[x]

Me and My Shadowi.

My shadow slips to silence among the aquatic acacias. Even here, leaves abound, draped over the fuzz-curves of his figure as he soaks up the moonlight. Papa's soft voice turns my gaze to the moon. Remember, Carlos, our shadows are but imprints of the moon. Remember the Eclipse. I shiver and hold onto an acacia branch. I'm careful not to let my shadow near the shoreline where sea meets sand. That's why acacias are aquatic; they drowned their fate with the sea, Papa says. We cannot, we must not let it be our shadow's fate. We are nothing without our shadows. And yet the tide sweeps towards my toes as the moon charioteers across the silver n

illuminate my heartSeptember falls outside his window and the two-story house feels June. Time tilts here, the days canted to the left like the apple tree their grandchildren planted sometime last winter. It hasn't grown much since then, a few leaves on dry branches but no blooming flowers when spring arrived.

Today his fifty years seem like thirty. Sitting up in bed is easier. He doesn't feel as weak as before. The Pacific breeze touches his hair, chills his pale face and he thinks, Maybe Anna and I could drive down to the beachfront today.

He rolls to his side. She's burrowed under the covers, a blue blanketed lump, white hair poking out over dark blue pill

i said, "it's alright, i stillTo know completely in yourself
that you have love inside of
you like a clamorous reservoir-

and to know the pressure of
inner space reluctant to
explode like light from
1941-

to know the only neck
your fingers will ever
articulate with is
that of a
bottle;

I will reside inside of your
boyishness like an ever
darkening sea ready to
coagulate like the
blood that stirs
within my guilt.

When God Sleeps.I. So it comes to this: pangea tearing itself raw
from our throats to pour into squares of newly open sky
where the stars grew aches and darkened lakewater
once bloomed into bruised winters. Somewhere
beyond the thick of snow, prayers are strung
on moon-rattled winds
and birds' teeth tear apart the poetry
of our hands. They will raise something beautiful
from these ruined words.

Continents shift slowly. They are
dirt-bound titans, these beasts;
rootless giants that mold themselves
to fit the vision we hold inside our heads. Oceans sigh
and their tides crawl ever upward.

II. Our shadows become umbilical
in certain light. Unknown children cas

From Whence She CameBack down to the sea-floor she goes
back to the coracle-clusters and starfish that
clamour, cling to her heart too tight,
walking barefoot towards where she
came from. It is too hard walking on
earth, the way she wears pain like a wedding ring
frightens people.
Back down, down, crawling on her belly
on the forest-floor, alive with the buzz and crawl
of worms and bird-prey. Back where she belongs with her
crazy palpitating wolf-heart, her bloody
deer-throat leaking in the snow, her yellow
eyes in the dark.
Back down, beyond subway trains, piano lessons,
falling rain, from whence she came, to the snow-covered womb
where she fir

27               [I]

    arthur boyd:

she cried 'transubstantiation' -

why don't you eat dirt and
    feel closer to Earth !(?)

i slipped ,jointlessly, seemless
quicksilver ,going downdown
until I wrapped my serptentine form
around the core
                     , a cold static stone

Sahi"Listen, Sahi. Listen to it whisper to you." I held the shell close to my ear. My mother's cool hands wrapped around mine, her breath brushing against the hair that trailed down my jaw. "Can you hear it? Can you hear it telling you its story?" I kept the shell pressed to my temple like a telephone. I heard it, a shrill and silent echo.
"What is it?"
"It's the ocean, my love. When the shell swam to shore, it kept a little bit of the ocean inside of it. And now it's yours, a little bit of the ocean, to keep with you everywhere you go. You like that?"

2

I come home late. As the door closes, the telephone rings. I limp to the cream- coloured

.SetIt is Akhet, the season of sorrow and silt, and Set
must tense his sandbreath against the slick of wet
once more. It's always the same: though he's unsure
who started the game, or whose face he wears,
he knows he must prepare for the beginning of the end,
the bite of night and all the slippages in the inbetween.

And he swore he'd bait their breath,
but they'd rather choose death than fear,
with their tombstone legs, arms pegged
in sockets and their locked ears,
burying themselves beneath blocks
built to the sun. They outrun him, every time.

