CONFESSION ZERO

This,The Light Was Harsh, is the first poem in the month-long series of daily poems,Violent Verses, posted for the month of October 2009. (I reversed the dates so the reading order is better, dates are thus... backwards.)
The light was strong, violent. In his anger,
leaping out, he’d made an imprint
and puffed her soul to bleed.
She knew he would soon stop-
end his rage toward anguish and

The gaping holes
in the walls would attest
to his frenzied decorations.

His dreadful, pitching heaviness
would suddenly meet
such stiff and frightened jaws, her redness
emerging, and her cries pleading to let go.

I can’t tell you anymore,
Not without putting a hole through a wall.

I can’t tell you anymore,
for I am a man whose rage might leak
like fearsome light through a cavern at dawn.

I could read everything,
all there is to know about man
and still not know where the hell we are,
still not know why or when
we fell away into such ferocious shadows…

Perhaps I’m looking at it wrong...
Maybe it is n…

I traded in my pen and paper for a new keyboard
and left behind all my cadence and metaphor...
My fingers gliding along her backspace and tab
savoring, staying longer on her improper nouns
than on her damp and present tense verbs.

She yearns to feel my tap tapping fingers
and my rhythm of enter, control and escape.
She pulls me in with her forward tab and insert keys
as I move victoriously across her caps lock and F8.
O! If only the world had such a traversable face.


© 2009 by mark prime

Of this moment what is it that you want?

Her gallant nakedness clutching at flowers and shaking herself upright again.

Her margins and chest filled with grand laughter at the things she’s most ready to do.

Her eyes reading wonderfully tall and magnificent letters dispatched from all points of her reach.

Her lips coursing a voyage over freedom with a blazing hope, shaking the limbs of all dread-filled faces.

Her émigré colors moving together, loving, holding one another in luscious, tender whispers.

To witness her thighs draped over our ready shoulders as we seek out her yielding flesh.

The winged creature with her supple neck bent down, smiling upon her just desserts.

Her rebellious shape hovering over the people’s hunger, steadying herself for eager tongues.

That she rise up now, and with her flesh, wet and yearning, touch upon those most in need.

Her long and loving hands opening up to us in freedom, lifting our sleepy faces to the sun.


© 2008 mrp/thepoetryman

I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one, even at the cost of your life. __Mahatma Gandhi


To the hardened freedom on the crown of winter
where coldness flourishes, they've come again.

Bloody faced women in their nightclothes, humming
such lovely howls as they rock their children to sleep,
listening for footsteps on the porch,
torment... come… stumbling home.

Women brushing their hair as if it were love,
daubing makeup to dilute the venom
they can’t escape.

Tears, useless, even their children’s smiles
carry them to frowning.

Thoughts of shattering themselves down upon the night
of fear, bloody faced women brought to an end,
drained, fingers gliding over the cold barrel.


© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman Twit it!

Once upon a time...
A giant of anger stood seething.
Fine art looked into the monster’s eyes,
waiting for which moment he’d smash
his tall hands through love’s kingdom.

Looking down upon art, the giant flinched,
WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT?

The musician glided over the strings,
There’s more use in your hands than fists.
The dancer floated across the floor,
You’ve so much more to give than rage.
The playwright bled upon the page,
Your very breath is the soul.
The aria lifted its royal cry,
She trembles at your voice.
Vibrancy swam atop the canvas,
Unclench your fist.

The poet then stood alone before the monster
waiting for which moment he’d smash
his tall hands through love’s kingdom.
O! Let go thy rage and use, foul beast!
that her beauty might claim its faith,
and all the sinister hearts of horrid fury
might stumble upon love’s tender devotion...


© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

The mirror now stands before us, Torn sleeves and skin,
she's come to watch the sorrow dripping down, the sap
of our veiled shame, our abysmal indifference… Disgrace,
the fickle comrade, has not discouraged her,
kept her from loving us fully though she’s been seen
weeping in the temple of mankind.

We try to imagine her echo shattering man’s tall ceiling
and the sharp storm falling down over the world,
we even imagine massaging the ache from her body
but our hands remind her of her fathers.

Bleeding out across the landscape, she covers her eyes
with our callused paws and the pale swag of decay
As we step away, stagger back from ourselves,
unable to let go, our scent upon her pain.

The mirror speaks to us and tries to hold us in,
to rescue us a small piece at a time as our rooted shame
draws back our arms to strike-
caught in this snapshot of our pre-existing condition
we look stunned, wild animals paralyzed by the light.


© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman


American Violence; A Documentary Histor…

Today the sky wove its deep thread
of cold winds as if to rake dying grass like a doctor
suturing wounds.
Last year it was the same.

O! Teach us not to break things! Teach us to love!

Give us the tools to overcome our blindness.
Help us find the warmth, hands and breath,
instruments threading affection instead of cruelty,
temperate winds weaving blankets for happiness to lie in.



© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

Sovereignty. Cradle. Twin Rivers. 2002. That was the then, patriot. Bursts of flesh, groan of empire, now.

This, the sun's testimony, script. A country’s story. Broken land. O! Terminate her now, dear patriot!

Sands scrape ahead of winter, brittle are her arid bones. Split. Over ripe. Dithering. Bent.

Pierce the center, the hidden heart. O! Blood and child! Now’s the time to grieve, patriot. Toss tears to wind and soil as souls drift by in wooden boxes.


© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

The looming shadow holds her every thought
from her signature.
She remembers as a child
she seemed to be without fear
in the hollow imaginings of nightfall,
she was braver when she put
her tongue to his and they fell together.

(Love became tired and mean and loud
and put a fist inside her smile.)

She convinces herself to lie still, to not make a sound,
and she does, like a game of charades without gestures.
The shadow keeps growing, rising like the pain
of seeing a loved one suffer,
waiting on the moon to reveal the fog,
waiting on the rock to uncover the cause,
the shadow to pay a visit,
to bring fresh bread and bandages
and maybe the pieces of herself.



© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

Nothing paints our bodies
like the grief in pain.
It floats in the ribs.
It expands
In dread
Like a red violin
With a broken string.

She scrambles away on the air,
Exhaling notes already composed by another.
It is music gone mad.
It is anguish and ecstasy
Sharing the page
With misfortune.

She has climbed as high as she can.
Happiness brushes against her,
It is her acquittal,
Transitory;
Composer of this instant,
Her masterpiece.



© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman