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I Took To Howling With YouI was shy at first, timid in my dealings,
I laced the trap against my throat,
sang sparing, tip-toed
around your poems.

The tone, the slow vibrating
from the shoots of my shoulders
to the gleam of polished talons,
it purred around inside me.

Oh the song, Coyote,
the same resigned call, it
paled before you, swallowed down its insides,
wept.

I took your little hand in my big hand,
flew out towards Crow, and for a while
My Love, there were poems
and the world was enough.

I took to howling with you,
down from the branches, safe
womb of the tree, I spread
dirt between my toes, sang happy,

sang the song of free,
your wild howl

This Common BloodI am young when I first hear the word 'adoption'. I am so very young, perhaps three, maybe four. I accept it easily when my mother sits me down and explains that I did not grow beneath her heart, but rather in it. I nod my head, smile big, and ask when I'm getting a little sister. My mother kisses me on the forehead and puts her hand on my head as she stands up. "If you wish on a star, Sarah, maybe she will be here very soon." I practice my wishing until night's companions wink merrily in the sky.

Dear Anna,
I turned seventeen just recently. I thought of you when I woke up, and I wondered if you were thinking of me. I like to think that you

if only, if only.i.
we drove nowhere
and we spoke a language
that nobody understood
underneath a foreign sky
blanketed in the scent of pine.

ii.
you told me
my eyes were like envelopes—
because they were always
opening
closing
fluttering to the sound
of breaking seals
and ink stained fingertips.

iii.
i told you
we should run away
to a new land
with new faces
because
i was enamored
with people i had never encountered
and places i had never gone.

iv.
you laughed at me
and said that
if i didn't spend
so much time with my head
buried in world maps
i would realize
that i was living on one.

v.
i remember
it rained that day
and the tea went cold
but the

Whiskey Laden DreamsBitter eyes and tears might taint a drink, but sitting in this bar alone with your stool pulled out next to me, and the Martini poured regardless of your presence still brings a smile to my face; despite the taste. I'm having a whiskey myself; dry. Yes, I know I don't drink, but every once in a while you need whiskey to solve an intricate problem, and mine is the distinct lack of alcohol in my life.

There are people everywhere and it amazes me how none of them are you, from the woman in the black dress coming down the stairs to the signing couple in the corner, laughing silently. They're not you at all, and that's what's amazing – in an

earth circuitAnd when the sun sinks, the earth's skin crawls:

I.
I wonder if this awkward creature would notice me the way I notice him.
He's so tragic at his throne
I stare after him longingly.
And yet,
He never realizes that I'm the one
Who forever basks in his brilliant beams.
If only he knew how much brighter he could burn
[with me]
He'd light up the universe.

II.
I heard him speak of thirst, once.
The quenching lust of the stars had run dry.
So that night, I brought along a jar of acid.
(And how it gleamed in his glow).
I handed it to him, wrapped in taffeta ribbons,
screaming
I wish curdling joy
On my gurgling boy

Newspaper SuitI am a charlatan
peddling fraudulent wares
but nobody else can see
the pushpins
where adhesive didn't stick.
And you'd think the paper trail
from the newspaper suit
would give it away
but the pictures keep smiling
while underneath gangrene begins
and happy happy faces
mask the smell
of death.

WhitmanI am all that grows from me
and all that grows from me is sacred—
              my hair, dirty roots reaching towards sky,
fed by sky, shifted by its undulating currents
              my fingers, spiders, crescents, twigs,
gaunt, blunt, probing, inquisitive...prurient
              my ears, awkward conch shells jammed on as if by mistake,
rigid and ridged, elven,
innocent like unexplored caves for children to bound gaily into
resounding with echoed cheers of courage wanting
as if a dozen more children waited within, fearless guides;
              my nose, obdurate.
The reach of my eyes knows no bounds;
what walls are there to throw my body against?

Harvest MoonThree a.m. moonlight
across lazy dust motes; a
tree scrapes the window.
Your arm weighs on my hip like
whispered promises of love.

How To Ask Someone To Let You Love ThemI think you keep secrets under your skin
like trees keep rings and do not know it,
like the sea teems,
like dark and quiet space
keeps every ray of light
the stars whispered to one another
when they were still young
and dying to make love.

I think you keep secrets in you
like the desert keeps sands,
like sleep keeps dreams,
like cities keep sleepless people
and people looking for sleepless people
to fall asleep with.

I think you keep secrets
like secrets like to be kept,
and I want to learn them all.

SolsticeOnce upon a time, when you were still sunlighthouses and shimmering existence wherever you were needed most, you found him. He was November, shaky on his first last legs, and you saw through the mind-twistings he feigned to the mind-twistings that were really there, knotted up in his dreams.

