I Am The First To Admit I Am A Sucker For A Thousand Deafening Whispers

EPC Collaborative Poem #13

does the mark that lipstick leaves
on the rim of a glass
seduce or offend? 
(g)

In champagne I taste the meat of the vine
( )

No one hears the same foot steps 
(jd)

so I thought that once I had her down, fixed
on paper, that I would have her in some kind
of control. she slipped from me still, her mind
a leaf in a forest of falling leaves, broken twigs. 
(W.J.)

If I knew, I would not know the realms of unknowing.
That is why status quo is the only form of progress
I feel comfortable with. This is not saying much,
but it is saying something, showing a little sympathy,
which is all I am here for, really. And the love-making.
(R.A.)

and in the end
    none of us were to know
the source of that wind 
(JKE)

set the controls for the heart of the sun
set the heart for the sun of the controls
set the sun for the controls of the heart 
(PbN)

I make my own eclipses;
that I exist at all,
beyond the shadows that I cast,
is pure speculation. 
(gcs)

...up to now the recent past has been full as the moon is bleeding pain
an abstract pain and a pain precisly calculated.
The pain would fluctuate from time to time
but it was always as full as two full moons and whatever
else was left over.
(z)

small loves in a deconstructed library
Skip, the man who twists the wires in the wall 
Skip, the man, not the gesture
not the happy childish dance
not the act of passing over
skip twists the wires 
moves the wall 
and gives a warm slap on the back
handyman in a clown suit 
(bw)

why is the word-
That stares from my open grave.
Mine soul devoured by the listless
Sloth that decays your heart.
I gave you me, wanting but an ear.
Know you not where I dwell?
My domain is the same.
Feel me... for I am... 
You. 
(W.C.N)

Concrete flowers never fade
as the sun hangs like a lemondrop
waiting for its decay. 
(BH)

In Fall,
The cool breath from the autumnal mouth
Brushes through the trees of Cortland
(JMS)

Something lies half-buried, waiting.
Silence has its holding place in cracks,
crevices, erosion.  Seeds tighten roots
in a stranglehold of green. 
(R.D.)

like three strands of spiderweb
caressing your face in the morning 
(a)

Because he lived it, not
because -- he lived it, all
the words, every line. It all

spilled out, he stumbled
on always not for ever art-
iculating what is was, it
is, and has for me, any-
way. I'd like to thank him
for that, not for nothing. 
(JK/RC)

Reach out from this, seek elsewhere.
I can only see closed doors.
Have you been painted into a corner,
and sat watching paint dry?
Don't do this, try something --
move away, don't be like me. 
(PMK)

"You are young," I say.
"You're as young as you feel!" she actually says.
"You're as paranoid as you feel," I said, "young, that's something different."
"Do you feel paranoid?" she asked, eyes widening.
"Oh, yeah.  Everybody's paranoid.  It's when you don't feel paranoid that you could be in trouble, because then you are but you don't know it.  That's the difference between 'feeling paranoid' and 'being paranoid.'
"But I don't feel paranoid!" she said.
"Well," I said, "then you could be in trouble." 
(ML)

fly past the dried doldrums; therein nests alpine spankings 
(AMW)

Stand tall so they say,
This to shall pass so I pray
May eyes sing a familiar but unkind tone
Of all the colors in the world I had to be blue
Of all the people in the world I choose to love you
(N.B.)

Leave.........

It started off like an average day, not knowing the mystery of the night
The strength of your soul overwhelmed me
The touch of your hands caressed me
I felt like a little boy with a school age crush
I am the first to admit, I am a sucker for a gentle hand
But this time it feels a little different
(N.B.)

pissant squander 
(FS)

The strange meanderer moved cautiously
His melancholy feet drifted forward.
Hazey eyes, aching back, body odor.
A man of this stature embraces his only friend....depression.
(LMH)

A windmill slices the rain
in the same way a girl
learns to swivel her hips. 
(AW)

To blind to hear, to deaf to see
drowned "not I' insanity,
 tis an art tryed by meny
attained by few
(JHM)

contents of her life
were limited to the world passing by 
(ch)

Alone
tired and alone
all that was known
is now not home

Different
completely different
all who made it content
have made their ascent
(CL)

