[x]

I Took To Howling With YouI was shy at first, timid in my dealings,
I laced the trap against my throat,
sang sparing, tip-toed
around your poems.

The tone, the slow vibrating
from the shoots of my shoulders
to the gleam of polished talons,
it purred around inside me.

Oh the song, Coyote,
the same resigned call, it
paled before you, swallowed down its insides,
wept.

I took your little hand in my big hand,
flew out towards Crow, and for a while
My Love, there were poems
and the world was enough.

I took to howling with you,
down from the branches, safe
womb of the tree, I spread
dirt between my toes, sang happy,

sang the song of free,
your wild howl

Send Me the Raintoday, they're all talking about the fires.
the people on TV, the voices on the radio,
the mouths that open and whisper
and softly touch tongues. even the sky is

revealing black plumes of smoke,
flaunting shameless and seductive curves.
the rain's been too dry and the lightning
isn't wet enough, panic is
rising out of control in this
burning city. that's

not all;
we have a crisis on
our hands- the balloons are
running out of air and even

the experts don't really know why,
and on top of those sinking rubber toys

my soul is losing moisture
faster than the crackling grass under the duress of flame.
i'm sta

Justifications and Salted Smiles"I don't think I'm holding on any longer
I'm diving in.
I wish that you would see,
there's a magical land at the bottom of the ocean
where waterproof lungs let you be
everything you've dreamed.
You can bury underneath the sand
and not be found-
it's the land that's been promised to me
in late night whispers
and burnt tears
wasted on things that don't matter.

I know it's real,
broken minds can't lie
and I can feel it in my bones-
there's something more.
What other reasons would we live for?

They say you inhale saltwater
and exhale enlightenment.
The waves pour over you
and finally make you clean (pure)
No one knows where y

grassy field with rustgrassy field with rust
--------------------------

I'd heard about the old car, three miles out of town and all alone. I just had to see it. It was time. School was over for the summer, my friends were at camp, and I was bored. I set out Thursday morning for a hike, following directions that Uncle Will had given me. As the heat was still growing with the climb of the sun, I found the field and wandered around looking, and looking some more, trying not to be distracted by bees buzzing in the flowers, and butterflies and baby mice. Then it was there, just a bit upslope from the bottom of a natural swale, and just below the sky at th

LintukotoLife as a stained glass window in the cosmos:
a well of misfortune, shattered hours,
pieces of night and liquid decades.

A bird crosses the universe
and in the corner of eternity it warbles
a song that encloses everything.

I escape to the route of tempest:
the galaxy, oniric labyrinths,
a spiral path to madness.

earth circuitAnd when the sun sinks, the earth's skin crawls:

I.
I wonder if this awkward creature would notice me the way I notice him.
He's so tragic at his throne
I stare after him longingly.
And yet,
He never realizes that I'm the one
Who forever basks in his brilliant beams.
If only he knew how much brighter he could burn
[with me]
He'd light up the universe.

II.
I heard him speak of thirst, once.
The quenching lust of the stars had run dry.
So that night, I brought along a jar of acid.
(And how it gleamed in his glow).
I handed it to him, wrapped in taffeta ribbons,
screaming
I wish curdling joy
On my gurgling boy

I Of YouI want you to break
and never bend for me,

see my history
spiderweb your brilliance
till you belong to me
(and I, to you)
utterly and forever

and know
you cannot stop this.

MeanderingHardly a mountain, though on lowering days its head sits wreathed
By the mists of a passing front, aged and befogged as bygone elders
Doddering about – before there were names for the malaise
That hazed their thinking
And from this modest crown there slouched and sloped
A long shoulder, meandering down to meadows below
Pausing now and again to coddle a pleasant hollow
Casting a sloping pitch – enough to rush a torrent
After a sudden shower
Seldom pooling
Its glint and glimmer burble among the stones
To join a rill and plash and swirl and putter about a root
It's there I'm apt to wander

Not much of a path, hard passed a

Cheap fix, 360Unbound structure;
unhinged bones
locked together
with unsymmetrical
unfit screws.

