lust

NaPoWriMo Day 25 – Ordinary Sunday Morning

/ Just Barry / 3 Comments
Photo by Matthias Groeneveld from Pexels

Ordinary Sunday Morning

a spring storm sputters from the blue,
dancing on bathroom tiles, and I know
as foggy dream yields to hazy reality
you have already answered daybreak
for your Sunday morning shower.

you sigh and coo in blissful oblivion
and doves take flight up my spine.

your hairdryer yawns into action
as you hum a backing tune
while I sing the lead in my head,
lying in our bed, one knee crocked,
staring out the window to horizon as
cotton candy slowly trades
back and forth with blue.

I act as if asleep as you reenter
our bedroom, shadow falling upon me
like the world’s warmest blanket,
failing in your efforts to move silently.

“Stop faking,” you admonish gently,
and despite myself, I lose a snicker.

on occasion of an ordinary
spring Sunday, well before noon,
sneaking a peak, there you were, uncovered,
and upon widening my eyes to drink you in,
every depth, contour, and Venus dimple
of treasures previously beyond conception
came into focus from eastern daybreak.

“What?” you ask through wry grin,
as if you could not possibly know.

but you do know.

Written for NaPoWriMo Day 25 Prompt:

“Our prompt for today (optional, as always) is to write an “occasional” poem. What’s that? Well, it’s a poem suited to, or written for, a particular occasion. This past January, lots of people who usually don’t encounter poetry got a dose when Amanda Gorman read a poem at President Biden’s inauguration. And then she followed it up with a poem at the Superbowl (not traditionally an event associated with verse!) The poem you write can be for an occasion in the past or the future, one important to you and your family (a wedding, a birth) or for an occasion in the public eye (the Olympics, perhaps?).”

NaPoWriMo Day 25 Prompt

NaPoWriMo Day 23 – So You Still Wanna Know About That Dream

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Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

So You Still Wanna Know About That Dream

where we never knew how to let go

with all Midnight Plains a playground
we crammed into each other’s airspace
as if we’d implode from any separation
licking our past from our lips
compressing present between thighs
hearing the future grunt from our core

soaked in milky-way sky and malbec  
unlocking French on flannel sheets
Great Divide traversed before dawn
and dew drops kissed our skin

we writhed, undeterred by chill of fog

we wore our own tropical high
melting Olympic glaciers upon release

us furious lovers; us selfish givers

when I awoke, tangled in your absence
wisdom made for poor company.

Written for NaPoWriMo Day 23 Prompt:

“Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that responds, in some way, to another. This could be as simple as using a line or image from another poem as a jumping-off point, or it could be a more formal poetic response to the argument or ideas raised in another poem. You might use a favorite (or least favorite poem) as the source for your response. And if you’re having trouble finding a poem to respond to, here are a few that might help you generate ideas: “This World is Not Conclusion,” by Peter Gizzi, “In That Other Fantasy Where We Live Forever,” by Wanda Coleman, “La Chalupa, the Boat,” by Jean Valentine, or “Aubade: Some Peaches, After Storm,” by Carl Phillips.”

NaPoWriMo Day 23 Prompt

I responded to “In That Other Fantasy Where We Live Forever,” by Wanda Coleman.

NaPoWriMo Day 22 – On Losing One’s Virginity

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Photo by Michael Prewett on Unsplash

On Losing One’s Virginity

Why it’s called deflowering
transcends imagination
groping upon irony.

Days after sweet seventeenth
I gifted her my flower
grinding artlessly in darkness.

A year earlier, she yielded hers
to her soulmate, who promptly
snatched his soul back afterwards.

I cannot say I blame him, as
no magic burst from novice fumbling;
only visceral urgency, dread,

unfathomable yearning, learning
new ways to move, to remain still,
to apologize while still inside

while eyes are still locked, still
one sticky organism with two
muddled minds; an anti-flower.