Without mistakes and imperfections
there is no radiant light
afloat in my inner ear, my inner ocean
cricket sounds start,
stars fade in, caught between branches
of white pines, as sun sinks
belows horizons curve
()

spiders scramble black among stones waveround.
bluedome above. sun and horizon.
white bone from a seabird.  
(aam)

To breech the burning orange sphere
and fold the night of who we were,
is far to eager for our souls
and leaves us plainly sleeping here. 
(CLR)

red heads in the field
i am putting my boots on
is it time to play?
nothing counts faster 
(IS)

We are not old, nor young, nor willing to try again
to take these words and shed them like hair
on empty streets, or shout them with empty mouths
(round Os of disbelief)  in this place we call 
our home; our town. 
Wait until the next time, we say,
when you speak and we do not hear. Then
you might understand that words aren't just syllables
put together at random.
You might understand
even if we do not anymore. 
(SC)

as the slayer of argos wore wings?
in such a forum of artemis? (of months 
perhaps mouths) mother of Gates, and 
madonna, wife of some blinded third generation
native, where i found the genes with to blame
the covenant of these toes. here, 
here- trace a lineage of post-simianism-
(f*ck dat yo. the sea is getting shallower
(aj)

Miscarriage of Love

What will I do with this cold world
the moon's wounded sadness
when the dark angel stains
the heart and steals the embryo  -
Through the nightĘs solstice
storms of anger ferment
in the soul and the loneliness
is a star without wings to fly
(bk)
 
For Anne Waldman

Water water water
Earth sea and sky
Water water water
Anne, I'm sorry 
Allen died 
(l)

a plague of rejected thongs wash up on the beach
scare the fish
and wish they'd made it onto the dirt-bronzed sole
of unwashed ozzies
in steaming rubber dunes they lie
waiting for a new purpose
mates lost in the migration across the ocean
battered
bleached in the sun
cracked
perfect opportunity for tourism here
perfect opportunity for 
(sja)


psychopathic--it is good to enjoy
the soil of the soul,
the cut-up weapon, and 
a literary fantasy 
(mlb)

And then, what if it is true that when the small,
young wren falls from its nest
and tumbles in the dead leaves
and what is feline in nature comes out
to look what this new young thing
might be, something to eat, maybe,
something good, that the world then
turns deaf at the small ignorant cry. 
(cmm)

Is it love we remember? or the strangeness that binds
So strong nothing can free...or disillusion
Transcending everything we understand...

Reaching out to hold the truth...in such tiny palms
Feeling only the limits... the boundaries of life...
Miracles appear...
For sometimes...we feel the connection...the greatness...
and the beauty of it all 
(S)

see full page ad at blowers
Postypographika
and Luis Rodriguez in JackLeg fall 97 
(kak)

Foolish onlookers!
Why start now, when you
had such a network
of small, comfortable church dolls
in your midst?
The books that I read
have made me sour
and my vegetated interior
won't explain.
Who has an inkwell
(r)

slippery toes tracing the edge 
of cool crackling glass,
hesitantly moving towards deliberation. 
(lms)

Just bought a new piano...it's sitting by the stair
It's tall and tan and tuned, it's wide and thick and square
It's nothing like my gold guitar or my brother's purple drums
Like comparing orange to apple or my toes unto my thumbs
And just because it can be played does not mean that it should
So box-like in its dormancy like a fancy block of wood
So perhaps I'll let it let me know when it wants itself to play
And sit and stare upon the stair at where it now does lay 
(RS)

if the room despairs
it's a weak moment in history
empty (empty receiver in morning
like everything in the field
the sequence of art
 its beauty
particularly beginning in danger
 the center  who
carries flowers
 not through the fields
unconsciously gathers
before water
 & oil
(tb)

i aint a ant
to be squashed by
yr love
i aint a ant
to be squashed 
by yr love
i's just a beaver
in a rubber glove
(sing it mother
fuckers) 
(t)

THE SILENCE SPOKE,
LIKE A THOUSAND DEAFENING WHISPERS
THAT SURROUND ME 
ONLY TO DROWN OUT MY VOICE. 
(JH)

