[x]

bornetomorrow we'll set
paper airplanes adrift
over the muddy pacific,
the place where it starts
behind stanley park.

i know the ocean wasn't
really born there, i know it
comes from a bigger womb,
but it feels that way to me,
sometimes.

that edge there
where water and foam
smash hopelessly against sand,
that feels like creation.

The Farmers SonWe sat sipping grappa as the storm clouds rolled in from the ridges
like the smoke from some great unseen inferno,
the wood walls and shingles of the house complained to us
in low groans,
of the wind coming up hard, through the valley,

and there was flickering light from a candle,
and she told me how light from a prism dissects into different colours that correspond
in some way to our bodies and that all of life was a rhythm

and I believed that part,

and I believed there were stars beyond the sight of man on any grey day
and that they might hold some greater secret than prisms or rhythms
or any question a farmers son could ever

petrichorNiobe weeps.

gold scattered rough across
cracked earth and the last
remains of summer - they fell
like leaves in the arms of the wind.

some scents cannot be captured.
the gods bleed onto rock,
and the stone sends her prayers
in return: petrichor.

listen - the heavy thud of
rain on parched ground;
the monsoon sealing life back in;
the sky bows and kisses earth.

Niobe weeps.

Opaque Seas of TransienceHeidrich walked briskly down the open hall, his feet echoing sibilant metallic notes between the polished steel support beams. He wasn't in any particular hurry, though his quick pace said other wise. He figured it was the many years spent living in this bustling city, running to and fro in the almost oppressive crowds, every single person he had ever met always in some kind of urgent hurry. He mentally berated himself for missing this opportunity and slowed to an even walk. The appointment was still a good thirty minutes away, it made no sense to run. Heidrich was determined to glean a small portent of unhurried peace before he found himself

Our Meaning and PurposeI

All of death is death. Life,
too, is like death.
The way it erupts over you
laughing and spinning.

II

I was confused
so I asked God: What should I do?

Move your body and have emotions. The birds were dancing.

Could you be more specific?

But now God was busy arguing with Moses.

III

All of life is life. Death,
too, is like life.
The way it erupts over you
laughing and spinning.

IV

Tomorrow is the sound
of a question falling
on a bed of questions.

Today I hold out
your name, God,
in the public square.

Yesterday reason, the slayer
of song, wended its way
into our will.

V

All of light is linking. Dreams,
too, would se

HousewarmingShe opens windows
in their wintery home, hopes
to let the cold out

when it doesn't work
she scratches matches to life
and burns the house down.

Origin of the SistersIn the land of Tavos stands a hill, and set into its side is the door to a secret prison. Only this door stands between the physical realm and its destruction, for the prison was constructed not to contain men but an ancient evil. Its name is Hunger, and it cannot be held by mere bars or chains.

It was the Flame, the great Flame that burns behind the sky and lights every star, that cast Hunger to the ground and locked it away from the rest of the world. But this was not enough; he knew that the evil being was not without allies in this world or any other, for many lusted after its power. Therefore

A woman is missing.A woman is missing.
My sweater is knit too loose and the wind blows through.
The leaves are done changing and are waiting to fall.
I think of them collaged against my morning-damp windshield;
they will mostly be red. My wipers will push them off;
I will forget about them. But inbetween these thoughts
my brain hums. A woman is missing and I cannot forget.

Two weeks ago the leaves were mostly green and yellow.
Two weeks ago a woman went missing.
I didn't know her but she went missing and today
I am standing at a wall covered with candles and
I am rolling her name over my tongue and I am thinking.
I am thinking and praying, bu

The SilverfishThe Silverfish

Awkward on a metal wire mesh chair
In a restaurant's outdoor section,
I must have been forgotten.
When the café closed the night before
There were no nameless patrons inside
Needing a polite request to leave,
And the waiter, absentminded, locked up,
Leaving me alone to the quieting night.

My rainy city dawn wakes me slowly,
Cold and glistening with dew.
"Where is the crème brûlée I ordered?"
I demand sleepily to the empty gray streets.
Instead I receive crystal droplets
Rolling off the red and white awning above me.

