[x]

A Violin's Faith

alas, no man -
let alone a violin -
can orchestrate
self-determination.

here I lie, deserted,

(Master's given up on me -
given me up to a dust devil
of a dissonant girl called –
oh bitter irony – Lynn)

unstrung and unwound,
violet bruises cruising
the seas of my some-
time smooth surfaces.

my innards, vital organs –
behold my broken anima -
have fared no better fate.

an enema in my f-hole
would have been far
less filthy than the string
of curses and fickle f-words
I've tried to utter in the dark.

as the bridge between me
and reality breaks down
into a dystopia of abused
fingerboards and loose pegs,

I

Vertebral CurvaturesAn old hag, haggard
and bent beneath
a bucketful of tears.
Her spine – a gnarled oak,
grown crooked with age -
bears the brunt of the past.

A pregnant beauty,
stroking with a smile
her bellyful of dreams.
Her spine – a young yew,
still coaxable to change -
bears the weight of the future.

The poet’s ‘tween the two –
with a bucketful of tears
and a bellyful of dreams.
She’s the ageless soul,
weaving woe and wine from
the curves in their spine.

manias1.
i used to go online and make fake
accounts on dating websites when i
was feeling especially malicious and
frustrated and rundown and sad.

female with severe trichotillomania
and kleptomania seeking male who
doesn't mind spotty baldness or
theft.

"that's mean," you would say.

and i know, i knew; it was mean. but
i hated telling you that you were right.

2.
sometimes i would ask my cat, "do you
remember who stole your eye? do you
remember your mother?" and i would feed
him bits of pasta and bread and wave my
hand in front of his nose.

"do you remember your mother? do you?
do you remember having two eyes?"

and i would be

A Scattering of MeteoriteLast night I saw the sky turn red.
The heavens heaved and all life bled
as meteors rained upon the world,
the cosmos' wrath raw and unfurled.
I could do naught but gaze wide-eyed
at cities razed and lives denied,
at trees ablaze and fields aflame.
When at long last I o'ercame
the fear that froze me to the ground,
I looked around and there I found
two lovers locked in tight embrace,
a blissful death etched on their face.

This life of ours 's a tawdry treasure,
for there's no meter that can measure
the tears that trickle and descend,
the meteors that have yet to land…

Elena's FaceLord, I tried.
Every piece of you that broke,
I glued it, sewed it, hoped.
My cheek ached
where yours was bruising like a peach,
withdrawing. Something taking you,
cell by cell, like a palace
dismantled by masterthieves.
You changed from coffee to white to green
and finally a shadow started settling
over you. Understand:
I couldn't leave you there,
where rats used your pelvis as a throne,
nursing their babies in your vellus hair.
Couldn't leave your fine lips to wither
and me a doctor.
Gentle, gentle with her.
The sun is up. Away.

FrequencyTell me why we keep repeating these useless clichés, like
if a tree falls in a forest and no one's around to hear it,
we want to hope for that tree's sake
as it's dying, at least it's making a noise;
but it's just sound waves,
like the waves of an ocean,
or anything, really, because everything is built on tides.
Even mathematical worlds like chemistry and electricity have this.
It's all come and go and light and energy and color,
and it's all got waves.
Even the science of fingertips is just touch and go.

We live on a planet pushed and pulled by it's own pet rock of a moon,
rolling around the gravitational leash of orbit.
Th

the sky: : a poemthe sky is unmistakable—

i am open
by association
with it.

it is exempt from time,
bodiless—
giving me the impression
of eternity.

*

the sky surrounds
the earth,

strikes water
from rock,

limits the peaks
and dips
of land

with an eternally
obscure ceiling.

*

rain is in no rush
but it sweeps along
the steep lines of storms,

striking a spot
with the accuracy
of chance—

it’s obvious,
as the river
is carefully measured
each year
like a child,

that even moderation
is an extreme.

*

clouds sit
like lumps of ice cream
on the horizon,

thinning to vapid wisps
overhead,
suspended ciphers
sent

We Say "Forever"We say "forever" with trickster's ease,
Not a hint of humor, joke, or jest;
And though a poet's fav'rite plea,
What yawning mountain, what idle sea,
Would claim to stand when all else rests?

No mountains eclipse the firmament,
No sea ever subdued the tide;
We are captive to the time we're lent,
And tomorrow, when it's all been spent,
Our dreams, with us, will die.

A Legacy of WisdomYou have scribed your words,
wealthy wreaths of wisdom,
on paper never torn or worn.
You have etched your passions
on my brow.

You have left this wallowed world
victorious; eyes resplendent
with the wisdom you wrote and wrought.
Your passions shall echo in my ears
unto eternity.

