deviant art

Deviant Login
Buy ArtBuy T-Shirts & Gear Buy adCast Buy Premium Membership
Shop		  Join deviantART for FREE Take the Tour
[x]
leavetakingi.
the world is brighter where
dregs of strangers' revels remain --
i keep this half-light for my own.

ii.
i'll stay until the wind sighs a scotch-and-smoke
cliché, til the Muscadet's slipped from the lip
of my wayward
hello.(i know you're there before you do.)
iii.
your night is told in
patchouli-pulse wanders; mine,
in whorls of liqueur-breath. come
close and i'll find the warp
through the weft, the trails telling tales
in synaesthesia --
Platinum Blonde's been 'round and gone.

 iv.
(-- closer, find syllables strewn
 in an exhale's wake; stolen from my throat-
 ful of careless farewells, spin and sway
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
HeartmindWe lost electricity on the night you left me
and I spent the night curled up against the rain,
drinking in the slack of damp green winds
in our treasured driftwood home of mist.
I had to come to think of time
as a medium and my thoughts as
imperfect and cursive. It was a wrinkled medium,
a mediocrity of sunken breath: words condensing
into droplets that so contorted my teary lenses
that I couldn't tell that you were turning towards me

with a sound, the sound a book makes
when its leaves are rustled against the grain.
Tonight my body lingers on the edge of the ocean
like a gasp; New Jersey's throaty highways
bear my rosefelt thou
Of Half-Filled WordsShe is not a flutterbird.
Her fingers are skittish,
her smile is not.
Do not fear that you will
drive it away.

Sadness is her fumbling limb.
It is unwanted, yet
necessary.

When it is January
she will tell you,
"I am still struggling.
And I am becoming so many people
all at once.

A conglomeration of beauty that
I have managed to mangle.
Please, do not be sad for me."

Sometimes her sorrow is
meant for you. But mostly her.

Those specks and spots
of ocean storm lulls
reveal her truths:
ones she does not want
to extract from herself.

Her heart is not a rabbit.

When it beats
faster, faster, faster,
you need not
run harder
fatefatalism stalks me.
its chalky finger-bones
scrabble at my windows,
greedy to pry panes
and rend gaps—
mouth agape
to vent its algid breath.

conjured,
like a voodoo zombie
of the bayou,
by pious disciples
to the temple of matter.

they strain to evade
the burden of their choices,
worrying at the knots of destiny
and scattering dust
to fill in our footprints.

in a sly reversal of legerdemain,
they entice hands from rudders,
with their relentless mantra:
"free will is illusion!"

but illusion is smoke,
and stars still burn in my chest.
not nebulae, but hard points and brilliant.
I pass through them,
burning the fog
Retrograde          Scents from inside the suit intertwined their intentions with the sights of tangled and tessellated hair illumed by firefly LED's, spiking my circulation with memories and murmurs of dopamine.

         I took her by the gaze; she steered her sight away from mine. I led her through a glance that involved no scuffling of hands.

         She was one of two wayward strangers passing in the cosmos; two separate glances met as objects in motion tending to motion. People aren't the same however.

         Drifter was the term we were known as, people cast off of vessels and ships, mostly by accident, condemned to trudge about the univ
The Farmers SonWe sat sipping grappa as the storm clouds rolled in from the ridges
like the smoke from some great unseen inferno,
the wood walls and shingles of the house complained to us
in low groans,
of the wind coming up hard, through the valley,

and there was flickering light from a candle,
and she told me how light from a prism dissects into different colours that correspond
in some way to our bodies and that all of life was a rhythm

and I believed that part,

and I believed there were stars beyond the sight of man on any grey day
and that they might hold some greater secret than prisms or rhythms
or any question a farmers son could ever
Fold Overi.

across the vaults estimated by every milky tone
the curious whirl in old friends gather a surface
wholly between each divide of behavioral light
cones bend to placate our amass combustion

that is

until her legs uncrossed absolving my repetitive
nature to forget what conditions a truth has also
to submerge and share in upholding closely
the uniqueness of love we each must extinguish

our self

to then

ii.

across
the vaults

estimated by every
milky tone

the curious
whirl in

old friends
gather

a surface
wholly

between each
divide

of behavioral
light

cones bend to
placate

our amass combustion
that is

unti
Our Meaning and PurposeI

All of death is death. Life,
too, is like death.
The way it erupts over you
laughing and spinning.

II

I was confused
so I asked God: What should I do?

Move your body and have emotions. The birds were dancing.

Could you be more specific?

But now God was busy arguing with Moses.

III

All of life is life. Death,
too, is like life.
The way it erupts over you
laughing and spinning.

IV

Tomorrow is the sound
of a question falling
on a bed of questions.

Today I hold out
your name, God,
in the public square.

Yesterday reason, the slayer
of song, wended its way
into our will.

