[x]

Happy Birthday"This evening, Michelle and I will do what I know every parent in America will do, which is hug our children a little tighter, and we'll tell them that we love them, and we'll remind each other how deeply we love one another. But there are families in Connecticut who cannot do that tonight..." ~ Barack Obama

Next year I will wrap you presents
and you will not understand the need for bows,
but will reach towards them for days
in anticipation.

I will fret my wardrobe decision: do I dress you
for photographs or in a pattern that will hide
your smudgy fingerprints? Or maybe the floral one
your grandmother, your father's mother,
will su

AlterI stopped dreaming the color of my wedding dress
years ago

the picket fence around a small square home

the soft surety of a kiss
every evening. One morning it was

one leg in the left and one leg
in the right

you know? Things change. These days
I dream simpler: Waking up

laying next to another warm body, at least
a little in love.

LostDeath came to me in my sleep,
with asphalt to support my back,
and Rohypnol dreams to forget.

Anxiety-riddled puzzle pieces
came and went; some scattered, lost
in the cracks. I could smell them lurking.

Nightmares never shackled me,
but I still can't escape the daydreams.
I am long gone and far away, and stuck here.

1 year, 8 months, 3 weeks, and 1 day:
I lost myself somewhere between your sins.

--
2/13/2012

Copyright © 2012 Jen Fowler
All Rights Reserved.

RiftTrains collide through a fist of hot snow. Her eyes
and mine. Soot against the thick storm skin,
flashing metal and scraping bones, the earth
screams something primal. She looks away
and through the peppered sparks of fire
a silence prevails.
Quiet lips say too much. I follow spotted horses
to the meadow, the waterfall is broken, and
I see her mouth make fog. Lumps of coal
are stacked in the distance, making a hut.
I do not enter, the windows are tied to the sky
with knots.
9am there was a rift in the evermore. They said
the sky belted open, stars wept plasma coffins,
and out of the dew she put one foot,
then the other. In her left hand there was a blue fig.
I could not see the other. The arctic sun set
and a desert sun rose.
Her hair was put back with paperclips, glimmering
in the cold light. I fell into a vat, watching
a thousand four hornets unnest from behind her. I felt high,
but sank deeper until I touched bottom. She pulled at me

you asked me to write your eulogybut darling, do not ask such things of a poet.
We live with death and feathers
in our bones, and you—

clouds have purpose, and one
is seldom alone in the sky. To
say, smart or handsome or
funny or caring, it is the lid
on the trash, never appreciated
till missing, and you—

undercover smell of well-water
and thick terra cotta clay,
a fallen angel left in smoke-screen
somewhere below the salt, the heart
still beats, and you—

a mythology come-to-life.
Hellion and savior, black-tipped
like raven wings, always more
in the right light
than

the unimaginableBecause I had no answers, and
because there was nothing I could do

I started yelling at you to clean your room.
Useless words,

useless as hands under the weight
of the news: they were just babies

only five to ten years old.

How quickly the mind changes gears.
How if we lived a thousand miles east,

how if I had made different choices,

how a madman could have looked
at your perfect face,

pointed, and pulled the trigger.

How unimaginable, and how graphically
I've now imagined it.

And now, breathless, I'm thanking a god
I don't believe in
that no bullets have stolen your future,

you never cleaned your room
and I don't give

The Clandestine CollabMy partner in crime -

  He is but a name to me,
  locked up tight
  on a private page.

I take him to bed each night,

  his mind
  stretching my insides
  to bursting.

This page smells like him -
I visit when I'm cold.

  He pens the prettiest things
  from mere moondust
  and the softest touch

I can almost feel him

Reaching...

  he takes my icy hand,
  encloses it,
between his ink-stained fingers

   'Come say Hello,' he beckons.
        'I'm way more interesting tha

Kiss the GirlKiss the girl when she sits close on the bar stool,
bracketing your legs in hers,
hand left haphazardly on your thigh,
fingers slowly grasping tighter,
although she doesn't realize it.