Deflowering propagandists should
seed new gardens with more accuracy;
first time is slapstick humor at best,

but if both get the joke and laugh
there may be a second time, and yes,
that will be hilariously awful too.

But the third time you may feel petals,
gifting and regifting back and forth
trading an unending source of flowers,

and therefore, the very term we use
 – this so-called “deflowering” – has not
and never will make a lick of sense.

Written for NaPoWriMo Day22 Prompt: We’re examining “the strength of metonymy in poetry” today.

“…I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that invokes a specific object as a symbol of a particular time, era, or place.”

NaPoWriMo Day22 Prompt

my five great loves in five verses

/ Just Barry / 5 Comments
Image for post
Photo by Xin on Unsplash

verse one — vergence of failed lineages

groping in darkness
finding us
solace in cursed woods

Image for post
Photo by Kat J on Unsplash

verse two — piercing grey eyes

escaping colors
we immersed
smearing our real worlds

Image for post
Photo by Juliette F on Unsplash

verse three — craving her grip

she lured me to realms
of too much
and of not enough

Image for post
Image by Lindsay Stewart from Pixabay

verse four — a different lingering vibe

just like a warm bath
she met me
where touch craved her most

Image for post
Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

verse five — our time in smiles

soft, yielding dancer
I held you
synched by our music

Originally posted on Medium by Barry Dawson IV for A Cornered Gurl.

Orion’s Lament

/ Just Barry / 9 Comments
Photo by Simon Godfrey on Unsplash

Orion’s Lament

She was the first breath of spring
puncturing a stubborn morning frost.

She was jazz blooming from blues,
she was sacred verse bursting from psalm.

She was unrefined snorts and belly-laughs;
she was knowing eyes that knew better.

She was a midnight pub-crawl;
she was of pre-dawn shared comfort food.

She was nothing imagined
and everything desired;
she was love’s bloom; a promise kept.

And I am the fool hunter
who grasped at her corona,
eternally driving her from my reach.
***

Yes, I’m still overdosing on Hamilton. I’d ask Wifey to intervene, but we’re on this bender together. I have no regrets.

I’m sure we’ll return to normal soon, but have you seen my country’s normal? I say, let’s take all the manufactured joy we can get.

Day 24: Ripened

/ Just Barry / 2 Comments
Image by cromaconceptovisual from Pixabay 

Ripened

Never been one like my first;

scent of a mad bloom
throwing syrupy hints
dying to be eaten

royal dark sheen,
slick like a first kiss,
pristine and unbruised

firm, yet yielding to the touch,
thin skin barely containing
ripened flesh for
my mouth only

gushing at my first nibble,
flowing down hand and face

sticky-sweet in a way
of forgetting decorum

noisily slurping and smacking,
moaning as taste buds are
perfectly triggered

as the natural sugars and dopamine
hit the brain simultaneously
in a way that can only be felt as

so good I didn’t care
who saw the mess it left behind
as I rung-out the last
pulp from the pit between
palette and tongue.

But your first plum
may have been different.
***

NaPoWriMo Day 24: Today’s prompt:

Today’s prompt is a fairly simple one: to write about a particular fruit – your choice. But I’d like you to describe this fruit as closely as possible. Perhaps your poem could attempt to tell the reader some (or all!) of the following about your chosen fruit: What does it look like, how does it feel, how does it smell, what does it taste like, where did you find it, do you need to thump it to know if it’s ripe, how do you get into it (peeling, a knife, your teeth), do you need to spit out the seeds, should you bake it, can you make jam with it, do you have to fight the birds for it, when is it available, do you need a ladder to pick it, what is your favorite memory of eating it, if you threw it at someone’s head would it splatter them or knock them out, is it expensive . . . As you may have realized from this list, there’s honestly an awful lot you can write about a fruit!