V

All of light is linking. Dreams,
too, would se
BrackishAfter the wet season, before
the midsummer night's drought,
I flight for the floodplains, where
the northern downpour bleeds out
and sweeps its love to the mouth
of my lungs. I sleep in the crux
of an oxbow, let my dreams flux
and flow fractured, deltaic. For this
is the way I piece myself apart,
a resolution, my absolution
in a new avulsion.

During the day, I move south
towards the river mouth, picking
pebbles, coral fangs from the riverbed.
A loose tooth is a common truth
in these parts. Bones are febrile,
eyelashes are made of chalk, salt.
Tears turn brackish. They cake
and crack on the flats of my hands.

This is my Pang
The Cartographer's DaughterEvery night, he would fold her into his arms before she slept. Creases grew into her, turning brown with wear, and she loved them. When she woke up in the night, dreaming of darkness, he would take her to his desk and draw for her a map of her face, turning it into another world. Tracing the contours of her smile, he would scrawl a warning, "Here be monsters", whispering to her that she was a dragon when angry.

As she grew older, she populated his maps with creatures and peoples from the books she read, or her own creations. He taught her to draw, and to write with an old inkpen, in a cursive script her teacher could make neither head nor ta
The SiegeThe first mile is always the easiest.
         —Kyle Lynn to me, circa 2006

Tell that to the ghosts,
men soaked in sand and blood spray,
storming the shores of Normandy.

First Infantry's sprint through coastal
trenches, up bluffs, under ruptured drays.
Tell that to the ghosts

huddled in half-channeled holes,
a captain's dash through shrapnel, gray
storm on the shores of Normandy.

A German boy adrift in the compost
of his legs, his elbows' grand flail.
Tell that to the ghosts

ripped in four by mortars posted
over Omaha. Dawn's evenly keeled decay
storming the shores of Normandy
city drowned cleanbirds fly bluer before a hurricane,
wings sharper, the bricks neater.
one train is always longer than the
other. i cried about it. the saturated
city, droplets of colour caught on
tape & rewinding, cups me in its
palms, i am a bug on its window,
imagining all of it underwater &
people clapping in a silent film,
the last dying bubbles curtsying
on their lips, for their marble town
the white skied & terrible atlantis.
Rock Meautumn blunders in, clumsy
stiff fingers frosted still
by early winds, rocking trees
back and forth

red leaves splatter the ground
paint drops, hanging from drooping
branches, rotten fruit still litters the sidewalks

i head south for the fall with the ducks.

the train creaks like aching joints
there's a crow on
my windowsill, ruffling his feathers
the trees flash by
red -yellow-red

my ticket's got a hole in the middle
from being folded over and over
the crow says "summer ain't that great, Peach Girl."
i watch the sky and ignore his clicking black beak
"the autumn's gonna follow
right behind ya
'n turn the whole world re
CiertosIn the wake of multiple futures we break apart.
You find the point where the sun rises
solamente al cielo and I go to the river
where wind falls into my watery eyes
and cascades over the back of my neck

and here I know how life throbs
caught in flesh, I know the hearts
of lonely people sin alas tenues
serpentine and thrashing.

You had given me a full look, a look with all
the cycles in it, a look that made
Hudsons of my jawlines, por supuesto

we were serendipitous, and
I couldn't keep my hands off you

and sure, it was temporary para siempre

but we will return to classic rock
and Atlantic conversations,
I will return to kis
Browse More Like This
Download File
HTML, 555 bytes more ▶

More from ~ClioStorm

019something feral and
unwieldy. we are the rapture

what it is to see your life
just another topic on the television
a documentary, a new study,
and you are thinking,
here, this is me, i
i am living-breathing it
your pills
stifling sympathy

the hummingbirds dancing
within waves. we
are not meant to know
eucalyptusthey tell me i am writing confessional
poetry and i tell them, no, i am not,
i am writing my world.

i did not burrow in guilt's throat
and choose to spell out the softness,
no, i screamed out my soul and it was then
that i remembered how i used to pray.

i wanted to tell stories
but instead i sat and wrote:

about rain, and sorrow,
and the greek gods,
and pain, and the greek gods,
over and over, and dionysus, dionysus:

i plunged and dived dolphin-beaked.

*

i want you know
that death is a responsibility
and saltwater immersion
a fierce talent we cannot escape

so this is a confession for you:

i am not selfish
i am self only
radiographythe wall-
flower with
the stuck record
in her head
is staring
at the bricks
and counting
the letters
in her name
over and over

onetwothreefourfive
onetwothreefourfive

blink.

across
in the corner
is a tower
and a world
and she is
not quite sure
whether words
are alive
or something
utterly other

and in-
between
radiography

she remembers.
perhaps there is never another option.your father is driving
and you are next to him
in the passenger seat.
in your pocket, you hold
a switch with the power
to turn off the sun.

if you were to hit
this switch, the
world would die,
you know. but still,
the temptation is
overwhelming. perhaps
you are mad with power.
you hold it in your hand,
after all. it fits
there quite securely.