None of these are meant to be here.
They are
cheap and shaven
and the
grooves are rusted.

There is no tool that can pull them out without breaking,
without collapsing
the planned out
unintended construction.

We had the instructions sure
and all the parts
but
in our fumble,
in the exchange of hands
of ALL the people who
intended to help us;

in all the accidents

(and

no one at fault
or
taking fault
for all our faults)

some fell beneath the table
underneath the drawer
into dark unreachable corners
so we worked with what we

if she were any more tomato she'd be blueberryxvii.
i want to write about how this world of
absolute truth, knowledge, and solid food—

that which we hold high between two fingers is always
full of watery applesauce and little white half-truths.

and about how utterly strange
it is that all the simple things that people
write about on pages are, in reality,

very few and far between.

xvi.
and i want to write about how there is
peace and war and
poverty and treasure and
cruelty and sometimes,

sometimes,

small and
important
moments
of grace.

xv.
i want to write a poem about why the hell i'm wasting
my time writing poems when i could maybe
actually be doing something produ

By Fifty,I'll publish or perish;
find someone to cherish;
move someplace phenomenal;
display an abdominal
physique to inspire,
which I shall acquire!

. . . Or perhaps, just retire.

Newspaper SuitI am a charlatan
peddling fraudulent wares
but nobody else can see
the pushpins
where adhesive didn't stick.
And you'd think the paper trail
from the newspaper suit
would give it away
but the pictures keep smiling
while underneath gangrene begins
and happy happy faces
mask the smell
of death.

Come Home: A PantoumYou'll always come back to me
when the lights in the far hills
are done searching. For, new beds

entice adventurers. Too,
when the lights in the far hills
come home, the homespun dream they

entice adventurers too,
but they can't. (Dream we're neither.
Come home.) The homespun dream they

turn pioneers to homebodies,
but they can't dream we're neither,
our wanderlust fit to turn

pioneers to homebodies.
We've always made love free, so
our wanderlust fit. To

turn ourselves towards our home
we've always made love. Free. So
when the last adventurers

turn themselves toward their homes
in faraway lands, I know,
when the last adv

Down By The SchoolyardThere is a rather cliched phrase that states that some people live double lives. I have always found that to be an intensely misleading statement and I guess you can call it a bit of a pet peeve of mine. No one leads "double lives", they just lead fucking lives. That those lives are more complex that the singular one-track existence of lesser creatures shouldn't be a matter of duplicity, but of common sense. No one is exactly who they seem to be.

Julio is one of those who they would later say lived a double life, but it is no more true for him than anyone else. The difference in this case is that there are two of him, rather than one.

Perha

The ElementsI.
Wine as red as stained glass
is lifted up & tilted back

Empty cups
touch wood like thunder
having given up grace

II.
Blue veins
thread across wrists & palms
spent vessels returning to the heart

Fingertips suffused with pulse
lift to lightning's loveliness

Browse More Like This

Download File
HTML, 1.1 KB more ▶

More from `OfOneSoul

Zombie Romance

I cannot remember the last time I cried,
flooded and broken my eyes turn inside.
Still there's no beat, lifeless breathing aside;

the last breath of me has finally died.

A nameless face now ruptures my thoughts,
a memory of which I found I have not.
Claiming my love, in his arms I am caught;

a feeling of hunger embedded, grows hot.

He screams a name without any soul.
I sense the place; once a heart, now a hole.
He falls to the ground, death taking its toll;

struggling to stand, his hands reach their goal.

Clutching my face, he pulls me close,
my mouth inches forward, grotesque and morose.
My eyes staring hungrily, he smil

It Was Real To Me"It's only for a while, then you'll be free of this place."