Day 13: Surface Tensions

/ Just Barry / 6 Comments
Photo by Afrah on Unsplash

Surface Tensions

Look, we could spin ourselves in circles
falsely claiming that you or I
drew first blood. I mean,

not one to quibble
 – it was clearly you,
though you may indeed
erroneously disagree – but
it don’t matter no more.

Sure, you had the prettiest grey eyes
I’d ever seen, and yeah,
I meant that shit, and yeah
it was corny as fuck, but well,

have you ever heard an empty cup
speak-up, looking for something
or someone to fill them
with purpose?

I didn’t think it would lead to nothing,
and was stunned when it did.

We had fun though, didn’t we?
Playing hooky some Thursdays,
laughing at shitty movies,
disappearing off the grid

into our own private world at
a different random Econo Lodge
each time looking to not form
any traceable patterns.

You had your men on the side,
and I had my whole thing going on,
but I wasn’t tripping about
what this was or where we were.

You said it first, remember?
And maybe you thought you meant it,
but at the time, I repeated it
only because I was naked and
afraid of the repercussions
of silence.

After allowing time to reflect
and to see the whole elephant,
I realized that I do care. I care.

But that’s no longer enough, is it?

And I swear to God I never knew
I’d meet someone like her
after meeting you.

She and I are just synched in ways
your sense of surface tensions
can’t possibly imagine.

What you and I had was fun, wasn’t it?

And I don’t understand a thing
about soulmates, but my mind,
heart, soul, whatever gut or
animal-instinct you can conjure;

all of them unanimously tell me
that I’d be a fool to ever let her
walk out of my life,

so… you know…

I didn’t mean to steal your joy,
but I’m dropping all pretense for her
and only her.

Do you get it?

Try to understand; remember the way
you say you felt when you fell for me?

You loved me, even as you were still
loving on those other dudes, right?
Even as you will be tomorrow, right?

Well, I met her, and everything I am
has led me to the moment where
nothing else matters except for
my pulse synching with hers.

I loved you. I did. I still do.
But I can never let her go.
***

NaPoWriMo Day 13: Today’s prompt:

There’s a pithy phrase attributed to T.S. Eliot: “Good poets borrow; great poets steal.” (He actually said something a bit different, and phrased it a bit more pompously – after all, this is T.S. Eliot we’re talking about). Nonetheless, our optional prompt for today (developed by Rachel McKibbens, who is well-known for her imaginative and inspiring prompts) plays on the idea of stealing. Today, I challenge you to write a non-apology for the things you’ve stolen. Maybe it’s something as small as your sister’s hairbrush (or maybe it was your sister’s boyfriend!) Regardless, I hope this sly prompt generates some provocative verse for you.

Oh, thank God! I was afraid that this might be one of those Erasure – found poetry prompts that I suck at find so frustrating. Thank goodness it’s just a prompt about good-old stealing! Yay for stealing!

Day 8: A Poem Beginning with a Line by Sylvia Plath

/ Just Barry / 15 Comments
Photo by Warner on Unsplash

A Poem Beginning with a Line by Sylvia Plath

Musky as a lovebed the morning after.
As blue a sky vintage toxins could allow.
Remnants of when playing it cool was disrobed.
Careful not to drop breadcrumbs, out slipped the tongue,
afraid of what could be left unexplored, lost.
What was said, now muddled; tangled, dangled sheets.
Secrets spilled upon linen, taunts veiled in smiles.
Favors returned in earth-suckles and shudders.
Reflections! How urgent! Come through! Come, midnight!
Fat and black, moonless regrets are swallowed whole.
At sunrise, only faint aroma lingers,
pushed aside by a faint whiff of breakfast as
only briefly, hunger displaces hunger.
It all makes sense when thinking of that first kiss.
Still don’t know of the why, but glad of the how.
***

NaPoWriMo Day 8: “…peruse the work of one or more of these twitter bots, and use a line or two, or a phrase or even a word that stands out to you, as the seed for your own poem. Need an example? Well, there’s actually quite a respectable lineage of poems that start with a line by another poet, such as this poem by Robert Duncan, or this one by Lisa Robertson.”

