Back in November I did a collaboration with my friend Chris McQueeney on Facebook. It was a great nonsense poem called In Foodland. We did another round last month which I titled Return to Foodland. You can read more of Chris’s work on his blog.
Image Source: Flickr
Rock candy mountains threaten
Cotton candy skies while sun-glazed fields
Grow candy corn between the clouds
Your lips taste wine, the world
Dissolves in mint-perfume
Your Hershey kisses,
Bittersweet intensity
Has left us in retreat.
A few days ago I wrote a post on Facebook mentioning cubist poetry. Two poets, Chris McQueeney and Regina Puckett, left comments with astonishing poems.
*****
Like a Rubik’s cube
Your visage is square
Off center
All angles and corners
— Chris McQueeney
Image Source: Flickr
A fabulous face painted flat and outlined
A perfect banquet of color in which to dine
Each tinted circle and painted square
Begged for the world to stop and stare
A simple way of expressing beauty and art
Color sprayed onto canvas from the heart
Last year I invited poets to write a few lines about love on my old blog. What is it and what does it mean? How can we unravel something so painfully elusive? This year I invited them back to reflect a year later: Helle Gade, Regina Puckett, and Poppy Ruth Silver.
I walked into your soul
Embraced all that you were with my love
But death is a jealous lover
Now that you are gone
I’ll forgive, but never forget
– Helle Gade
When hate dies, compassion begins, when a violent urge to take care and be one with another, that is a two side deal, to break free of the curse of loneliness
– Brock Gates
Hearts are like fragile, breakable beasts
When we yield to love’s unforgiveable feasts
We’ll partake of what it offers without any regret
Any pretend we won’t drown in its undefeatable debt
– Regina Puckett
Visit her blog here. ~ Find her complete book of poetry on Amazon.
There is only the
softness of your heartbeat, merged
eternally, here
– Poppy Silver
years have taught me to be careful
with finesse and tenderness
but rules are made of fragments
to be broken down as motion
shatters obstacles –
we groove on the same
wavelength.
– Ben Ditmars
Love Is…
A steady gaze, calm,
Prescient worlds, universes;
Celestial bangs
– Justin Bog
Buy his collection of holiday stories on Amazon. ~ Enter the Goodreads Giveaway.
I was thinking though and I can’t accurately describe love right now just because of where I am. I hope to have an answer one day, but for now the very thing eludes me and is drenched in a kind of monochrome nostalgia with hues of yellow.
– Timothy Giles
The sloom of sense,
the first confusion of limerance,
the equal joy of redemancy:
affection unbound
– Michelle Franklin
The feel of a new book, knowing you have a new escape
Finding a new show to watch on Netflix, learning there’s two seasons
Meeting someone for the first time, finding out they actually like your jokes
Waking up to a Saturday morning, sitting down to write right away
Seeing that same person again who liked your jokes, laughing together again
Love is many things, our interests, escapes, but it’s also the feeling of never being alone
It’s the feeling of finding those things that make us feel closer to others.
– Dan Leicht (D.e.e.L)
Visit his website here. ~ Follow him on Twitter. ~ Find more books here.
In love, we are, at best…inadequate.
We have mastered infatuation
Manipulation, copulation and lies.
We have embraced jealousy, envy and resentment.
Love is free
From all these things.
I’m not saying we’re not learning.
I’m not giving up Hope.
I try to love every day,
Without prejudice
Without condition.
In this I know,
Until I defeat selfishness & self-hate
The heart I have to offer
Is nothing more than illusion
The “love”
A dictionary definition.
– Natasha Head
Visit Tastoo.com for news & poetry from Natasha Head, including a chance to win a signed copy of her latest release “Birthing Inadequacy”
Wall punch your way
A friend asked me today
What love meant to me
And what I had to say
About it
I drew a blank
And I have to thank you
For getting out of it-
What does love mean to me
Is it the thing that has
Caused me countless
Hours of misery
Heart ache and pain
Eyes dribbling
Wall punch your way
Through another day of love
Or is it the other
Chest constricting
Heart melting through your
Fingertips kind of way
Love is like an IV drip
Keeping me alive another day
I like to think the latter
At least that is what keeps me
Coming back for more
– Chris McQueeney
A beautiful woman approached a man and asked him for a light, he picked up his lighter and lit her cigarette. He never spoke, she stood watching him and walked away. For most of the night he could she her watching him but not once did he show any interest. The bar closed and he walked through the dark streets before a woman’s voice asked him to stop. “Do you not think I’m beautiful?” she asked. “Yes” he replied. “Would you like to spend the night?” she asked him, but he shook his head. “You are the most desirable woman I’ve ever seen, but it cannot be” he said. “Then tell me why?” she questioned. He answered, “Someone waits at home for me, she makes me laugh but also makes me cry, she helps me but can make the bitter of arguments, she has gone through so much with me and to me she is the most beautiful woman that will always shine through my eyes”. The woman kissed the man on the cheek, but as she turned to walk away said; “You are both blessed to know true love, I wish I could find love like that”.
– Christopher G.J. Smith
Love speaks in whispers
Holding shoulder, looking into eyes,
And when cries in longing
Pierces through the mellowed
Breast of the skies.
It arrives unannounced
On tip-toe, like a gentle breeze
Through lonely nights,
And when leaving
Slams the door so hard
That a thunder roars
With the feral vengeance of death,
Which reverberates through the soul.
Love, when it meets you
Nourishes the soul,
And in awkward shyness smiles.
It keeps you up long nights
Writing reams and running longest miles.
– Saket Suryesh
A collaboration with Chris McQueeney. Visit his blog here.
Image Source: Flickr
We were in Foodland where pizza trees
battle steak bushes, or Ribeyesteaksismajorum
as scientists call it, for supremacy
the popcorn shrimp flowers are king
and Jello giants tremble by
popsicle plants near pudding stalks
higher than licorice grass.
Thanks to my friend Scott Morgan for tagging me on his blog WriteHook. I’ve known Scott’s writing for some time and was lucky enough to meet him in Dallas last year.
Scott has asked me to answer some questions and pass them around to a couple friends. In the coming days Chris McQueeney and Nikki Sherman will answer these questions as well.
I am currently working on a full-length poetry collection titled Inhale the Night.
2. How does my work differ from others in its genre?
Inhale the Night is my first full-length collection. It has a wide variety of different styles ranging from free verse to haiku, tanka, and a short epic. I don’t think I’ve seen so many elements work seamlessly together.
3. Why do I write what I do?
Recently, I have written poetry. I like the challenge and the beauty in finding the right words. I see things differently when I finish creating something and I hope others do too. Also, it keeps me from going crazy and that helps everyone.
4. How does my writing process work?
I’m very meticulous when I write. People will tell you to just write and edit later, but I’ve never managed it. If I see something wrong I stop and work it out. I’m compulsive like that.
The Midnight Writer 