An old man wanders by on cobblestone,
Entertaining himself with philosophical conversation
With

MeanderingHardly a mountain, though on lowering days its head sits wreathed
By the mists of a passing front, aged and befogged as bygone elders
Doddering about – before there were names for the malaise
That hazed their thinking
And from this modest crown there slouched and sloped
A long shoulder, meandering down to meadows below
Pausing now and again to coddle a pleasant hollow
Casting a sloping pitch – enough to rush a torrent
After a sudden shower
Seldom pooling
Its glint and glimmer burble among the stones
To join a rill and plash and swirl and putter about a root
It's there I'm apt to wander

Not much of a path, hard passed a

6Either way

It is past seven and there is a rumor that you are coming home.

When I saw you last, I found
that word in your mouth. It was
foreign, a small success for your vocabulary.
I stalked it all the way back to the house,
sucked it clean and dry and no longer holy,
hanging by a horrifying thread.

What will be the first thing you speak of tomorrow;
what wills your growth, what wills you to change?

If we are wanted,
if the earth swirls right, almost cloudlessly,
if you should find my hand and whittle out
a new word—

If you hiss
like a turntable
as you try to spin me round and round—

It is only seven; I trust you w

RegularsJon and Carol came in as they do
every day
she clutching a bit of cloth to
her face and being unable
to give me an honest look and
Jon being overly enthusiastic about
his coming meal
(I am a goddess because I
bring them food.)

They met each
other outside the bathroom,
gazed across the table with a fifty
year old expression
and the only emotion I have
ever heard in Carol's
ancient, cracking voice
is when she calls him baby

Repeatedly I wonder, if or when
I give up my mind
to age and black eyes,
will we do this? Drink tea
with too much sugar
and have a waitress that will
be overly concerned if we
don't show our wrink

long nightcome, come what may; the night
is lean and our fingers are fat, candle
clay stubs wrapped round
wine bottle necks,
swapping lipstick with that cold wine
cold sweat -
tang of metal clanging round our
round mouths,
cistern of words that turn to lime
as soon as they are bleached out

come, come what will,
we say,
tumble up the yard
and into the morning
a barbeque growls into life

in the shadows, little ghouls
with the plum-meat of their eyes drawn down
and voices like wet cement being scritched,
scratch their feet

grassy field with rustgrassy field with rust
--------------------------

I'd heard about the old car, three miles out of town and all alone. I just had to see it. It was time. School was over for the summer, my friends were at camp, and I was bored. I set out Thursday morning for a hike, following directions that Uncle Will had given me. As the heat was still growing with the climb of the sun, I found the field and wandered around looking, and looking some more, trying not to be distracted by bees buzzing in the flowers, and butterflies and baby mice. Then it was there, just a bit upslope from the bottom of a natural swale, and just below the sky at th

leavetakingi.
the world is brighter where
dregs of strangers' revels remain --
i keep this half-light for my own.

ii.
i'll stay until the wind sighs a scotch-and-smoke
cliché, til the Muscadet's slipped from the lip
of my wayward
hello.(i know you're there before you do.)
iii.
your night is told in
patchouli-pulse wanders; mine,
in whorls of liqueur-breath. come
close and i'll find the warp
through the weft, the trails telling tales
in synaesthesia --
Platinum Blonde's been 'round and gone.

iv.
(-- closer, find syllables strewn
in an exhale's wake; stolen from my throat-
ful of careless farewells, spin and sway

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at lastoh, let me feel the beauty
one more time
just one more time before I go
i cannot stop my dying
but let me linger just one moment more

past chancepast chance
-----------

The giant old bridge was there behind me. It was made of dead sequoias. Soaked at long last in kerosene, ready for flames. I flicked the Zippo but nothing happened. For the thousandth time I'd forgot to buy the lighter fluid. Who knew that probability could be perverted by a wish to save dead evidence for a jury that would never be?

RickyWhen the rain slowed down, the go-karts came. Dusk was coming on and it was Friday. They all knew the police would have better things to do and meaner places to be and now was the time to be wild. Ricky was the first and fastest. He was serious and had two engines that once were chainsaws. No one had money like the pros, so it was pioneer days all over again, with all the local boys taking old lawn mowers and saws apart to make fun with wheels and seats on simple frames welded together by friends and acquaintances like Stan Rigby. He'd worked on most of the little outlaw karts. Didn't even charge money for keeping quiet about it. He'd raced w

minorityminority
-----------

No matter where you find us
no matter what the time of day
we are beings of the night
and you will never know us
unless you join us
unless you're of us
you can never see who we really are

