[x]

.SetIt is Akhet, the season of sorrow and silt, and Set
must tense his sandbreath against the slick of wet
once more. It's always the same: though he's unsure
who started the game, or whose face he wears,
he knows he must prepare for the beginning of the end,
the bite of night and all the slippages in the inbetween.

And he swore he'd bait their breath,
but they'd rather choose death than fear,
with their tombstone legs, arms pegged
in sockets and their locked ears,
burying themselves beneath blocks
built to the sun. They outrun him, every time.

It's a crime. He remembers what his mother said:
do what you're able to keep them faithful

From Whence She CameBack down to the sea-floor she goes
back to the coracle-clusters and starfish that
clamour, cling to her heart too tight,
walking barefoot towards where she
came from. It is too hard walking on
earth, the way she wears pain like a wedding ring
frightens people.
Back down, down, crawling on her belly
on the forest-floor, alive with the buzz and crawl
of worms and bird-prey. Back where she belongs with her
crazy palpitating wolf-heart, her bloody
deer-throat leaking in the snow, her yellow
eyes in the dark.
Back down, beyond subway trains, piano lessons,
falling rain, from whence she came, to the snow-covered womb
where she fir

with uswith us

electric moments manifest as
grass in wind sways wild yet
and birds that scatter spread
across the water group in
flight.

planks knock rhythm feet can
dance to, passing over sprawl
ing marsh, and deep the heart
of salty secrets lingers after
dark.

in the blind we pepper whispers,
eyes exchanging wonder, wishes,
and among the stars and lazy
shores share what we always
carry

with us, soft, like muted breaths
whose warmth on necks precede
a kiss, or echoes fading slowly
letting night know it should
always

miss us.

ToastStraight up, my friend:
that's the only way to drink a poem.

I raise my glass,
I know the drink, I know the game.

I don't want
your fancy blends,
mingled scents
a wine that doesn't know how to touch my mouth!

I raise my glass
and when I drink I understand.

My poison knows its purpose
and if you offer me your cup,
yours had better know it, too,
'cause I don't want to die confused,
amused, abused?

I choose
another death:

straight up, my friend,
straight up.

Even ThoughThere will be no caged fingers,
no tendons finely tuned to A from tension.

There will be no clenched teeth, gritting rosin,
to make the final singing note growl.

There will be unwinding bed-sheets,
hands slowly releasing the tuning pegs.

There will be slowly sliding scales
as the four limbs loosen past playing.

There will be a simple, quiet exit,
not to ovation, but to a hushed audience
who anticipate an encore,
even though it is uncertain.

renga tree- hangoverjust before dawn
the hunchbacked moon
limps home

you've been gone findingyou come back hailing smoke
and raining moss, hair unwilling
and a little crazed -
you are rifling through all the impossible questions
making philosophy professors chairs creak -
i can almost hear the pages
slither past.

you've been gone finding
         yourself.

all the
chalk-tongued chatterers
telling us This is how the world works
are laying thick
and clock sure -
         you swipe at this wildly
you are saying
with the life in your eyes,
study,
study with me:
         the raining

Who knewWho knew

The man you visited in a dream,
The one you re-traced a half-remembered
Path for, in the off-chance of
Surprising one another again:

Polychromatic flannel and subtle sighing
Through the teeth, gently
Warm eyes softly exotic
Slavic vodka on a late summer night,

Would

Sweep by, wearing blinders of
Deep conversation, still
Smiling with an accent
His arm around a waist

I want to sit in my room, arms wrapped around
Knees against chest in the solace of the sun,
I want to watch the endless journeys of
Sidewalk strangers from the fire escape

But it's ten to four and
There's no time to cry anymore;
Only time to joi

No oceanNo one sleeps the night the army comes home,
and memory storms the shore, bipolar and sexy.
You always knew where to go and what to drink,
where to find the crows that stalked the summers
left lying wrinkled on shorn boardwalks,
Augusts headless and Julys scuttling over hills.
When you were gone I fucked Arthur Rimbaud
in a Parisian basement. He hooked his eyelashes
under mine and made waves on my skin.
Tolle, lege, like the parable tells me.

Almost As Perfect As...We tied our promises to
Our fingers
Like ribbons so that we
Wouldn't forget.

And we lay in the grass
Counting pigeons
Calling the black ones Nevermore
And the white ones Odette.
Because if we could pretend we
Were in the same park
Town
C

Clovelly BeachThere is not any sand
On this beach; it's just stone
In a thick gray-white strand
With a blue undertone,
And an iron-red cliff
That has been overgrown
With thin grasses made stiff
By the sun. The seesaw
Of the surf, like a biff,
Can crush stones in its maw
And then toss them out, fresh,
Having rubbed out each flaw,
With the smoothness of flesh,
Every rock is reborn,
Nested tight in a mesh
Of seaweed, and kept warm
By a sprinkling of dust
Made of silt and the fresh
Taste of salt. Each wave's thrust
Sends a mineral scent
On a sweet exodus
From this beach made of stones
And the smoothness of bones.

House on my HeadI grew a house on my head.
I populated it with animals:
a mouse for a housekeeper,
a lizard in the kitchen cooking eggs,
a butler wolf whistling and saying 'sir',
a chinchilla to sweep rooms' corners,
a giraffe wiping windows,
a black Labrador pup to clear the chimneys.