And should I stray into some
sullen storm, or get caught in
the torrents of the monsoon, I’ll know
that Lear’s been there before, and
I’ll not swoon.

And if Hades’ doors open up
before my stranded soul, and scorch
it with the heat of hell, I’ll recall that
I am not the first – Dante’s been down
there as well.

A

who said "Valletta's Dead"To those who said "Valletta's dead"

The Valletta I know
is the one that comes out after dark,
when all the shops are closed
and there's not a soul in sight.
She's an old lady pining with melancholy,
weathering downpours of regret
with weary sips of herbal tea.
She's a sonata that goes unheard
by men deaf to subtle notes –
but watch the stupor of the cats;
hush, they hear it too.

Did you expect to see her in full bloom,
this flower, this survivor of attrition?
No rose besieged by Turk and terror
can hold on to every petal.
No rose ravaged by the drought of time
can resist the truth of wilting –
yet see how well her

All Alone in the AlleyAll alone in the alley,
with wine by my side
and not a cat in sight,
I drift, slowly,
from cold ennui
to good old mis'ry.

Here, in the deep dark
of the cul-de-sac,
there are no lies
left to unmask –
all is bare
for none to see –

the drunken madness in my marrow,
the broken poems in my bones;

the quill, of late run out of sorrow,
the sacrum writhing with my moans.

This is what I covet,
this is what I loathe;
this – this - is my sanctum –
my grove of myrtle drear
and martyred dreams.

At a Certain BridgeI will wait for you by the old stone bridge:
That diabolical junction between the left bank
And the right bank.

It crumbles where the moss becomes earthy green breath
Below the eternal farewell of water,
And the rocks protrude with slow gasps,
Damp and secretive.

I will have my bag packed; It will lean against
A tree trunk, a bruised white birch,
And I'll wear my white dress with the red flowers
That you love, and I love: I will wear it.

I will ask you to pack light;
Your bags have leaden lining, tobacco-stuffed pockets,
Crumbs of smoke and loss upon the bottom,
And one desperate broken zipper.

I will be waiting with my bare s

Broken DownShe speaks only
when spoken to,
her voice then loud
sometimes, in assertion
or sometimes barely audible
in mumbled dissent.

There is no spirit muted, trapped
all too sentient in prisoning flesh.
These are but firecrackers
of a memory decomposed,
small explosions triggered
by speechless voices,
hallucinations that echo
through the spirals
of her inner ear.

On the threshold of the infirmary
I sit down and weep.

You peer into the mirror's shards
and you see death.
I gaze into your opal eyes
and I see hope

and I see strength

and I see hope.

We are it.
We are what Lear,
amidst the tumults
of raging sorrows,
his ankles deep in madness,
called "the thing itself".

Look, child; look at the world
moving on around you,
as blind to you
and your pale wisps of pain
as to the hollow wind.

Can you not see?
We would not be gleaming stars
were we not half ash half flame.
We would never cheer the skies
had we not lived through the shame
of drifting on, aboard a breeze -
cinders blowing

On Loneliness and SexStranded within a copse of dark sycamore,
I mourn alone her aching absence.
No more can I revel in the absinthe
of a foreign kiss
from esoteric lips.

I want her back –
to share the warmth of my hearth –
belonging.

Startled by a noise from within the rose-bush,
I turn my head to gape at solitude.
I no longer seek out solace
when I recall
our sepia-stained summers.

That noise again,
The racket of two stray cats
fornicating!

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The Confluence of Sinuses

Medicine, Literature, and the Confluence of Sinuses

1817. Having earned his license as an apothecary, Keats gives up his medical training to seek a career as a poet. Three years later, with the force of his medical knowledge, he predicts his imminent death of tuberculosis and despairs about lost prospects. He suffers a major pulmonary haemorrhage and dies shortly after.

Some say that writers are born pen in hand, and that baby doctors have tiny stethoscopes around their necks. I am not altogether too sure about that, but I do believe that, were there any truth in such a claim, the very first Homo sapiens sapiens to be born would have had a

Cervical UniversalityI. Cassandra and her Revelation

You do remember, I hope,
that day we braved the tides of time
and sailed to Greece in search of Truth,
or Love, or Peace – or any revelation
that Grecian soil unearths.

I hope you do indeed recall
the merry merchants at their stalls
(the ones we thought were too plebeian),
and the wine they sold us with delight –
the wine we drank that very night,
awash the laps of the Aegean.