Or the constant spectral breathing
of loved folklore.
Expanses of dander lifted to form sections,
stations,
modes of transport.
In lipids and confection I spend most my time
flowing over again with
the last drops of cancer.
My love. . . 
(KUB)

the mountains on proxima center rose like crystal candle sticks
above the purple sand of robert's plain. wind blown clouds of mist began to play tricks
on his eyes. no bright sun here to chase away the spaceman's bad dreams. 
no one but ghosts to hear his screams. 
(tf)

emptying outward in salacious gumption 
(ll)

I failed to see because I did not hear
That men still breathing may have died in fear
That the body still sings when spirit drowns 
That all men are kings if none wear a crown
If I was a king and you were not proud
I'd rid you of fear and sing love aloud 
(JLC)

We defer to her who never forgets
There are reasons why whales hop
>From the sea.  They are bursting
With juicy things to tell us, 
What the anemone said, who the lion-
Fish was out dancing with last night.
And only -- if only -- we were not
So lonely, they might whisper what
We have so long hungered to hear:
(GSH)

i'm blinking, thinking and all the while
i keep sinking into your abyss, left 
when you slept on my heart, breaking it
into pieces unfamiliar to my grocery cart 
(CTS)

(since, of course we never
know what's going on,

we go)

(Or is it that the music lies?) 
(jg)

It is quite possible to establish
by repeated couplings
in space and time
an arbitrary association between
almost
any
two
things 
(c)

Let the light descend,
upon your loathsome eyes
forget looking down the highway,
it is a empty road leading nowhere.

I can see you now looking both ways,
as if you actually expect some traffic,
the road you are on is not even open
you are the only one who travels there. 
(JJ)

weakly
all day at desk
and flourescents like a fish
lamp under my chin
i am as scary as you 
(LLS)

white as a collar 
in the dark green chasms of lethargy and
boredom
I jest and writhe and die
and look up porn on the WEB
(KJ)

How can a hermeneutics
be apropos of nothing
wallowing in metaphors
his Cheshire grin
changing into a slobbery baby's maw
adoring the pike that is stuck in his mouth
man adoring his own meanness
hear the catbird's creak, creak, creak
like a gate into hell
wallowing in metaphors
a clot of dry mown grass
in Navajo is
a collection of straw-like things
or metaphorically: dead lather
the bones of shaving cream 
(mk)

i wanted to cry for you
hero
and hold you in my arms like a teddy
but you died
while i was asleep 
(ml)

take the sun and
eat it up
take the rain
and lie
about it
take my love
and put it on the
kitchen table
with the tainted
hamburger 
(hl)

last night I passed out in a bar 
(ar)

A Wedding Mist,

Silence fell upon the window seal as tear drops disappeared into the drying wood,
her face reflected a white vale of innocents laced in small beads of knotted disgrace -
out beyond the pain she looked upon the dusk that held tightly the evening of her heart,
heave the breath that deafens loves sweet music . . . holding it in a frozen stain upon the clear glass of time -
(rkt)

A breeze bruises the tree tops
They sigh with shame - love becomes a crime.
A bird lies still on the fallen leaves.
It lives no more.
And so moves time. 
(n)

daydreams broken silence casts shadows to reality
whispered prayers unanswered- smoke trails on the wind
broken dreams defiant still survive, no tomorrow, just today,
is all that lasts til yesterday. 
()

Once upon a snowy day,
the children could not go outside to play.
The mothers, in worry, they cried,
"Oh no, they can't go outdide!" 
(DW)

Fill the machine Void!
Slip silently into full failing Christian Void!
Ignore the cycle Void!
Drop howling past the mind Void! 
(CMl)

Puse words you like please
nnot crafted sounds of need
 which 
 hurt
 me 
(BB)

no deadlines in this desolation
no rush of data
just sovereign wind
slashing a dune's cornice 
(RL)

Lost in QWERTY-land
Ignatz! Hit me with the brick
muse me, don't ruse me
FRENCHkiss the right brain 
lick it on the halfshell
ear-nibble intimate a rake 
of eyelash on earlobe
mountain air kisses, Blackbirch mint
saline-musky-Conac-sticky
heady slights-of-hands
wine into water 
(BD)

chain smoking along the bottom line
the red and white turn vivid gray and look
into the loquacious mouth of your life
blue skies speak hydrophobia
water in Carthage becomes the green glass that holds
our Libyan liquid
Bashed ahead we mesh into marble
never breaking - just walked upon 
and velveted to an anorexic green chair 
(BE)