The house is old fashioned but it runs to time.
A sloth winds the clocks;
a badger delves the vegetable patch.
Everyone gets on fabulously
and will eat eggs together at breakfast,
gossiping about the awful state of my head:
how the tubes in my brain need scrubbing out,
you can tell because the plumbing gurgles
and the lights in the attic flicker at unexpected h

BlewI could never dream of English
rains that lashed the slabs of Cornish
paves, as a wild clawed cat paws
waves into boats onto rocks
unto death. Hear the slosh

slosh slosh of Mousehole harbour's
bathtub slop; see the gulls flying
backwards, the rainbows as warning
flags, the white horses blowing
up the cliff and over the heath,
taste the wind-nipped salt
drying on your lips. Once I felt

the lightning buzz before
it cleaved a nearby birch in two,
once saw the eye of Men-an-Tol
winking in the storm, and fish
jumping for their very lives
straight into the mouths of birds.

The sea is everywhere. It bites
at our ankles, gnaws at t

the living is easya tin man, white sheep rolled in dust
wears a grin, swisher sweets clinging
to his lip. he swirls seagrams 7 in a cracked
lowball, painting the side of my grandmother's
house with one eye closed & the other
laughing. he cannot speak the language

so i stare at him instead, his penny
loafers, his peeling skin, his snowy hair.
so i stare at his photograph on
the fireplace, wondering how anyone
who loved my great grandmother so well
could have died before i was born.

Your Fingers Drip SonatasYour fingers drip sonatas, which shiver
like the whispers of late night love sighs,
across the silence of my morning heart they quiver.

Your practiced notes fall as symphonic silver
as crescendos trip into passion cries.
Your fingers drip sonatas, which shiver

trickling through the silt of my soul like a river,
effluents that never ebb or run dry.
Across the silence of my morning heart they quiver

as I wait with baited breath for you to deliver
movements like planets in celestial skies.
Your fingers drip sonatas, which shiver

out into the world in sharp staccato slivers
only to slip away to pianissimo, then rise.
Across the sile

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Ghost Armor

by `Amberlouie, Jun 29, 2011, 7:07:21 AM
Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

Coming back soon... to be published within the HOAX #22 issue of antiTHESIS, a Melbourne University publication. x

Ghost Armorby `Amberlouie

Literature / Poetry / General Poetry / Free Verse

For my boyfriend, who just happens to be the most amazing person I know. One morning I couldn't move because I was in so much pain and he made me feel a little less hopeless and a whole lot more loved. And that's ^ how it went.

Daily Deviation

Given 2011-09-07

Ghost Armor by `Amberlouie is a dark, poignant tribute to a lover in hard times. ( Suggested by `zebrazebrazebra and Featured by `Halatia )

love 3 3

~~joy 0 0~~

~~wow 0 0~~

~~mad 0 0~~

~~sad 0 0~~

~~fear 0 0~~

~~neutral 0 0~~

~8Happiness Sep 8, 2011

_{`Gouge my chest,
separate the heart,
wrenching all the vessels.
Examine it,
a Broken Soul.
You left me harrowing alone.`

Sorry, but reading your poem made me write that sort of, I like it, the beautiful pain inside this poem and how you managed to draft your emotion in words, amazing. <3}

`Amberlouie Sep 8, 2011 Professional Writer

Great that you wrote a poem response, thank you x

~8Happiness Sep 8, 2011

_(:

~Alhadis Sep 7, 2011 Professional Digital Artist

Beautifully written.

Only criticism would be that you misspelt "armour". But other than that, it's nice.

`Amberlouie Sep 8, 2011 Professional Writer

I think you can spell it either way, I would usually spell it armour but then I got confused :] Thanks for the comment.

~Alhadis Sep 8, 2011 Professional Digital Artist

You're welcome. ^_^

(Erm, "Armor" is the American spelling... "Armour" is the Traditional/English/Australian/"Rest-of-the-worldian" spelling. Thanks to American spellcheckers, it's getting easier and easier to get confused.

)

`Amberlouie Sep 11, 2011 Professional Writer

'Armo[u]r' is just one of those words that really confuses me, which is stupid because us Australian's have the 'u' in everything, like 'arbour' or 'behaviour'. I'm going to put it down to being CFS-fucked in the brain, forgive me?

~Alhadis Sep 11, 2011 Professional Digital Artist

No, we were always using the U's.

It's just Americans that insisted on cutting them out because Noah Webster reckoned it'd "make more sense".

Just install the Aussie spellcheck for your browser if you're not certain.

`Amberlouie Sep 12, 2011 Professional Writer

I just said that ''Armo[u]r' is just one of those words that really confuses me, which is stupid because us Australian's have the 'u' in everything, like 'arbour' or 'behaviour'.' Not that there was never 'u' in anything :] I think you've misunderstood that sentence. I do have an Aussie spellchecker but I don't write in word, I write in notepad. Nevertheless, thanks for the pick up. x

~Alhadis Sep 12, 2011 Professional Digital Artist

You're welcome.

Hey, I was once a writer too.

Just didn't want such a beautiful prose soiled by typos, hehe.

Quite a talent you've got.

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