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Poems

Onoma Feb 2017
Pi~lated by Pontius to an undisclosed location--
we traded presence, as the fruits of labor.
Half-eaten...the ratty dark-lets of our pits--
eyed forms of survival.
You the better for, I the better for...with our
overgrown estates of separation--(spare us the
indignity)...never!
We were made for this, weren't we?
Who got in front of a beam of light first--you or I...
seems like something I would have done--nonetheless,
therefrom the race.
More naked than two millennia of winter...whoa,
aye--glory baby, glory!
Eye contacting eyes...in and out, out and in, sheets
bathed in volumes of water.
We tried to ****** one another in a fit of passion...
so what.
A passion that swore responsibility for whatever it
may, or may not do...so what.
I was the burning mascot of your dormitory for
three and a half years, illegally--sharing a single bed,
cultivating my poetry.
You Adam-ed me...I Eve-ed you--we watched the apple
go red, we both bit--chewing it to the core, mouth to mouth.
As our jaws tired, we noticed the poppies everywhere...
the poppies are everywhere, we cried!
Black, covetous mass, black--sleep bedding sleep, closing
skies--opening grounds.
The poppies are everywhere--we began to horde grace,
deadpan our burial grounds in plain view, something
went amiss.
We played with frames, instead of obliterating the de-vice...
for faces lost in time, adoration.
Where's the reserve to suffer this rich knowledge--everywhere
is your womb, all-seeing and blind!
The poppies are everywhere...I pose upon the ground--
offer tragic gestures, feel me!
No, it all must be exhausted--human genius must be bested,
made the fool--it must be so.
Air after air of convincibility booted--left, right and center stage.
Clay in cold light, natural of its own...that's what we should want
for one another, shouldn't it...how?
We wanting more, as someone we may never know--let alone
one another.
Take that light, and work it to forgiveness, that is possible I
believe...the poppies wink.
Funny thing though...one of the two shall work far less for that
forgiveness, nearly not at all--******* inequity!
No...the schema's perfect--karma's debt, as served, perfect.
Stay in that truth, but the Truth is too big...the poppies are everywhere.
My head wraps around it like a whirling dervish--though no planet
dizzies...this is no matter of intellect but Heart.
The butterfly that's pinned--becomes the pinhead...spare me!
If I am she, and she is me...as one and all, who spares who--from
what and why...the poppies pock affirmatively.
*First of a series of poems, as in that vein, under this title.
Jo  Oct 2014
Poppies
Jo Oct 2014
Poppies blossom like open cuts.
Ripe and red, they fill the air
With a cloying sweetness
So potent anyone downwind
Must shut their eyes and breathe
Through open mouths.  Tasting
The breath of flowers, they grow
Nauseous and afraid.  

The fields sway in the hot breeze
Until they resemble an ocean aflame -
It is here, among these poppies, I have
Found the blood of the Earth.  
It is moist and toxic, an acid eating away the soles
Of all that wade through it.  
How many gaunt, pale bundles of bone
Rest below these soft, red petals?
No one dares to count.  

People do not fear such
Lovely things - if they’ve only seen
Pictures.  How nice it must be
To know nothing of poppies
But their color, their shape.  
They seem almost beautiful -
But you know better.

You have stood waist deep in the
Malignant fields, breathing the air
That slowed your limbs -
Turning your arms and legs into pendulums
Swaying to the beat of the buds
That encircle them -
Until you knelt, weighed down,
Nearly submerged by saccharine terrors,
And cried, hoping the water leaking from your heart
Would put out the fires you find yourself embracing.  
After all, during the darker hours
Any light is better than no light at all
(Or so something whispers in your tired ear).  

You know the horror of poppies -
But  still you have yet to plunge
Past the black eyes of those red beasts -
For when the wind blows clean, cold
Air to you what do you do?
You raise your arms and let yourself
Feel as though you can fly -
And one day…one day
You will look down
And see yourself above
A ground free of poppies.
For a friend
Stu Harley Sep 2018
young red poppies
sparkle in the air
spring flair awakens
untangle their hair
then
poppies...poppies
everywhere