Midnight sun fades to a constantly pulsating Earth.
faceless people run naked down long corridors.
A blank note says "I love you" 
Too many people turn to run away.
Loneliness can eat your soul and leave you so empty.
I want to be full.
I want to be with you. 
(G.M.R)

Death is the broken leaf
(pt)

The hard nipples of the keyboard surrender to my fingers. 
(PJ)

i wished last night on a paper airplane that you would come back to me. 
(slp)

they are all kindergarteners 
munching on wine and spare ribs 
(MR)

And the brilliance of the darkness blinded me
Like a hundred-million candles of flame
Burning into my soul
Into my mind
Into my very consciousness
Yet, as if by some miracle of science
I stand ready to see
Ready to believe
That there are no boundaries
Save the boundaries of our own thoughts 
(dlb)

i forgot to mention whether there were clouds or not,
i could have made note of others around me,
and the part where you cried i made up. but what's
unforgivable is having neglected that October Saharan. 
(gcb)

sometimes
the rain is dirty and one
wants it clean.
why do we want it clean?
(jp)

wet with our own pasts    
we fingered 
brook smooth pebbles
oiled inside a bag of time
wrinkled pink as salmon lips
back again   
no husks   no chaff
sleepy spoons with careless feet
poking out of too warm sheets    
(B)

and forgive, allow me
this 
(gcb)

                 Looking Beyond Your Face
As I look into your face your eyes tell me a story untold to my ears.
Your eyes tell me that to you your beauty has fallen.
As I look beyond your face I have felt your heart and 
touched your soul.
As I am looking beyond the face of your pain the beauty 
that shines is a eternal fire that lights my soul 
ah! I am looking beyond your face.
(s)

I wanted to write
a poem, 
but you weren't there 
to fill me with words - 
I wanted to write a poem,
but I needed you.
Angry, ashamed, 
and full of rage
I drank the ink from my pen 
and spit it at this page
for hours
because I wanted to write a poem
and you weren't there ...
(RFS)

jump into yer jollyboat
solo paddle till yer addled
maelstrom paths per anum
riol away tsunamic n'
soften sandy tsarist castles
generous
traction in the solitude
whitenwhite
sumi strokes in poofy snow
zenga
creaky ol branch trace
holedovertill
springtime whistles once
a gain
ridin' 'roun ole sol
omeomi
(B)

a single line seems enough fear of the center bright light 
()

  The Hatching
The gosling
inside the egg
comes alive.
(JT)

what if, one day, my typewriter began to type of its own volition -
what if, just as an instance, it typed a perfect masterpiece 
in the style of Tsvetayeva, or Rilke;
would I, could I, be blamed 
if i petitioned the courts for a name change -
after all i own the damned machine ... 
(RFS)

his skin peeled away like an orange
and beneath lay his glamorous hunger 
(jas)

clog up the phonecian block
jump over that sickly marathon boy
              egads
his sock is thrown to the wind
about a thousand times a day
and still clouds ream out his eye
             hair
             streaming 
(TAW)

my fools stands for me,
                 the ridiculous freight
         of sixty-seven cents
my thoughts of you destroyed by your name
      on the wrong side
           of the cellar door
     & damn
          this mansion's cold
               winter not even comin on yet 
(tmw)

"Here", she says as the toothpick breaks on the table. "What"

he wonders. A cat with one white paw climbs the pink drapes.
(jf)

HUSBAND MINE
YOU'D LEAP TO DEFEND MY RIGHT TO SPEAK
SINCE WE LIVE IN THE LAND OF THE FREE
A FACT WHICH I APPRECIATE--BUT DO PLEASE LISTEN TO ME. 
(LH)

on a dark and wonderful morn
parents all over are preparing candy corn
all of the children can barely wait 
to dress up on this special date
bats and witches will fly around
while grinning jack-o-lanterns lie on the ground
as darkness finally comes out tonight 
all the children try to show you a fright
so when you step out, you have been warned 
if you don't have a treat you will be scorned. 
()

under the christmas tree
presents are laid
bright reds and greens 
on cards children made
they want the toys
filled with wonder
all the girls and boys
will sleep and ponder
then morning comes 
()

table legs are very stout, but not particularly pretty
Adrian can be quite nice, but sometimes he is shitty.
(S.B.)

