Poetry

: eloquentannex; May 15th, 12:13

I'd love to spend a lazy afternoon
to wonder how I ended up in such
a state of disarray. Belonging strewn
from here to Florida, I don't have much
to call my own just now: a mobile home
I only rent, a cat named Wicca, and
a cable bill. I ponder 'til the gloam
the disappearance of my laugh; the planned
excursions not forgott'n but disappeared;
the moment Botox seemed an option good.
I know, I know--the President has queered
the vows; I should be naught but gay! I should.
Instead I wait, succumb to entropy;
Perhaps I'll make my bed eventually.

April Challenge 2012: 10/30

: eloquentannex; April 10th, 22:27

Ernest Hemingway once famously made a bet that he could write a complete story in 6 words. He won the bet; the story he wrote is this: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." So, my prompt is a challenge: write a complete poem in six words. :) (Prompt from Bané.)

He died before he loved me.

April Challenge 2012: 9/30

: eloquentannex; April 9th, 20:52

a friend of mine has a martini at sunset "to wash away the shame of the day". he was quoting a british author. i don't remember who the author was. the important thing is that jeffrey maintained that the ritual was important because "every day had at least a little shame associated with it". i've never forgotten that. (Arturo)

I stand in front of roomfuls of people on a semi-regular basis and read the most profane, most pornographic, and most naked poetry I can conjure, and I am not ashamed. I tease my cat Trudy with a laser pointer until she crashes headfirst into the wall, and I have no shame. I shed tears as I tell the CSR in the bank that I can’t afford a $273 overdraft fee, and I feel no shame. I enjoy the film of Tim Burton, repeatedly, and I am unashamed. While pretending to go to the bathroom, I tiptoe through friends’ bedrooms looking for their secret stash of self-performed erotica. I read the novels of Anne Rice, J.K. Rowling, and Dean Koontz. I check out the ass of a neighbor’s boy, whom I’ve watched grow into a hot seventeen year old man. I own John Williams CDs. My first concert was the Go-Go’s. My walls are graced with the artwork of Thomas Kinkade. I bring dates to Olive Garden. I drive the speed limit and then speed up as cars attempt to pass. I wear sweatpants without underwear to the mall. I have slept with at least three of my brother’s ex-boyfriends. I drink Amber Mist.

April Challenge 2012: 8/30

: eloquentannex; April 8th, 21:09

Things aren't always what they seem... (Kenn)

Sometimes it seems that the man you loved loved you back. Sometimes it seems that you didn’t love the man who loved you. Sometimes it seems like that man you don’t love acts like he loves you. Sometimes it seems you act like you don’t love the man you love so he wouldn’t love you back. Sometimes it seems you act like you love the man you don’t love so he will love you back. Sometimes it seems you love the man you don’t love. Sometimes it seems you don’t love the man you love. Sometimes it seems you don’t love yourself when you do. Sometimes it seems you love yourself when you don’t. Sometimes it seems you love yourself, and you do. Sometimes it seems you don’t love yourself, and you don’t. Sometimes it seems you don’t love, and you do. Sometimes it seems you love, and you don’t. Sometimes it seems you love, and you do. Sometimes it seems you don’t love, and you don’t.

April Challenge 2012: 7/30

: eloquentannex; April 7th, 23:07

Napping. (Vita)

It’s a couch, a cat,
your mother’s green crocheted throw,
a day’s exhaustion.

April Challenge 2012: 6/30

: eloquentannex; April 7th, 22:33

The annoying habits of office coworkers (this thought was inspired by a particular annoying coworker who did something odd in a meeting today). (Mickey)

You arrive at the office twenty minutes early to start up the tower because it takes a half hour to get going. When your assistant suggests a call to IT is in order, you martyr yourself by complaining that they never take care of anything.

You place an original in the copy machine, press START, and wait for the copy. Then you replace the inverted copy into the feed tray, flip the original, and again press START.

>Your coworker’s phone rings at her desk. You could easily lift your own receiver, press a button, and pick up the call. But I see you stand from your own desk and walk to hers to answer her phone.