NaPoWriMo nailed it with this one. They even provided me with a Sylvia Plath Twitter Bot, and anyone who reads me probably had an inkling that it was either going to be Plath or Poe.

Day 5: Short Spring

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Photo by Devin Avery on Unsplash

Short Spring

over time, trauma is a thief of joy
two fingers of bourbon mug the mugger
spring oozed into her room nonchalantly
embracing us with equanimity
her voice cooing we shouldn’t do this now
her lips tasting of why haven’t we yet
the fire in her almond eyes read mine
we chose the same musk-knotted adventure
music was jealous of our harmony
you introduced me to Martin Gore and
I didn’t get him, but through you, I did
I’m jealous I missed your London punk scene
and all the parts that broke you apart
we were both trauma and broken things
we been runnin’, done ran, till we bumped heads
finding joy in tending each other’s shards
I lived to cut myself open on you
seducing you into seducing me
say I won’t rise to meet your velvet taunt
your tongue had already run us through
I marked you as mine when your teeth pierced me
by the thinnest skin of goddess sinew
we loved, clear-eyed in the blackest of night
as the box-springs sang je t’aime, je t’aime
you took my life each time I surrendered
only to find your dear Eeyore renewed
I’ll re-steal this joy, returning to us
delightful, bottled beautiful struggle
thus was the elixir of our short spring
***

NaPoWriMo Day 5: “Twenty Little Poetry Projects,” developed by Jim Simmerman. The challenge is to use/do all of the list below in the same poem, or as many as possible. This was extremely challenging, but also super engaging. I kicked off my shoes, threw out the punctuation, meditated on a topic that frequents my thoughts, (I was born a dirty old man. Sorry/not sorry) and started tinkering. I fudged some of the criteria, but I honored the spirit of all twenty requirements.

Here they are:

  1. Begin the poem with a metaphor.
  2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
  3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
  4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).
  5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.
  6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
  7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
  8. Use a word (slang?) you’ve never seen in a poem.
  9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
  10. Use a piece of talk you’ve actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don’t understand).
  11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: “The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun) . . .”
  12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
  13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in “real life.”
  14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.
  15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.
  16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
  17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
  18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
  19. Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).
  20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that “echoes” an image from earlier in the poem.

Day 3: crashing a block party over on fullerton…

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By Flickr user: Seth Anderson Chicago https://www.flickr.com/photos/swanksalot/ – Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/swanksalot/331315405/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22585050

crashing a block party over on fullerton…

the boom to the kick
and then in comes the improv
to the moon, riding thick
when the sun bows and dissolves

too soon the pulse quickens
when the fun begins
she said her sign is the twins,
I’m trying to get in them skins

so I’m lying like I know
about the horoscope
like I try bending flow
like I’m skipping rope

even though I hate the shallow
like a misanthrope
I play the rope-a-dope
hoping to feel her cantaloupes

she say nuh-uh,
you a Capricorn,
yall’ boys are too uptight
I said if our minds vibe right,
I would beat the daylight

to her bedsheets,
we could creep like TLC,
or wile-out like Janet
anytime, anyplace,
I don’t care who sees us
on this planet

she played me to the left,
calling me thirsty like Rice Krispies
but not being risky, she
slipped me her digits,
knowing she frisky

bystanders threw it in my face
like I was vexed by her reply
but I knew she was two-faced,
just like all sexy Gemini
***

NaPoWriMo Day 3: basically, use Rhymezone and a random book off a shelf to create a palette of rhyming words to construct a poem.

This one didn’t grab me, so I modified it a bit, using both Rhymezone and a quasi-freestyle from words that popped in my head while listening to a 90’s Hip-Hop song (the one imbedded above).

It was pretty fun. Reminded me of when we would gather in hallways banging out beats on the walls while “passing the mic” around to each other.