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contemporary (Remove filter)

I Won't Go Down, Not Even With Alice

we, the understated,
the lazily represented,
decree that
once the poetry
bends at the knee
in the gilded confines
of SW1
it is another victory
swung the way
of surrender
better, say we,
to be a person of interest
than acquiescent metrist
invited to tea

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buckingham palacecontemporarypoetry

The Hitting Game

 

On the island’s south side

a solitary town fizzes

like overloaded circuitry

on dark, motherboard hills.

 

Across a sticky, smooth-tiled walkway

an amusement arcade spills

a test of sexiness based on how clammy your palm is

and the hitting game.

 

You spin in coins so they register

on sensors worn numb. 

A padded stump protuberates.

The s...

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poetrycontemporarySeren

On the dispersal of water

 

It’s 1:30 am.

He takes me away from the others unpacking,

opens the front door to the first night

in our first home and squirts WD-40

over both hinges, explains

WD is water dispersal,

NASA concocted this stuff

to keep fields of rockets

from turning orange, then burnt umber.

He heard this on his pocket radio

cycling along blustery North London roads

...

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Graham Cliffordpoempoetrycontemporaryartcreative writingreactionphilosophybritish poetry

Spirit Animal

 

I can feel all of you writhing together

Pooling your heat

You are hot wires running through me

Electric as you cover

Your thin bodies wrapping themselves tightly

racing like  wind to a wildfire

You are covering me in flame

 

Dangerous animals are fleeing these woods

as you turn figure eights

creating paths of orange and red

trails of yellow to b...

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found wordword experimentfree formfree versecontemporary

These Days

 

These days my body is filling up with light,

I can’t even help it

 

It’s happening without trying

There seems no room for darkness

 

My feet are extending

white roots

are growing ever

d

o

w

n

w

a

r

d

like a pair of tubers in rich soil

 

The universe is funneling itself through me

There is black hole forming ab...

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contemporaryfree versepoetryfree form

Meridian Lines

 

Meridian Lines
 
I have been opening the meridian lines
Gathering knowledge 
Stretching the lines of communication like the marks on my hips
 
Gaining greater understanding,
 of who the hell I may actually be
 
I am collecting all the pieces of myself
Bits from here and there
I am putting them back together again
with tiny much needed kisses...

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poetrycontemporaryfree versefree form

Underwater Creature

I am an underwater creature

much faster than yourself

 

I am smoothed out

by the waves

your words a thousand dull lead sinkers around my neck

 

 I can not hear you here

 

Here, I belong to no one, 

not even myself

 

In fact, I do not exist

 

There is tranquility in nothingness,

no need for oxygen

or cigarettes

 

Clear

 

...

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free formfree versecontemporarypoetryexperimental

Joan of Arc

 


(part 1)
 
Loud, brash, sweet thing
Bring me some water to wet my whistle
For you
Love only lasts ten minutes at a time
 
Only this time
The time is mine
So go on over
Lay it down
 
Cause all your cards ain't showin
And my hands are full
 
I'll drop this heavy load
When words spill soft and free
Meaning what they shoul...

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poetryexperimentalcontemporaryfree formfree versefound word

Questions I Never Asked

 

From the hallway,
I am hidden
 
 I watch my father lay in the stillness
 

Eyes open,
he is somewhere farther away than I have ever been

 

 
He is fixed upon the tree limbs 
against the grey sky

and I am fixed upon his expression 
and all those secrects that he does not tell
 
I watch quiety,
 trying despe...

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poertycontemporaryfree versefree form

Sugar Revolution

 


Be my sugar 
 
My revolution
 
Bring me fruit in the dead of winter
 
 as tears roll from your face.
 
Be sweet rebellion on hot summer nights.
 
Burn messeges onto thick leaves
 
and press them hard against my bedroom window.
 
 
Stand naked under the naked moon
 
Be raw
Be real
Speak true
 
If you spe...

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experimentalpoetryfree formfree verseword associationcontemporary

She Knows

 

 

The angels cum for money
The money comes from sex
The sex is last nights million dollar needle
Baby's bruised arm can't bend to stop the nose bleeds
Or fix the drippy faucet
Or fix 
Or fix enough
to fix the holes in the walls
Or stop this broken shopping cart ride home.

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free versepoetryfree formcontemporary

Falling Colors

 


Pretty girl paints colors raw
 
with whole body
 
covered in wet white chalk
 
stinging the canvas with her strokes
 
as she bends in this hot light
 
 
 
On knees
 
you swish color up
 
lighting the room
 
song orange
 
in soft swift movements
 
canary yellow floats freely and  deep red
 
...

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poetryfree versecontemporaryfree form

Immortality

 

 

Imitation sugar, petroleum jelly, styrofoam,
plastic milk jugs, cockroaches, 
toxic waste, photo chemicals, 
silicon implants, rayon shirts, 
carbon, light pollution,
 true love

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free versepoetrycontemporaryfree formlistword association

Some Times I Change My Mind

 


 Sometimes I change my mind,
 
but mostly just the direction.
 
I think I’ll run into the woods, the next time I’m menstruating
 
and devour some wolves.
 
 
Or throw cotton balls at the Willamette river,
 
just to see how truly absorbent they are.
 
I’ll make a contest of it,
 
like the ol' school one's of "how many jelly beans...

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free verseexperimentalword associationfree formcontemporary

Your Aquiantance

 

 A letter to all the good night
 drive by boys
with their last forever kisses
that say...........
 
 '' every little things gonna be alright"
 
 
I sit fat,
 
ripening
 
Movement growing steadily within me
 
I
 
can no longer stand the quickening
 
building in my body
 
My belly swollen
 
My tits taut
...

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poetryfree versecontemporaryfree form

Broken Crystals

 

 



Crystals cover the ground

 

They sky is covered in clouds

 

They say that white is the color of absence

 

Just like the caterpillars in the spring,

eating all the pretty leaves,

 

you in a swift second

blow in

stealing all the color from the sky.

 

Gorging yourself...

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experimentalcontemporarypoetryfound wordnonsensefree form

Super Hero

 



Just so you know, I've secretly been watching your stories.
 
I wait till your asleep,
fully asleep,
I check.
 
It is then that my research begins.
 
Late at night with a pair of head phones and a flickering TV
...... I've come to some conclusions.
 
Developing super powers ...

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poetryfree versefree formcontemporary

A Ribbon Cut As Red As my Heart

 


The California warmth has left my bones.
Now,
 old memories hang as heavy as these winter clouds,
  Again,
I am consumed by thoughts of you.
 
 Familiar smells,
 bring visions of your apocalyptic smile.
And I remember why I left.
 
 My bones feel that familiar ache
 as does my heart.
 
 Call me Phinnius, your trusted friend
and pu...

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free formcontemporaryfree versepoetry

Vapor

Stand back
and let me rise.

Or each glance I throw
will burn through you
like grapefruit acid
spit in both eyes.

I can no longer take the heat,
I am dissipating like the clouds that form each morning
above the Willamette River.

Each morning they are torn apart
and left to there own foolishness.

Soon I too will be an apparition
and you will be pawing at the ea...

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contemporaryfree formword associationfree verseexperimental

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