Kiss the girl when she leans in close,
breathing in the scent that dances on your neck,
draping herself behind your tresses,
whispering secrets that don't exist,
because you both know what is wanted.

Kiss the girl when her eyes say more than her words,
desire playing like a movie in the reflection of her pupils,
dilated and focused on your lips,
and forgetting the room that surrounds them;
the others that she no longer cares about.

Kiss the girl

DousedI start forest fires in my loins.
Flames lick lips with desire,
somewhere between friendship and lust.
Anticipation falls heavy between my sheets,
while eyes close and mouths speak
of things wanted but out of reach.

--
8/21/2011

NothingmanYou were nothing of everything I wanted;
not a bit of so much I needed.

I hated loving you.

It felt good when you hurt me,
because it was bad to feel nothing
…but a desire to die,
because you were alive,
until you weren't.

And then I didn't know what to feel,
so I didn't,
and instead felt every bit of everything
and not a bit of nothing.

You were everything of nothing I needed;
every bit of so much I didn't want.

I loved hating you.

--
6/17/2011

Alone With a MadmanEarthly rotations, to dark and light,
and dark, like me—
listening to the ticking,
tick,
tick,
tick
of the hands that taunt
the pulse of my heart,
as it beats,
beats,
...
skips a beat.

Course red blood slips,
and slides;
a terrifying ride,
down arms meant to reach,
not guide the hands
that hold tools that breech,
the thin net,
of nerve-bound string,
that holds the madman in.

--
4/25/12

Copyright © 2012 Jen Fowler
All Rights Reserved

MemoriaMemories are harder to recall of you, Nana.

We never had much time before memories
were all you knew, and the present
was just a tragedy, a fearful thing.
We ran out faster than the yarn you knitted;
all those colorful skeins, re-spun into balls,
knitting needles protruding like antennas,
eventually unable to recall a clear picture.

But if I think long enough...

I can remember when you lived with us,
your room the one I later moved into.
But I don't remember much,
except your red chair,
and that time you called my dad a bastard
as he walked by. I still smile about that.
I must get my spunk from you.

I can remember spending wee

Lost and FoundCreaking toes scatter built up years
into piles of questions, "Why?"
Sins and snaps cease in creases and manifolds
of grayish matters not.

And we die.
We die.

I wonder if you wonder why,
the wonder died.

We're still alive.
We're alive.

Barefoot masquerade, unveiled,
just in time.

--
12/11/2011

Never A ClassicForever doesn't exist,
at least it's never been proven to me.
And "Til death do us part,"
is just a line in a nursery rhyme,
known only to mice, and no [wo]men,
just another story, repeated again and again.

I'm a temporary cause
of no concern to you;
no great expectations here,
just a subject as your muse,
and these trust issues are clues.

I should have consulted with the best;
elementary reasons abound,
explain my cause for unrest.

So away with the wind,
I'll be gone, sans pride,
before you sense
the prejudice sensibility
to leave me again.

--
11/10/2011

The Kiss of an Alley-CatHe knows -

He saw it all now,
their excursion down Bourbon Street

with a swish of satin,
she had set her heart on his hunter's soul

-a clear path down the aisle-

It was always about her.
and with no patience left
he would find he could only live
through the lifeline of her lips -
the ragged sounds, music
unto her ears.

She held him there
where glory
was only a hoarse shout away

until he was driven back

-step by dainty step-

Until he discovered himself
with his back against the wall,
and not a leg to stand on..

His body
emptied
into hers

And in his ripples of release..

he forgot to breathe

..and she

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Southern Belle - 2I want to sing you songs on the low notes
for hours. Comb your hair behind your ear,
gentle and lingering. Slip into your eyes-
anything. You are

a ripple spreading across me. You are refracted light;
slickness of an abalone's back. The soft pearl.
Idle thought of my afternoon- always, always

I imagine. And Bourbon's not so far:
nineteen hours through a day,
then I could see you. Will we ripen
on touch?

