anyone create when October was dying outside their windows? Pete and Jake practiced acoustic th

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

comfort, crawfish boils, and port vincentand you and me, we got the whole of
Saturday, you and me, we got car grease
streaked straight up to our grins and

let's high five when you triumph over
mom's sneaky nose, her teasing and coy and
i wanna be that kind of wife to a man

like you. i wanna be the kind of woman worth
changing with, sacrificing for, going crazy
over as the years collect in bank rolls of nickels.

i've been called a menagerie of names by
the older, the wiser, the wrinkled; they
call me pretty girl, sweetheart, dollface,

sugarplum as i stir splenda into their
brewed coffees, but they ain't got nothin'

on your horse master hands, the ones that could

don't get tired of elephants yetI've had my crippling moments.
They'd either start in my stomach
with an ache like broken glass
or stab me right in the catharsis,
somewhere near my heart or breath
or maybe my left foot.

I wouldn't know how it feels
to hurt to walk, but I imagine
with a destination like farther,
it's no pilgrimage.
So take the burden off your back.
Life is not a sandstorm
and your lungs are only a mirage
if you expect to see your breath
every time you breathe.
So take a breath

back, just one step

and listen with your smoke signals.
Help is on the way.
I just can't promise
it knows much about this lifetime.
It's the same way I could never promise
elephan

if only, if only.i.
we drove nowhere
and we spoke a language
that nobody understood
underneath a foreign sky
blanketed in the scent of pine.

ii.
you told me
my eyes were like envelopes—
because they were always
opening
closing
fluttering to the sound
of breaking seals
and ink stained fingertips.

iii.
i told you
we should run away
to a new land
with new faces
because
i was enamored
with people i had never encountered
and places i had never gone.

iv.
you laughed at me
and said that
if i didn't spend
so much time with my head
buried in world maps
i would realize
that i was living on one.

v.
i remember
it rained that day
and the tea went cold
but the

Of Half-Filled WordsShe is not a flutterbird.
Her fingers are skittish,
her smile is not.
Do not fear that you will
drive it away.

Sadness is her fumbling limb.
It is unwanted, yet
necessary.

When it is January
she will tell you,
"I am still struggling.
And I am becoming so many people
all at once.

A conglomeration of beauty that
I have managed to mangle.
Please, do not be sad for me."

Sometimes her sorrow is
meant for you. But mostly her.

Those specks and spots
of ocean storm lulls
reveal her truths:
ones she does not want
to extract from herself.

Her heart is not a rabbit.

When it beats
faster, faster, faster,
you need not
run harder

Send Me the Raintoday, they're all talking about the fires.
the people on TV, the voices on the radio,
the mouths that open and whisper
and softly touch tongues. even the sky is

revealing black plumes of smoke,
flaunting shameless and seductive curves.
the rain's been too dry and the lightning
isn't wet enough, panic is
rising out of control in this
burning city. that's

not all;
we have a crisis on
our hands- the balloons are
running out of air and even

the experts don't really know why,
and on top of those sinking rubber toys

my soul is losing moisture
faster than the crackling grass under the duress of flame.
i'm sta

By Fifty,I'll publish or perish;
find someone to cherish;
move someplace phenomenal;
display an abdominal
physique to inspire,
which I shall acquire!

. . . Or perhaps, just retire.

AirYou do not have to be empty.
Go, now, to the high places, the thin spires
of mountains and skyscrapers
the roof of your house, tipped with snow,
and fill yourself up with the air.
Drink it in, taste it, roll it around
on your tongue, feel it settle
in the caverns of your lungs. Feel the dust
and the ice crystals and the scraps of newspaper
brush your lips, and fill yourself with them, too.
Fill yourself up with the moonlight, the frost,
the dusky rose of the rising sun,
the night, the morning, the calls of birds,
the sillhouettes of telephone poles,
the shadows of people and clouds and alley cats
that dance across the pave

A Dancing GirlA girl stubs busted toes
across cigarette sidewalks
and rippled parking lots,
shatters her music box,
her mother's dying swan,
to dance with vagaries
for the dawn of her city.

She dances violently
for every chaired cripple
and the politically corrected,
handicapped by society.

She weeps in corners
with the coroners who
uncover bodies under bridges,
every vagrant of her city.

She sets fire to roof tops
where falling stars nestle,
runs rusted fire escapes
that lead to dead end allies,
and turns over dumpsters,
raging for a way out.

Va'eiraThis was a lesson in just how quiet it can be
when you don't make enough noise.

Me, holding a toy gun to a stranger's head
"Remember when things stopped being ridiculous?"

You, eating dandelions in a midnight field
"About the same time things stopped making sense."

A boy in church camp carved a small crucifix
for his arts and crafts project. He won the blue
ribbon and a brand new Bible. The next morning
I found it hanging over our cabin door.
A toad was nailed to the cross.
Still breathing.
Still breathing.

Sometimes we wake up early enough to hide the evil from our world.
Still breathing.

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

I Mean to Get You AloneYou have sharp
pulse-elevating teeth
the stuff I imagine heart attacks
are made of

I'm bent on selling you a handful of smiles
specifically crafted
to distract you from the fact that
I have almost nothing to say

and now you're steering this conversation
in a direction that suggests you've

forgotten that I
don't watch movies or do much of
anything but work which maybe

explains why one glass of wine gets me
wrapped around you
car to streetlight
crash style
mangled limbs
breeding curious onlookers and my insurance has
expired

you're leaning in and all I can think is
I don't have insurance

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MakahiyaThey call her touch-me-not.

