I ready my mark
Put my fingers just before the line
On your marks, the referee shouts
A bead of sweat drips down my face
Boiling the skin it touches
Leaving a moist trail behind it
Curls around my chin
Hanging in suspense
But it can't support its own weight
It falls
Falls in slow motion
It hits the track
Instantly evaporated against the track
The blank fires
My legs shoot forward
With each stride, my shoes dig into the rubber
I see the finish line
The lactate hits hard
My breathing is ragged and coarse
I can't give up now
My eyes go black
My brain shuts off
I wake up with rub burns on my face
But I finished first
Victory is mine
Follow pulse
follow low and high
like a dress in the wind
a simple lovely sin
She spins and ends well
I could devour whole
the simple lovely sin
between her eyes and brow
a kiss on lips
a taste left on fingertips
Coffee is a reasonable substitute
for spirit possession.
Surely your heart will tremble,
open the gateway
for earthquakes to exist
within the fault lines
of your fingers —
but at least your pants will be piss free
when the officer asks you
to dance along the straight line.
And when he asks, “are you nervous?”
you’ll respond in the affirmative.
Explain how since 1996
you’ve been waiting for the day
an asteroid directly impacts your car
as you sip espresso
heading southbound on the I-10,
on your way to work.
And you won’t have to explain to your coworker
why your pants are missing,
ass in the air,
bad decisions spilled
on the fresh mopped floor —
dreading the ride in,
knowing he knows
you’d never compete
with his fresh ironed shirt.
This morning I chose slow drip,
because life moves fast enough.
Starts as a weep
A subtle slice through the silence
Tiny drops fall quiet and steady
All day all night no bother at all
Th journey of each drop
From sky to land
From reservoir to tap
The crisp fresh water flows
Breaking through the rubber gasket
Drip drip
Seeping down walls to windows
Shelves to floors
The slow unrelenting drip
Steady as a metronome
Consumes every second with metallic clinking
A tainted brown as it eats seals
Every drop speeds up
A click like a clock
Tiny drops turn to big drops
Holding back that torrent
A background noise turns loud
The mental torture of hearing a constant tapping
One turn of tap releases the pressure
Insanity reaching its peak
Before the inevitable flood
One action or moment can calm this
.
black holez
enter your
at
own risk
tap
a drip forms then waits
a drop caught in suspension
unfulfilled dispelled
Drip,
Deadlines all down drains,
Friends blown off with seasonal snot,
Time racing by like raging runoff,
Drip, drip, drop
scene of sorrow
words trip
tears drip.
ANESTHESIA DRIFT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
from sterile walls to cosmic, endless night
soul untethered, my body slipping out of sight
stars ignited darkness with their ancient light
released at last from gravity’s embrace,
beyond pale blue dot, another time and place.
and in that void, so vast and strangely deep,
where the universe its secrets it doth keep.
found a peace where weary spirits sleep.
no pain remained, no fear, no earthly care
and pinpricks bright, suspended in the air.
I swam in darkness, bathed in silver light,
distant suns, like diamonds, scattered bright
each twinkling spark, a universe in sight
I drifted then, a soul set free to roam
into the cosmic ocean, starlit dome.
constellations danced in cosmic grace,
pirouettes of wonder in this majestic place,
diamond points of light in an embrace
but deep within this velvet vacuity,
a pulse grew—luminous, soulful acuity.
among the diamond dust of ancient light,
sudden—sparks not grand, not bright
brought an expected, everlasting insight.
and from that void, a truth began to bloom:
that even dark can be in a radiant room.
cosmic duality
They say a picture may paint a thousand words
but I can't read what he wrote
household paint poured onto a horizontal surface
ain't what I call works of note
splashed with no pre-planned end-result
for art's sake to me does not art make
known for his 'drip technique'
yes he was a drip and no mistake
yet a few of his spills sold for millions
long after his prime
as a fool and his money are soon parted
and you can fool some all of the time
but if we pry the boards from his studio floor
and hang them on the wall
why it would be far more relevant
tho' still takes no skill at all
his splotches are not pictures of poppies
nor pansies petunias or hollyhocks
in fact they're really nothing more
than just a load of Pollocks
darkness in the mist
light shines down from a streetlamp-
drip. drops from my hood
Your hands linger now as prints upon my mind.
I became a glove for your love.
I gave you my tongue
so you could speak a moment of ecstasy.
You gave me Cauliflower Cheese,
the only meal you could cook.
Then when you were done
with my squishy love,
you left on a bus, never to return.
That was back then
when cakes were left out in the rain,
when poets wore bell-bottoms.
I recall it rained for days
in our love-stained apartment.
The mattress survived,
but all too soon,
it forgot how to talk
like you used to.
Chance
accidents
in time&space
float in unreal
swirls
flowing
without restraint
turmoil
in
energetic
explosions
flung
splattered
moments
arrested in space
dripping
drop
by
drop
Why raindrops drip and drop in time,
not timorous; divine.
A splash, playful
in a pond of koi brass.
Tines of Sankyo, priceless precipitation;
A plink and plunk, Chopin;
“Till the End of Time,”
that is why raindrops
hold their gravity,
until the fruit
of their musicality
must be mined,
be longed
by great golden fish
with open lips
excited by the weather
without human palms
to catch, a catch
that croaks and grunts,
that fills the pond.
.
drip
drip
drip
mine engram
drips
rousing me at times
from mine snoring
slumber
tuh
tap tap tap
for you
to feel
just one uv those
drips
drip
Sub Categories
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.