Jukai IIYou are a soft rustle of promise
across the calm Pacific and
wasted sun of the Sonoran

and the sad truth is: I don't know
if I can wait for you

BlurThe road curves,
the centerline blurs,
mileposts count to somewhere

The speakers blare, omnipotent—
Queen, Abba,
AC/DC

It's the highway,
the swerve,
the blear in your eyes,

the passing lane—
what you dart past,
what we leave behind

It's the drum of the wheels,
the whine of the road

It is all-important;
so little of it matters

Ryan's PoemHow many times did you save me
from myself?

The quiver girl,
strung tight and shaking,

self-nursed at the end
of a whiskey bottle;

your ever-night,
shuddering off to sleep

a sick bat wrapped up
beneath your bed,
half rabid;

half intelligible-
if you were lucky.

Good nights I curled up
against your broad shoulders,
smiling
as you palmed a bowl,

taking in air
to request records
and savory things
to eat - and then,

I nested on top of your pillow
as much
as any girlfriend

yet never quite
a lover.

I was hard on the heart, Darling, wasn't I?

Never yours
and now

we never speak.

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Southern Belle - 3

by `vespera, Nov 27, 2012, 2:50:19 PM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

Pathwork

Lady: follow. Take me down;
entire worlds, for a while. Let it drown,
lay it down, consume me. My desire
is ambitious; my smile, precarious-

Slip in and take a sip. The darkfall
is ripe for dipping; as am I, my Lady,
as am I: flushed for picking. Hungered

as the crow, I have salivated to the bone
of this carnivorous being. I have looked

far to find you; the arid blaze of the desert
and the ice-lick air of the plains- yet

it was by chance I found you,
crescenting gleam that you are:
hitchhiker, quiver, quake- somewhere

in the non-existent, conscious weave across interstate.
And now here: two, tied;

we are, we are. Aren't you, after all,

on the other line?

Southern Belle - 3by `vespera

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

#3 - Pathwork

i opened hearts
and watched from crawling doors
but nothing angel
nothing

***Read here: [link]

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~WaKip Dec 8, 2012 Writer

Oh my goodness...
I...I...
DAMNIT. QUIT LEAVING ME SPEECHLESS. I'M TRYING TO WRITE COMMENTS!
Well....I've loved this series from the very start, and this is a beautiful new part to it. I absolutely loved every line and every moment of the structure. It strung me in from the beginning and gave an intriquing ending that makes me want even more of it. Ugh. Now I have to wait and hope you'll make more of it! And your imagery? Deeply inspiring to someone like me who just loves to lace things with such. With every deviation you make me happier that i chose to watch you :>

`vespera Dec 10, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

you are so sweet

=StormBringer23 Nov 28, 2012

Hmm...

*0hgravity Nov 27, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

I like the rhythm in this - it's intriguing.

`vespera Nov 28, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

why thank you

*0hgravity Nov 28, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

welcome

=sunshinegypsy Nov 27, 2012 Professional Writer

Oh YEAH. MMM. You should really do a recording of this one. And not in your I AM A SERIOUS POET voice. Maybe in a... I LEAD A SECRET DOUBLE LIFE AS A DOMINATRIX STRIPPER WHO ONLY ACCEPTS $100 BILLS voice. Hmm.. yeah, that might do it.

`vespera Nov 27, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

LOLOLOLOL you don't like the recording?

=sunshinegypsy Nov 27, 2012 Professional Writer

DDDDDDDDDDDD I like it. But it would be more fun to be flailing about and drooling a bit.

`vespera Nov 28, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL someday I'll do a crazy reading for you.

OH pick one of your poems you want read "impassioned" and I'll totally do it for you.

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Southern Belle - 3

Southern Belle - 3by `vespera

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