Who said that? Samantha could no longer remember. Ever since they brought her to this room, she'd only counted, cleaned, and avoided reminiscing. Any memory of years before were gone; jumbled by minutes, even hours of constant repetition. One thing she DID know; she'd always been sick.

Not sick… just plagued by a disorder called OCD, forcing her to count out her days repeatedly, keeping her from any amount of serious thought. Her room; this room, was always in perfect order. Every corner free of dust, every crease in her bedspread was shifted out. As a plus, large amounts of l

The Ballantine Brothers"They were enemies, you see? Brothers made violent by the eruption of the Civil War."

"Oh Dylan, you know JUST what to say…"

"Be quite, Tiffany! What happens next Dylan?"

The teenagers laid shacked up in Dylan Ballantine's family getaway - a decades old "mansion", remnants of the Ballantine Plantation Legacy. The seventeen year-old boy leaned closer towards his two female friends, smirking secretly at their growing anticipation. There's no telling how many times he'd told the story of his doom-fated ancestors… but the reaction of anyone listening was always priceless.

"I thought you were too scared Ana." Dylan smiled at the rave

View Gallery

Featured in Groups:

#written-from-within
Written From the Soul

#writeaway
Find Your Inner Voice

#artist-exposure
Club Supporting Artists

#Writers-Guild-DA
writers everywhere

#Pencils-of-Doom
After School Art Club

#thefreewriteproject
Don't edit. Just write.

#poetry-book

#Writers4Life
Writers Welcomed

Show all (95)

Details

Submitted: November 2, 2012
File Size: 1.1 KB
Submitted with: Sta.sh

Link

Thumb

Statistics

Comments: 92
Favourites: 135 [who?]
Views: 4,023 (3 today)
Downloads: 191 (0 today)

[x]

Submerged in Swan Lake

by `OfOneSoul, Nov 2, 2012, 5:10:44 PM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

Swans and wings are floating by
on a breeze imbued with jasmine and
willows outstretching their arms in welcome.

Through deep breaths he arrives
plunged in murky, pungent water.
A quiet whisper, and he prays -

"_Please... may I linger here?"

Willows lower their arms
and jasmine falls to the Earth
where the wind dies and finally rests.

The crows are cawing hymns,
begging to be swans.
But only the duck submerged in Swan Lake
has delved the desired shore.

Its waters dangerous and plagued
by monsters baring their teeth;
most ghastly and putrid they are
that no crow may ripple its surface
nor any songbird seeking beauty fair.

The Swan Maidens bare their chests
and open their wings in veneration -
for the duck has sought beauty through courage
and earned his guise of grace and virtue.

Submerged in Swan Lakeby `OfOneSoul

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

MY FIRST DAILY DEVIATION!

I couldn't believe when I logged on this morning that I received a DD.

When I wrote this poem, I thought to myself,
"Wow, you should really stick to prose."
I'm glad that someone doesn't think so.

Special thanks to ^Beccalicious for featuring me, and thank you for either

ing, commenting, or reading!

I MADE IT THROUGH AUDITIONS!

I'm one of 50 writers chosen to participate in the Scratch That Poetry Tournament. I am so ~~fucking~~ excited.

My first poem in ages!

This is my audition for #poetry-book's Scratch That Poetry Tournament. As the rules stated, the participants could write about anything... except ~~overly depressing subject matter~~.

This piece was greatly inspired by the ballet, Swan Lake. I have just recently refallen in love with it while doing research for my NaNoWriMo '12 project, Drowning Sirens.

I wanted to tell a story that may have seemed sad at first but in the end had a childlike sense of retribution that not only teaches all of us a lesson but gives everyone that isn't necessarily a swan, hope.

Please let me know what you think. I'd love some feedback on this.