Dance with us in shadow

blackBlack is the colour of my life, my mind
Black is all colours
absorbing the full spectrum of lives and worlds
thinking about them all
drawing conclusions
but never telling
never giving back
Selfish to the end.
I am Jack, the darkest of all shadows
eternal Black

strayI'm walking through the streets at night, those grey walls marked with selling and the desire of the poor and different to be noticed, to be seen while still invisible, unarrested. 'Waifs and Strays' is playing in that car across the street that I can't afford. I'm wondering how a man who can afford a car can know how that song feels from the inside, how it feels to me. Why does he listen? Does he watch the oddly dressed and jeweled, who pad softly here? Does he need them the way I do now, for company? His headlights are off. Parked in the shadows away from lonely streetlamps, and lit in the glow of liquor stores and the flickers from enigmat

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in praise of scavengers

by *LancelotPrice, Nov 27, 2011, 8:34:52 AM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

Oh, those crows,
perceptive and wise and with a sense of time and season.
They know how emotional humans get
when Christmas comes.
What suckers they are for feeding the birds,
an act of love when they can give no love to others
The crows settle in apartment block parking lots
the way seagulls gather in shopping strips
next to fast food joints
or hover and flap in masses
on the scrapheaps of garbage scows
sent from the city
with the dregs of living

in praise of scavengersby *LancelotPrice

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

Lancelot Price 2011 November 27

A riff based on Bark's piece, 'Days Before Christmas'. Started writing as soon as I read his. He's my muse today, it seems. You can find his here [link] if he's leaving "scraps" available for view.

A DD for Christmas day. An astonishing present. Total surprise. Thanks to 'Beccalicious'.

Thanks to everybody for reading and faving.

Daily Deviation

Given 2011-12-25

in praise of scavengers by *moonflower-kimono ( Featured by ^Beccalicious )

~~love 0 0~~

joy 1 1

~~wow 0 0~~

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

~wh0rem0ans Dec 25, 2011

Ha! Well deserved.

*LancelotPrice Dec 26, 2011

Thank you, 'mOans'. [I wanted to call you by a real name or a nickname, but somehow, using only the first part of your username seemed inappropiate.

]

~wh0rem0ans Dec 26, 2011

One fellow calls me Who. I found that amusing. Making a nickname of this seems quite the fad.

How about Mo?

I learned from Barkie that your name is Lance. Do you prefer to be called by your name?

*LancelotPrice Dec 26, 2011

Yes, Lance is fine. It's the nick for Lancelot, which is what shows on my profile page in the upper left corner or thereabouts. I pretty much always use my real name online. Crazy, perhaps, but I learned the courage to be me in real life; it was a long fight and I'm not ready to stop being me now.

~wh0rem0ans Dec 26, 2011

Courage seems to be my watchword for the coming year. Last year, it was authenticity. But now I need to add courage so authenticity can become integrity. I am not trying for perfect. I am a severely human creature, a sort of Velveteen Woman, as it were. I am glad you won the long fight.

Lancelot is a lovely name. I am an Arthurian legend fan. My favorite version of the Lancelot story portrays him as Gwenhwyfar's hero, her devoted companion. That feels far truer, to me.

*LancelotPrice Dec 26, 2011

The first Arthurian story I read, and still my favourite, was Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. The first version I had was abridged for children, but still had the core of it plus the story of Tristan and Isolde as well, and the Grail quest. It did include the affair of Lancelot and Arthur's wife and the "naked as a needle" description. Very surprising that made it through in those days of ridiculous censorship. Most of the other tales in the full version are peripheral to the main outline.

~wh0rem0ans Dec 26, 2011

I came upon Mallory later. Stephen Lawhead's version is the one I liked for Lancelot. Lawhead is overly Christian, for my tastes and it enters the story repeatedly. Still, there is gold if you delve deep enough.

*LancelotPrice Dec 26, 2011

The whole Holy Grail story is too religious for my taste, and I wish it were not attached to the story.

A modern Arthurian tale I very much like is The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart, a story centered on Merlin.

(1 Reply)

~Specimen313 Dec 25, 2011

I love crows. So nice poem.

*LancelotPrice Dec 26, 2011

Thanks, Anthony. And good luck with your novel. I just don't have the persistence and self-discipline to write long works. Dammit. I always wanted to be a novelist.

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