You were still birdsong then, and thunderstorms, and your bodyheat melted the frost claws that held him tight. You held onto him as his November deepened. When he howled, you howled with him, and the wind played with your voices and pressed the softness of your lungs against your cageribs—and then against each other's.

November became solstice, and

Deja vu. Again.I had moved here two weeks' ago, but had never visited this section of town so late at night. I had been invited to the pub by my neighbour, to make me feel welcome. An hour ago, she had phoned to say she had been asked to work overtime, and wouldn't be able to make it. Seeing as I was there, I drank a couple of cocktails. I was now walking back home.

Drunken people yelled out across the street. A couple of cars drove by, their horns blaring as the inebriated stumbled into the road. A bright yellow car stopped, flashing its headlights. A woman in a red dress banged on the window. The passenger door was opened, and a shouting match started be

WanderlustI've been sleeping with my jeans on
and seatbelt unbuckled,
So I can leave early
before my regret wakes.

In the check-in, on the road,
I distract myself
Walk, go, leave
go further, leave again
I like my life
Oversimplified.

I never meant to break your
working-class heart
(steady and warm)
But truer ways of joy I found
on the road,
in long railways and stranger tongues
And I'm sorry that we never
Quite catch up with each other.

I never loved goodbyes,
but I love leaving all behind
In the movement I found tranquility,
easing for this burn.

Don't think I'll be able
To ever forget you, no

You're like Venus in th

chromaWe were merely children when the stars came.

They rained down from the sky in a burst of light, like shards of glass pouring down from the heavens. Supernovas blooming in the night sky, petals raining down onto the barren earth - angels, falling with their wings sheathed, glowing, as they glided down. We watched, starstruck, as the glow overtook us - we were mesmerized. We waited with bated breath as the meteors landed, the celestial light subsiding as dark forms started to pick themselves up from the dust.

They moved towards us with an otherworldly grace, their steps leaving no marks on the earth as they descended upon us. Frozen to our sp

I Of YouI want you to break
and never bend for me,

see my history
spiderweb your brilliance
till you belong to me
(and I, to you)
utterly and forever

and know
you cannot stop this.

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

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Soldier of the LightI am a soldier of the light
Responding to the rallying-call.
We've charged ourselves, and none are short;
Should any stumble, all will fall.

The fight resumes each day at dusk;
Our hearts illuminate the way.
It matters not what skin we wear:
The darkness must be held at bay.

Today we've felt the winter's kiss;
The snow lies heavy on our backs.
But even as it weighs us down,
It also serves to hide our tracks.

Across the way, a soldier fails—
He dies, and with him his whole line!
As if to overcome their loss,
The rest close ranks and boost their shine.

We stay the course all season long
And then lie low until the thaw.
When fi

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By Fifty,

by `HaveTales-WillTell, Nov 9, 2012, 6:33:53 PM
Literature / Poetry / Humor / Traditional Fixed Forms

I'll publish or perish;
find someone to cherish;
move someplace phenomenal;
display an abdominal
physique to inspire,
which I shall acquire!

. . . Or perhaps, just retire.

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By Fifty,by `HaveTales-WillTell

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Practicing what I preach, and entering `Kneeling-Glory's 25th Birthday Contest. Especially since we share the same birth month.

The idea is to write a poem of exactly 25 words, about one's goals for the next quarter-century birthday — in my case, my 50th.

Still wondering if perhaps I should've worked in something about AARP, though. After all, it's . . . only four more years!

(And relax, I'm not actually jinxing myself; 'publish or perish' is a bit of wordplay based on the academic concept.

)

Update, as of Dec. 1: Apparently, this was good enough to place. Cheers!

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Submitted on: November 9, 2012
File Size: 349 bytes

Views: 3,082 (1 today)
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By Fifty, by `HaveTales-WillTell ( Featured by `thorns )

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`RetroZombie Feb 7, 2013

this one made me chuckle!

... and belated congrats on the DD!!

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`HaveTales-WillTell Feb 7, 2013 Professional Writer

Thanks, twice!

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=LadyofGaerdon Dec 10, 2012 Professional Writer

This is so great. Congrats on your well-earned DD!

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`HaveTales-WillTell Dec 11, 2012 Professional Writer

Thanks; I'm honestly surprised by the positive outpouring for what was, to me, just a bit of silliness.

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=LadyofGaerdon Dec 12, 2012 Professional Writer

I think it spoke to a lot of people.

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`HaveTales-WillTell Dec 13, 2012 Professional Writer

T'would appear so.

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*IAmPoetry Dec 8, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

I just knew it.

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`HaveTales-WillTell Dec 11, 2012 Professional Writer

I appreciate the vote of confidence.

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=Lucy-Merriman Dec 8, 2012 Student General Artist

Love!

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`HaveTales-WillTell Dec 11, 2012 Professional Writer

Thank you.

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