You must recall, to some extent,
our trip to Diana's covert grove,
and how,
beneath a moonbeam all but spent,
we strove to bare its old arcana.
Through cypress trees made we our way,
and trails of scaly tamar

Lament for the Death of DreamA Lament for the Death of a Dream

I

With waking eyes I saw it tear –
the dream that clad my days for weeks.
Now all I've left are wretched rags,
as torn as those which orphans seek.

II

I watched the doe die during labour,
another Rose without a saviour.
Whose breast shall feed the hapless fawn?
Which dirge will chide the childless dawn?
Whose chant can quell its damp dolour?
Which doleful bard? Which troubadour?

'Tis a dire, dire, dire fate
that we should bear such hawthorn grief,
the kind that pricks us as we sleep
to rouse the pain buried beneath.

III

At dusk the pixie-folk arose
from forth their nests and foliate co

The Law of Writing RawPoetry is like steak –
Tempting if still rare,
Tasteless when well-done.

It's the blood, you see –
It's all about how much blood
You put (pump?) into it.

Oh bring it to me, now –
All red
And raw
And wriggling.

_________________________________

Nevertheless –
Like a juicy steak,
Good poetry needs wine.

The red kind, of course.

White wine is for the milk-livered ones,
The ones that think that
Not all livers are evil and that
not all livers should be punished.

And besides,
Red wine strengthens the heart.

__________________________________

I once wrote:

"If my pain were sex appeal,
I'd be as sore as a

BougainvilleaThe sunset fawns upon you,
gilding your luscious flowers
with Fauvist lustre.

Tell me, nymphet
of pink precocity,
is there one petal
amidst your wreathed youth
that exudes no poetry,
no vestige of perfection?

Tell me, nymphet
of purple plumage,
is there one petal
amidst your violet vest
that fears no downfall,
no cankerous corruption?

The sunset fawns upon you,
gilding your splendour
with garlands of gold.

But autumn shall smite you;
snuff out your glory
like heroes of old.

Tell me, nymphet
of Truth transfixed,
does past glory linger,
does past beauty matter,
after time's taken its toll?

ApologiaI. I am the Means

I dip my quill because I'll die.
I move my hand, slowly, word after word,
like a calligrapher from China,
'til every word has purpose,
and so do I.

I dip my quill, again,
because I'll die.

II. Homage to Hecate

I have ever served one goddess
and one alone.
Hecate – mistress of the night,
coy concubine at the crossroads.

She made love to me, once,
'neath the light of a vestal moon,
her moans the vespers
of a moribund nightingale.

But my heart was only hers when,
as Poesy withered
and my soul vacillated
in the cold waters of postcoital sorrow,
she let her vesture swathe
my chest and hummed:
I have g

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Laudanum and the Moonlit Night

by ~Leurindal, Oct 24, 2009, 6:10:53 PM
Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

Flattered by the gossamer glow of a blushing moon,
I scour the poppy-fields for the opiates of inspiration,
the petals brushing against my bare thighs; easing
the tense creases in my neck into shivers down my back.
What wanton joy, as I wander and wade in this sea of red,
the waves of flowers parting before me, waltzing with
the silent wake of my footsteps. I could saunter on forever,
holding nightfall by the waist; nature at my beck and call.

Why do you blush, moon? Is it because of how stark naked
I appear before you, disrobed by your own coaxing caress?
All cares do I brush aside, when on the night you do preside,
and aloft the cloudless sky, gild gleaming eyes with wonder.
Why does Dorian linger in that gray opium den for a whiff
of oblivion, when you could soothe him to sleep with but a blink
of your lidless eye? In a dream would we saunter on forever,
watching nightfall go to waste; nightly would we call out to you,

but you would never answer...

Laudanum and the Moonlit Nightby ~Leurindal

Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

©2009-2013 ~Leurindal

laudanum - a concoction of opium used as a narcotic or for pain relief.

dorian - Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'.

thanks

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Mood: Big Grin

~Neelu24 Jul 30, 2010

And I love Oscar Wilde.

Reply

~Leurindal Jul 31, 2010

that means you have good taste

Reply

~Swords-and-Bandages Jun 30, 2010

Being a poet isn't painless, is it?

Reply

~Leurindal Jun 30, 2010

on the contrary, it's quite a pain

Reply

~Swords-and-Bandages Jun 30, 2010

Too bad our opiates are really hard to find...

Reply

~Leurindal Jun 30, 2010

we just gotta look for 'em in the right places

Reply

~Swords-and-Bandages Jun 30, 2010

Word.

Reply

Mood: Love

*toxic-nebulae Apr 24, 2010 Student Writer

This is beautiful... the first verse is my favourite.

Reply

~Leurindal Apr 24, 2010

glad you like it

Reply

*toxic-nebulae Apr 24, 2010 Student Writer

Of course.

Reply