You assail to your “team” and begin barking results of the latest goals report, while they’re previously engaged in other work-related activities. When they do not instantly react, you demand they look at you. Your voice cracks with anger and your eyes bulge. Power fills your head like a swarm of wasps protecting their queen.

Your employee throws himself at your mercy, submitting he will comply with whatever rule or order he must to retain his employment. You answer by ignoring the obvious distress of your employee, never asking him about his cancer-laden wife, their financial ruin, his son’s positive test, his best friend’s house fire, his unaffordable knee surgery, his constant headaches, his want to unbuckle his seatbelt on his way home from work and crash into a tree.

You wait for an after-work invitation to Toni’s down the road. Rose and Jose and Norman and Anastasia and Cora go every week on Fridays for Happy Hour. You can’t imagine why you’re never asked.

April Poetry Challenge: 5/30

: eloquentannex; April 7th, 0:02

The other side of nothing. (Rey)

I ventured to the other side of Nothing
by using GPS. “In a half mile,
turn left before you’re just this side of Something,
then prepare to turn right after Meanwhile.”

I pulled up to The Past and it was closed
for renovations. I thought Anywhere
might be amusing, but it was bulldozed
to make from for Here and There and Elsewhere.

I finally settled on Time after Time,
which looked a lot like Forever but not
as flat. Everyone was there, although I’m
not sure Anyone knew me. (He forgot).

Before I left, I thought I overheard
that So And So was seen at Afterward.

April 2012 Challenge: 4/30

: eloquentannex; April 5th, 20:51

Thanks to Roze...

Unmatched beauty stuck to the side of a maple tree as if with glue, it might pass itself off as a delicacy—some sort of fluffy dessert of amber-like caramel and meringue flavored with cocoa powder, all whipped up into poofy confection. It might melt in its short trip from the spoon to the mouth, it’s so ethereal. But I wouldn’t dare eat it. I know not of poisonous mushrooms. This thing, however, would debilitate me whether toxic or else. I’m allergic, you see, to all things fungal. I heart blue cheese but it turns me into a sputum-production factory that rivals Nickelodeon’s green slime reserves. Portobellos do the same. And the spore-laden air that precedes a decent rainstorm just knocks my sinuses for a loop. Even under a microscope, those things are fatal beauty. Isn’t beauty always fatal? I died in your blue-stain eyes the first time we met.

April 2012 Challenge, 3/30

: eloquentannex; April 4th, 21:22

"that place inside me" (my friend Joey)

A very troubled boy in the body of a man. Smart and intelligent (and knows the difference), but utterly afraid to be himself. Fears his predilections exclude him from normality, from fatherhood. Showers paternal instincts onto his kin’s kin. Hides himself behind beards, gaudy eyeglasses, bulging weight. Busies himself with a fixer-upper in a neighborhood where the brothers hid the cards for the first six months of walking the chicken. Spouse to a black cat with a black soul. Despises coworkers who are daft enough to open emails titled “THIS COULD RECHARGE YOUR BEDROOM LIFE.” Travels hours to attend the 40^th birthday party of a man he’s only met in cyberspace, and brings with him the faux zebra vest and pants he hand-stitched for Burning Man, just because.

April 2012 Challenge, 2/30

: eloquentannex; April 3rd, 21:24

This was a photo prompt from my friend Eric. But since LiveJournal is too cheap to allow photo storage for unpaid members now, I can't post it. (I could Photobucket it, but I don't feel like it right now.) Yes, I am a day behind.

When first she donned a dress, it was before her own mirror in her own home. She had searched for the dress all her life, yet her life began when she found the dress. She admired herself, her gentle curves, her smooth features. Night was hours old. She took advantage of the soft light cast by bedroom lamps fitted with blush-colored bulbs. It was fine without the bra, as she knew it would be. Cleavage slight, but just right. Her feet looked tiny in black stockings, her long fingers dwarfed among blinding oversized rings. She admires herself again. She is beauteous perfection.

Now all she needs is a name.

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Poetry