It's a crime. He remembers what his mother said:
do what you're able to keep them faithful

I Guess I wasn't Made That WayIs it redundant to describe a brothel as seedy?

I suppose it is, but then how can I be expected to describe a brothel that I think must be particularly seedy? I don't know, I guess I'm no expert on brothels or anything, but I don't think they can all be as seedy as the one I found myself in. Everything from the rather off-putting older woman who answered the door and questioned me severely about whether I was looking for "any freaky shit" to the mismatched, ratty furniture in the waiting room.

Now that I come to think about it, the idea of a waiting room in a brothel is a little gross in itself.

I wasn't t

Meditation on ThoughtBegin the quiet storm of fidgeting,
metronome-pen beating—
a drum, a drum:

Tempestuous—tearing
fingers through hair,
black eyes
crawling along
the insides of my lids.

My mind grows scrublands.
"What do you mean?" and,
"What do I mean?"

I tend slowly toward the abstract.
Pine trees sprout from my hair,
a forest of church steeples.
Whippoorwill am I,
chestnut-child Evangeline,
and my fingers stretch
architectonic
to build me bridges of stone,
a whole cathedral of bone archways.
My Michelangelo eyes sit restless
in a face of white and green marble.

The smallest drop of rain
against the window
and my thoughts co

OrchardYour fingers are guillotines,
purely purposeful machines.

You pluck the apple,
and carve it clean,
find the core,
suck out the seeds.

Take a life
and taste the power,
it's arsenic
and sugar sweet.

You thank God and the devil
with a crooked smile
that the day is young,
and so are they,
and just ripe enough
for you to eat.

Dogma: a sestinaDogma:

So we began, as was the world, from air,
So too, in the beginning, was the word.
We met as strangers, as in some ancient idyll,
Caught among an unexpected course:
Lives lighted with those soft, celestial rays
Our eyes, our lips, our tongues a hymn of praise.

And what cannot be thought enough in praise,
Those words oft-said, but spoken with an air
With which the mountains crumble; angels raise
Their voices from the veil, or Holy Word
Echoes from its pages, lauds its course
Unstable though it be, but seldom idle.

Then falling from your grace, my love, my idol
To whom this lonely soul kneels down and prays,
My soul, my hear

Becoming the TigerOctober 7th
Bob Cartman kept a tiger in a cage behind his house. He also had a big Rottweiler that lived on a ten-foot chain in the front of his property, and slept with a loaded shotgun propped against his bed. No one knew if he lived under a constant paranoia of being robbed or if it was the result of an overdose of the natural desire to display his machismo. No one bothered to ask.

The tiger was a massive male of the Siberian variety. In his ever-abundant creativity, Bob had dubbed him Stripes. The dog didn't fare much better. His name was Killer.

Stripes was a friendly cat, when he was in the right mood. Bring him out a piece of chicke

for exit 165.in the outstretched wingspan of
tuesday night you'll find them:
the foothills slumbering jagged under
sixteen inches of loose sand and
the city hushed and glowing, lines
of porchlights strung together in suburban rows like
beads on a chain

your house was cavernous hollow like a lung
the colors were dim and
jaundiced, a quiet rush of tepid water
bent the silence while thirty years of
smoking hung ownerless
in the air like the cling of a dead moths to a wall

you tell me of a dream that's vague like
clouds in the sky like
clouds in the sink with
your body limp and damp like
hot tea bags and
your face like spilled milk
a

A Pinpoint Viewlook, they said
what do you see
you can only have a pinpoint view

----------------------------------------------------------------

I turned the lenses upside down, sometimes it is good to look at things askew :
I saw crumpled paper hanging by a girl's head, she lay on earth suspended, looking
down upon the pages she was tearing from a book ..

Those Other Pages

time sometimes hangs
upside down.

here we are again, reliving old transcripts
of who said what;

and then there are those 'other conversations'
which run in our heads

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Parking LotParking lot half empty with painted lines,
like a map.

Brush-tangled fencing, as if wheat-fingered children
ran along it, feeling the wet metal and letting
the mud puddles splash

innocence.

Clothes on the line, bare naked limbs -
they all sway to a familiar breeze.

One car leaves, another car's engine starts
and hums...

but this car remains idle.

A Sonnet Corona On LifeI. "What is life?"