do you stare down a tornado 
(dw)

the syntactics come to town in a frowse
lightning darvon rupturing microchips
for servers that cogitate source
(ll)

and no matter what happens,
regardless of the substance,
it all ends with the eight ball 
(ktb)

Spam-lite, Cheeto lips, D-caf, Newt, potatoe-Quayle, & Jesse
Talkative tapeworms & wonderbras, smartbombs/dumbkids
Rah-rah, what were we fightin' for? 
Foder for de GNP... taken for chickens glued to chalk lines
waiting for an honest rain........
Nam ain't history, 'cept for Bob&Ferdie&Tim&Cal&John&Mike&
50,000 other hypnotized chicken shitless scared kids...
52 years old & still one last boogie man-NAM     (remains)
(B)

i need to diversify
all emotions or option,
options of emotions 
tactile skin lust
disgust 
and a longing for a lack of 
(jm)

sleepwalk tripping through the night
head wreathed in rainclouds
girls thrown together
in patterns of comfort,
numb by chain or choice
its all the voice we make
when we turn out the lights,
all the girls wreathed in rainclouds
waiting for the end of night 
(sm)

A skywayed walk into finite vined groves
Surrounds the Main in an inaccessible freeze.
Heep the spikes!
In a splinter of soul.
Oil up the Cranes in a bold transforth

A-Cross our cranial dikes! 
(ccr)

Indivisible particulates 
somnabulate 
beneath tired eyes:

a last hope of seeing itself
as singularity, one 
unlike any other.
(JSC)

closer, i become more 
aware of you, shining 
to you i become nowhere 
weighed down by words
which carry me not quite there  
(t)

at times
the sky wants to be
a field of wheat
or so the deer think 
(jmd)

Drifting in insipid swirls,
the leaf sinks to
rest beneath coffee-stained
water.  Put to bed,
put to bed. 
(GRB)

and damn it, the way back is a pointless thing.
i once saw where i was going, i saw an oak with just one
limb after the first ice storm.  it looked like a palm tree.
thinking that it stood for something, i followed it. 
(DJC)

He said,
It seems I was reading
something
he said
it right here.
Dry out,
despair withers
profundity. 
(LL)

I WALK THROUGH DARKNESS
UNABLE TO SEE
ANYTHING BUT THE IMMENSE
SADNESS THAT SURROUNDS ME
MUSIC USED TO BE MY FRIEND
I COULD LISTEN FOR HOURS 
(SKS)

I believe in women first,
and all my secondary beliefs are best expressed by them 
(ll)

soft upon the ear
ocean murmurs
lead me onward
stepping deep
through silent forests
treading shoreward
treading  lightward
deep in rain country  
(ckg)

WHY DO YOU WANT TO CHANGE ME
AIN'T I GOOD ENOUGH
(SKS)

Now and once reposed
Hope, longingly exposed
To glee and gallantry
Albeit flattery
A gentle touch--
And kiss upon the nose 
(GA)

movements around stones,
a hermeneutic of suspicion defined.
Wasted. 
(GPC)

There is a thread strung taught through my head, tied down on each end to the lobe of an ear.
With meticulous movements, a rustic canon with the lips of a woman rides the string endlessly, from ear to ear.
How ridiculous it seems to me for a canon with lips to go
without being kissed or shot.
How ridiculous I seem to it, always wanting to either 
alarm, or have sex.  
(y)

The timelessness
of the punch on keyboards:
computers, Brothers,
Royal families.
(PH)

Now and once reposed
Hope, longingly exposed
To glee and gallantry
Albeit flattery
A gentle touch--
And kiss upon the nose 
(GA)

and, of course, this is not
the beginning nor the end.
The river flows past
into itself, recreating
the present -"the echo
of the future_I recreate 
myself into myself or
into what I dream in necessary
for what awaits my day.
In this dream I am
who I am, unlike the last 
where I was simply myself
disguised as myself. 
(KN)



Compiled by Mark Peters November 1998