the sun in question
is taunting you, flickering
between the branches
of the trees as you drive.
you seem to be chasing each other.
he is calling your bluff,
daring you to do it.
you frown.

you wonder what to do.
the right thing, probably,
would be to lock this thing
away. it sh
misericordiathe stars are lost souls
pulsing from the hollow
wounded sky. i hang them there,
from strips of rag and fable.
when they burst it is
paprika.
if i am myself then
who are you? strike out,
strike in. we are talking
through lack of sleep
and broken bottles. we
are all dying from
the music in our lungs.
and when i can no longer
see the stars, how will i
remember that death is only
an option whilst morticians
are in fashion?
imminenthush
there is a nothing inside me
i am lying fallow with my
split skin and hollowness

capture me here and hold me
wrench apart my ribs and
let me feel your hands
around my heart

twist me
i will not be remade.

Featured in Groups:

:iconthewrittenrevolution: #theWrittenRevolution
The words are the spark. :icondd-catalogue: #DD-Catalogue
The Home of Daily Deviations :iconhumanconditions: #HumanConditions
 :iconword-smiths: #Word-Smiths

Details

October 5, 2011
555 bytes
Link
Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 73
Favourites: 161 [who?]


Views: 3,632 (1 today)
Downloads: 63 (0 today)
[x]

petrichor

:iconcliostorm:

Niobe weeps.

gold scattered rough across
cracked earth and the last
remains of summer - they fell
like leaves in the arms of the wind.

some scents cannot be captured.
the gods bleed onto rock,
and the stone sends her prayers
in return: petrichor.

listen - the heavy thud of
rain on parched ground;
the monsoon sealing life back in;
the sky bows and kisses earth.

Niobe weeps.
:iconcliostorm:
for =Vigilo's challenge :XD: this isnt much good, i'm afraid - i struggled to put the scent into words.

petrichor - the smell of earth after rain.
Add a Comment:
 
Preview   Add Comment

Daily Deviation

Given 2011-10-21
petrichor by ~ClioStorm. ( Suggested by =angelStained and Featured by ^Beccalicious )
:iconbreathingglassstars:
~breathingglassstars Apr 8, 2012   Writer
this sounds prettier than a song, i think
it's like that and an old tale all at once...
so beautiful ♥
Reply
:icon8happiness:
~8Happiness Dec 29, 2011

Wow~
I can smell it in your words how you manage to capture the whole scenario. Beautiful. (:
Reply
:iconcliostorm:
~ClioStorm Dec 30, 2011  Student Writer
thank you =] :heart:
Reply
:iconblackfire3:
~blackfire3 Dec 27, 2011  Hobbyist Writer
I didn't know what "petrichor" meant till the second time I watched "The Doctor's Wife" episode :iconsweatdropplz:
Reply
:iconmehreenfreed:
~MehreenFreed Dec 26, 2011  Hobbyist Photographer
Very few people know this word or I came across hardly any who used it. I love the sound of it. petrichor that is why I instantly clicked on this piece to read more about it.

Beautifully put together. It was a pleasure to read it. Well done. I would however like to ask a few questions. How long did it take you to complete it? What sparked this? And this line like leaves in the arms of the wind. is beautiful. I seem to flow with it. Excellent.:iconclapplz:
Reply
:iconcliostorm:
~ClioStorm Dec 26, 2011  Student Writer
It really is a beautiful word :nod: I'd been looking to use it in something for a while, then =Vigilo challenged her watchers to write something about petrichor. And this is what came out :)

This actually took quite a bit longer to write than my poems normally do - I normally just write whatever comes into my head and do very little edits until much later. But whilst I wrote bits of this straight off, I kept tweaking it and working on the images for a few days afterwards. 'Niobe weeps' was the first part to come, and it occured to me that maybe I could relate that myth to the idea of 'petrichor', so I looked up both the Niobe myth and the etymology of petrichor, which was where most of the images came from.

Thank you, I'm really glad you like it :heart:
Reply
:iconmoonlightwillow6:
~MoonlightWillow6 Dec 10, 2011   Writer
I could literally feel what was going on. You did an excellent job with the imagery. I also liked how the piece started and ended with the same line. It tied the whole thing together nicely. Excellent job and congrats on the DD! :heart:

(And thank you so much for the fave!)
Reply
:iconcliostorm:
~ClioStorm Dec 11, 2011  Student Writer
Thank you, I'm glad you like it :heart:

(you're welcome! :))
Reply
:iconhavetales-willtell:
`HaveTales-WillTell Nov 21, 2011  Professional Writer
I smelled this. And I felt it: you painted the scent vividly. Nicely done. :)
Reply
:iconcliostorm:
~ClioStorm Nov 23, 2011  Student Writer
:heart: that means a lot to me. thank you.
Reply
Add a Comment:
 
Preview   Add Comment
©2013 deviantART. All rights reserved
About Us | Contact Us | Developers | Careers | Site Tour | Help & FAQ Advertise | Premium Membership Etiquette | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Copyright Policy