Bashful mimosa, sleeping grass,
tickle-me. In Costa Rica,
Dormilona, sleepyhead, or
Tonga's false death mateloi, or
lojjaboti, the shy virgin in far Bengal.

In the Caribbean, they've named her
moriviví. I died, I lived,
open under the sun
until the first caress
and then she hides away.

BogThere are days when
you just cannot be happy.

When you cannot dredge
a new smile up out of the deep
silty mires of your soul.
When you cannot spoon
up from the muck
the peat-bog bones of
your laughs for the people
in your life who would hear them.

Days like this may bury you
without warning, like mudslides,
promises, like sinkholes,
or they may creep after you,
encroaching wet marshes
you may be able to keep
one step ahead of, for a while,
before they swallow your ankles
and pull you down.

When these days come for you,
I hope you will remember this:
the sun dries the mud,
and the rain washes it away.

Dandelion GirlYou grew up
on the side of the road,
between sidewalk cracks,
in backyards full of
tall bahia grass,
pushing aside their
stems so you could
find the sky.

You grew up
beneath the sun
and out in the rain
and under every
booming thunderstorm
an Alabama summer
could throw your way.

Dogs ran through you.
Men, too, trampled you
but you sprung back up,
rumpled, but still bright,
unbowing, even when
they said you were just
a gangly weed that no
one would find beautiful.

(I found you beautiful,
because your face was
the sun, and I find it
everywhere.)

You grew up.
You had to grow up,
grew white and fragile
and one day the

Red LightYou said you wanted
me to come over,
and even though it
was nearly midnight,
I agreed.

I hit every red light
between here and
your house: start
stop wait and wait
and wait and start
just to stop and wait
again, stuck listening to
weight-loss infomercials,
right-wing talk radio,
that god-awful jingle
for the lawyer that
tries to sound like
a wild-west cowboy.

Idling under these red
cyclops eyes, I wanted
to tell you that this had
to stop, that I was going
home, that I'd see you
tomorrow, maybe,
but I finished the drive
and remembered why:
the red scent of your hair;
your lips against my neck,
saying,
"I'm glad you'

RareWe stood on the wood bridge
over old Shoal Creek when
you reached up and shook
a handful of snowflakes
out of the white winter stars.

Just a handful,
just a few cold crystals
that tumbled down into the lazy
loping water of old Shoal Creek.

As we watched them come down,
I grabbed your magic hand
and held it until those falling
flakes were swallowed up
and swept downstream,
thinking you were as rare
as an Alabama snowfall
and I needed to hold your hand
to keep you from disappearing
just as quick.

SnowstormThe children misheard you.
They broke open the jar
looking for petals
and found only flours.

The dust is everywhere,
settling everywhere,
on the refrigerator and the stove,
on the startled mother cat
yowling her pawprints
through the snowy floor,
on her sharp-eared kittens
prancing in the clouds.

The three-year old is screaming.
He has cut his finger on the glass,
there are red streaks in the snow,
and his white-faced brother
stares up at you with a look
commonly reserved for
the confused and the betrayed.

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How To Ask Someone To Let You Love Them

by ~GabrielGadfly, Apr 19, 2012, 10:59:37 PM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

I think you keep secrets under your skin
like trees keep rings and do not know it,
like the sea teems,
like dark and quiet space
keeps every ray of light
the stars whispered to one another
when they were still young
and dying to make love.

I think you keep secrets in you
like the desert keeps sands,
like sleep keeps dreams,
like cities keep sleepless people
and people looking for sleepless people
to fall asleep with.

I think you keep secrets
like secrets like to be kept,
and I want to learn them all.

How To Ask Someone To Let You Love Themby ~GabrielGadfly

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

This poem and many more can be found on my website, [link].

Edit: Thank you all for the Daily Deviation!

Daily Deviation

Given 2012-10-06

How To Ask Someone To Let You Love Them by ~GabrielGadfly ( Featured by `thorns )

love 2 2

joy 3 3

wow 3 3

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

~beautyinreview Jan 9, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

This piece is so lovely. I love the repetition of the sibilant sound, especially in the second two stanzas. The whole second stanza, in fact, is beyond wonderful. An excellent poem that is well-deserving a DD.

=SilverInkblot Dec 28, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Hi there! Just a note to let you know I've featured this piece in my 2012 showcase of literature: [link]

~GabrielGadfly Jan 3, 2013 Professional Writer

Thank you!

*sesam-is-open Oct 15, 2012

Superb poem and very well deserved DD.

~GabrielGadfly Oct 18, 2012 Professional Writer

Thank you.

*sesam-is-open Oct 18, 2012

My pleasure

~ragnaice Oct 13, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Wow. This is beautiful. On a second reading I just have to stop after almost every line to ponder the beauty of the simply worded language "like dark and quiet space/keeps every ray of light," "like cities keep sleepless people/and people looking for sleepless people/to fall asleep with." So lovely.

~GabrielGadfly Oct 18, 2012 Professional Writer

I'm glad you liked it.

~eebboB Oct 12, 2012

like it......want to send it to some one. may i have your permission?

~GabrielGadfly Oct 18, 2012 Professional Writer

Certainly.

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