"What is life" - an inquiry by people
in vagabondage, wandering the day.
Roofed are they, heavy eyed, by church's steeple,
the ones who rest between the ones who pray.

For you I have an answer, simply said,
that thwarts the ignorance of humankind
like cavalry on steeds of logic, bred
to hoof out the spark-trailed fools' un-design.

If "what is life" is asked, don't hesitate
to speak your truth, and do so cautiously,
knowing that many fools will speculate
philippics gave with zero warranty.
Of logic, don't commit such heinous crimes...
Perceive this life as but a set of times.

II. "Life is Risk"

Per

CityI made my way
in the city

where street lamps illuminate
the speed and bustle,

their colored glow like laser
snakes

that slither the walls of
great architecture.

They light the way for
passers-by

who took the stars from
the upward night

to fill those glassy
street lamp lights.

MovementOne poet's verse
is a timid breath

while another poet's
is a rushing wind

A dog won't chase after a
parked vehicle.

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The Opus Of The Everything

by ~chadwood, Apr 12, 2011, 4:51:38 PM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

the ocean floor, the twisted sea and
all the flying jacket bees, and all

the flying birds and he, the one who
caught the glint of spring, who laid

it on the downy dew, the crispy green
of May fescue, who saw the plans of built

up lights that burn to light a thousand
pools of dripping rain and puddles lay

on any given night or day, the brick by
brick, the mortar spread, the snap of sugar

sweetly felt, the brine that made it
through the cloud, the opus of the

everything, the great and wide, the heat
of flame, the sun in cold but sunny sky,

the sound of when a child laughs,
the opus of the everything

The Opus Of The Everythingby ~chadwood

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

It's a practice in imagery, in capturing a feeling. I often get overwhelmed at everything and don't know how to say it, so I guess this is my crack at it.

It's one of those "jazz" moments when you're listening to the right song, on the right day, which all the right stimulus around you.

It has been so painfully long since I've been able to relax enough to just write a poem. I will admit, this one was forced - a long and hard labor.

Update 4/23/011 1:53 AM
My first ever DD! Amazing!
Here is my journal entry with a lot of thanking people and a longer blurb about it:[link]

Daily Deviation

Given 2011-04-22

The suggester says, "It's the incredible building rhythm he's created through a rough-ish metre & internal rhyme. ~chadwood describes The Opus Of The Everything as being like a jazz moment, but it's more frantic than that; it's like a racing heartbeat trying to leap out of his chest." ( Suggested by ~Sperpy and Featured by `nycterent )

~~love 0 0~~

joy 2 2

~~wow 0 0~~

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

~NonsenseQueen Dec 8, 2012 Student Writer

Amazing rhythm and the way you build it up is fantastic. This most definitely deserved the DD that it got.

~JupitersStorm Apr 5, 2012

Very good!

~chadwood Apr 5, 2012 Writer

Thanks!

*buildingclimber May 24, 2011

congrats.

~chadwood Jul 2, 2011 Writer

thanks! (wow this is a long time coming reply)

*buildingclimber Jul 4, 2011

I take a long time to keep up too ..no worries.

~chadwood Jul 7, 2011 Writer

~eliriel Apr 22, 2011 Hobbyist Photographer

I really like this. Added to favorites!

You said "I often get overwhelmed at everything and don't know how to say it" I can really relate to a lot to that. When I write poems it can be difficult for me to loosen up a little, come out of my box, and try out different styles... I seem to be too afraid of making mistakes and experimenting sometimes... At the very least, I know there can be a better, more interesting way to put into words how I feel... I might just not know that way yet. lol

~chadwood Apr 22, 2011 Writer

Firstly, I am so very humbled that you've added this to your faves and have taken the time to read and comment here.

Some of the best artists became great by upsetting the sensibilities of others. If you continue to write and write and write...and read and read and read, you will find that "better, more interesting way" that exists inside you, and release it!

~eliriel Apr 23, 2011 Hobbyist Photographer

Thanks for your thought-provoking response.

I think you're right... if you want to get better at something, you need to keep doing it. I've been off and on about writing for the past few years, and I think that needs to change. Reading your poem was a real inspiration... it has real melodic rhythm that I really like, and brings itself together so well. Thanks for sharing it!

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