`OfOneSoul

, &

_{Credit for the preview image goes to =TheGalleryOfEve. Please the original preview image at their deviation, Good moments together

Critique Questions:

How do you feel about my imagery?
Did the pacing go wrong at any point?
Do you like the story in general?
Should I have tried to rhyme this?}

Daily Deviation

Given 2012-11-11

Submerged in Swan Lake by *OfOneSoul ( Featured by ^Beccalicious )

Critique by ~Rhetoricism Mar 11, 2013, 5:20:57 AM

Ah, a magnificent work. I'm not usually a poem person, but this was perhaps dangerously evocative.

Your Imagery
How did I feel about your imagery? Depends on how you define imagery. Phrases like 'begging to be swans', 'open their wings in veneration' and 'guise of grace and virtue' were the ones that caught me in. If that counts as imagery, then I think it's very, very descriptive, bringing to mind rather interesting scenes and poses. Effective, certainly.

Your Pacing
Did the pacing go wrong, at all? Given that the poem is of a more descriptive than narrative bent, the pacing is less relevant. It's fully possible to lose yourself in minutiae, and not spoil the feel of the poem. The poem isn't too wordy, nor does it linger too long on any one thing, and thus, I feel the pacing is solid.

Your Story
The duck, graceful and virtuous as he is, seems to be a minor feature. While his journey is simple and evident, it is also sparsely described. Rather, you have given pen to an environment, a scene, and that's the strength of the poem. The duck is undeniably wonderful, but the setting he is in is the star of the poem. I liked it, but preferred the rest.

Your Rhyming
Bugger rhyming. If it sounds good (it does), rhymed or not, leave it be.

What do you think?

Fair Unfair

The Artist thought this was FAIR

1 out of 1 deviants thought this was fair.

No Replies

Devious Rating

Vision

Originality

Technique

Impact

Critique by ~theWitchofGrich Nov 22, 2012, 12:13:09 AM

What a beautiful poem!

I love the way several ''moods'' are intertwined into the stanzas and not just that, but different movements as well. As I began reading this lovely poem, it sounded like a typical Romanticist work of art. However, as I read on, I realised there was more to it - much more to it.

I love how you added the element of the swans into your poem. It not only speaks of a metaphor, but somehow connects this to the ancient beliefs of purity and grace. Symbols of crows and swans can definitely be found in lots of mythologies and old stories. Well done! This aspect added to the originality of the poem.

In general, the motives are well chosen, the emotions are present, the vocabulary used is very descriptive and the the poem visually stands out. I loved the unusual form it had. Just as I thought it would be kept in tercets, in a sudden, the harmony was broken - and mind you, it was really brilliantly done!

"Please... may I linger here?" is a verse line which changes everything. There is definitely more meaning to this than we might think in the beginning. The little duck, referred to as ''he'' so that we wonder ''who?'' as we are reading for the first time. It forces us to pay close attention to the words in order to understand the poem. Really, brilliant!

What do you think?

Fair Unfair

The Artist thought this was FAIR

3 out of 3 deviants thought this was fair.

2 Replies

Devious Rating

Vision

Originality

Technique

Impact

The Artist has requested Critique on this Artwork

Please sign up or login to post a critique.

love 5 5

joy 2 2

~~wow 0 0~~

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

neutral 1 1

=CassieCros13 Mar 20, 2013 Student Writer

While I can't give a formal critique since I can't write a poem to save my life; this is astonishingly beautiful.

"Please let me linger here" and "The Swan Maidens Bared Their Cheasts" Stood out to me. Love the imagery, and the ending. Well deserved DD

=TheGalleryOfEve Jan 21, 2013

This is SO BEAUTIFUL Kimberly!!!

I didn't know you wrote so well!

`OfOneSoul Jan 21, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

My writing abilities confuse you.

=TheGalleryOfEve Jan 21, 2013

I'm SSSSSSSSSO lazy to read!!!

... My brain is going to desiccate if I don't read at least a little!

... I'm ashamed of myself for that!

I "resumed my DA activity" with a lot of energy in November, so I started reading a few things here and there (usually short things, for lack of time mostly