A good New Years toast

celebrates the buried flesh

and bones

of time lost

and time well spent

like a cemetery throws stones

at the late night mournings

we spend

with the ghosts of our dead.

lunchboxpoems:

I wish slitting the wrist of the clock

would let this moment last forever –

your tongue so deep in my ear

it feels like a paintbrush, coating

the dark, peeling walls inside my head

with a carmine veneer. I was expecting

you to run, when you saw the cartilage

in the closet. I was prepared to chase

after and whisper you have beautiful

footsteps, when the truth is you make

my toes tingle like the capital of Venezuela.

I know loving me isn’t easy – the all-night

helicopter parties, the glow-in-the-dark

haircuts, but when I look at you

it’s like praying with my eyes. I know

it’s stupid to not own a gun yet have

so many triggers, but in some other world

gigantic seashells hold humans

to their ears and listen to the echo

of machines. I apologize for the fossils

growing on the dishes, how the rug is covered

with cocktail umbrellas when you wake up,

but it was raining margaritas, and the stars

came on backwards last night.

JEFFREY MCDANIEL

Goddamn, I love this so much.

In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.

intweetion:

The time will come when, with elation 
you will greet yourself arriving 
at your own door, in your own mirror 
and each will smile at the other’s welcome, 

and say, sit here. Eat. 
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart 
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 

all your life, whom you ignored 
for another, who knows you by heart. 
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes, 
peel your own image from the mirror. 
Sit. Feast on your life.

chriscantwell:

ecantwell:

Splash of Red just published two new poems of mine - go check them out, if you’re into that kind of thing. 

NEW POEMZ

Fucking Beautiful: 

Learning Curve   

The Atlantic Ocean had been burning

for four days    We were told to stay inside

but we’d forgotten which houses

belonged to us    Now we lie on the beach  

watching the local theater company’s

production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream    

In the audience one lumbering

ash man walks up to an ash  

woman and leans over    He looks

surprised at all the ash    Like a man who

hits a deer with his car and stops

to see his full name written on its back  

in Sharpie    On the makeshift stage

Helena speaks of cherries    We try to know

what cherries taste like    Your gas mask

on top of my opera gloves    The whole  

wide world doused in ethanol and lit

up    We’d peel our skins off

for each other    for one glorious incandescent

cruise    one saltwater bed of again   again    

Out of the corner of the sky

something is writing words    They

look like they are in our language

But we both fail to read them    Maybe this  

is starting over  

reptilesmile:

I WANT TO LOVE BUT PLEASE LET ME KNOW
HOW IS THAT I CAN YOU CAN EVEN EXIST NOW
I JUST FELT THE ALCOHOL IN MY FEET
MY HEART HAS A LOT INSIDE IT I THINK, EVEN STILL

IF EVERYONE IS OK THEN WHY I AM I NOT
IT’S OK TO CRY A LITTLE, I THINK, JUST CRY
I THINK I WANT TO EAT YOUR SMILE TONIGHT
I THINK THERE’S SOMETHING IN IT TO KEEP ME ALIVE

I’M LOOKING AT THIS SLEEPING CAT RIGHT NOW
AND HE JUST SHIFTED A LITTLE AND IT WAS NICE
AND THE OCEAN’S FLOOR IS SO FAR AWAY

SINKING TOGETHER WOULD BE A COMMITMENT
AND RISING TOGETHER AN EVEN BIGGER ONE
BUT I THINK THAT ALL THAT WATER IS TOO MUCH

DRUNK SONNET 8 by Daniel Bailey