Fuoco dell ' amore

Con te partiro
per lo cielo d'oro
e berremo
il fulmine.

Sara alla luce
 del fuoco

il fuoco incendera alla nuvola
non al fumo.
lo finira in
polveri e braci


Translation:

With you I will depart
for skies of gold
and we will drink
lightening.

It will be in the light
of fire.

The fire will ignite to clouds
not to smoke.
It will end in
coal dust and embers.

© 2014 Lex Vex

Summer nights

The lightening crashed as
we sat in the dark
eyes cameraed
and
the lifeless air conditioner
pulled and tugged
 at our clothes
 till they
gloriously unraveled
in a clash

©2014 Lex Vex

Me I think?

Farmington; golden crushed wheat and
moldy pumpkins

I remember the landing
the fuzzy carpet and
abandoned chair
that no echoes sat in
because we stayed on the stairs

Mother is a panda
Slow and friendly and seems refined
When really I'm surprised she's
figured out how sex works... twice.

I remember flipping you off
and the satisfaction  it brought me
my friends laughing gasps.
The look of hurt on your face
the one now reflecting my own guilt.

My body is a marionette of limbs, face
and thoughts
but my mind cannot control my emotions

I remember the taste of blood in
my teeth when I bit my lip
just to distract myself
when you looked away and
walked uncaring past.

My soul is an iron sword
cast with just enough steel
that the rust creeps slowly

I remember death's first doorbell
as they wheeled me into
the ER and a girl lay gazing on a gurny
with no sight to see the small brown stain.

I remember the boy Simms
and how he cried as
the fan above him spun
and some days I wonder
if my knock stuttered his life. 

My father is a fretboard
dependable and hard to break.
You can always replace strings when they do.

My mind an ouroboros circling itself
wanting but never full. 


© 2014 Lex Vex

Watercolor Kiddies

The pond is cracking

    through the middle

and paper thin ice peels apart

and Riley sobs volumes

until I melt the ice to summer with a piece of masking tape

© 2014 Lex Vex

Fortune - (found poem from fortune cookies)

Fortune

Someone is interested
in you
keep your eye. Open
the quickest way
to lose
a friend is: to lend
him money.
Be cautious:
you do not have
to worry about
your future.
You have a strong
awareness of
selfothers.
Take notice of this:
When fire and water
go to war
water always wins.
You have a strong ethical sense:
Love thy neighbor
just don't get caught.

© 2014 Lex Vex

All Hail the Queen - Found Poem (from "Album Review: Beyonce" by Holden Walter- Warner)

All Hail the Queen

She wasn't done:
Listen to this album
just for the pure
lore
of... it all
spreads
like wildfire;
the whole song was
insanely
driven, and put the

Queen
on her
pedistal.
The material is
serious
the introduction
to the song
sounds
like its from the
Lollipop Guild.

©2014 Lex Vex

Embrace in Blue

Embrace in Blue

Its only a crisp blue towel
        hanging limp on the inside door
              jam
but when you're gone
       it wraps round my shoulders
              a slythering dry cool hug
or a whispered hum
       singing I love you
             in a husky blanket.

©2014 Lex Vex

Taking Shots - Dec. 14th

I don't normally preface poems, but let me say this: This is a persona poem. It is from a point of view I do not quite understand.

Taking Shots - December 14^th

Cock it.

America is free and proud and did I mention free?

And we were promised bullets to protect our children.

Nutmeg blood only boils

Don’t spill in gallons – only a splash and it never hits pavement

Hard. We were born to mousy upstanding snoots

Brought up never to lead in hate only to follow

The letter of the law-

Cross off tick, tick, tick, tock

We always hire that flowery man to design our rooms

Just don’t get too close with my son. That’s why I pistol whip him

 over to the targets. Where we can shoot

the shit of privatization and freeloaders or

Bless His unchangeable slang-

Clang clang cling clang bang

I only want that smell of spiced oak

welded and waxed; don’t go digging through

my purse- on all history.

You can’t use my past shells to

Dead bolt my personal liberty

Ratta-taw-ratta-taw-ratta-taw-ratta-taw

Protests drive up in Mercedes bends afraid to get out and muck up

 their shiny shoes so they throw around acronyms

MDA,CSGV, CDF

Like there’s some kind of problem

With kids getting dropped one by one

Off to practice training pistols. Mothers always worry

But we know this isn’t a Colorado theatre,

Columbine or little Mary Ann Vecchio cryin’ at Kent State

It’s just cold and crisp and red in the trees till

I’m sinking my car on i-84 near my saucer shelf town.

just before exit 10.

the traffic is silenced to a stop. I hear This blaze of sound. and a

 pop pop pop

Near the wheels I put the clutch to idle. I hear the sirens go off.

 I wonder what drunk kid’s dumb decision made

me late to the range.

A siren wails in anguish.

so I roll up my window.

Bam. Bam. Bam. damn

America is free and proud and did I mention free?

And we were promised our bullets to protect our children.

Traffic is gumming up this December 14^th afternoon

cause I can’t get off on exit 10 and I need to pick up my son from school.

We’re supposed to go shooting tonight.

 ©2014 Lex Vex

The Drumming Noise Inside the Earth

When the universe cried that night
a comet dripped from its eye and soared
and the swan began to sing.

The black top, filled with stars,
studded the sky with neon chalkdust
when the universe cried that night.

The hummingbird placed its heartbeat on a
string and music rumbled through the chord
and the swan began to sing

of jealous owl, who stole the sound.
He chants sophomoric questions that ignored
When Universe cried at night.

Verol wolf drums a pawing beat in time
with the borealis: a hunting homily running toward
The swan. Begin to sing

of falling shores and crumbling streets to caverns unexplored;
of a melody of larks slaughtered 'cross the cutting board.
When the universe cried that night
The swan began to sing.

© 2014 Lex Vex

Ink Tar and Feather - a Villanelle

Ink Tar and Feather

I traded my soul for ink and a feather,

For damp rocky soil and molten skies:

The footsteps ring then fade and sleep

In ice crystal caverns I will conduct business

On half washed blankets soiled with cum and cries

“I traded my soul for ink and a feather”.

From balcony above, I plant a row of tree bearing citrus

That drop and whither and mold. Sweet mildew lies

As footsteps ring, then fade and sleep,

Nestled in rivers of tawny tangled mane, round bosoms perked in trust

You do not deserve. Your whispers of false love I deny

But I traded my soul for ink and a feather.

The wine soaked oak smells delicious

And spiced as the chipping blade eats another notch counting

The footsteps that ring, then fade, then sleep

I laugh that someone will find meaning in my rows of Cyprus

Once I and the aurora extinguish and die

For I traded my soul for ink and a feather

The footsteps always ring, then fade, and fall deaf. 

© 2014 Lex Vex

Sing Dirges to the Dust - an odd Sestina

Sing Dirges to the Dust

Dust floats through voids, so stars
sing dirges to the dust.
Cords that once strung up night
on blank banners sing
night's waking birth on
star's backs. A single chord

sings not quite out of tune. This chord
on smack, on crack, the breath of a star
stars at this concerto, high on
night-waking dreams. Lazy calloused bones dust
chords across the fretboard and lives sing.
Dusty, in the backroom rests dreaming night--

on and under used, this night,
night abandoned, strikes the dissonant chord
dust bellowing up, spreading out to sing
chords multiple, uniform, monolithic, bigger than a universal host of sun-stars.
Stars become we, we become dust,
singing the pantheon of the past and future forever on.

Sing dirges to the dust;
Stars at this concerto, high on
night abandoned, strike the dissonant sound. 

© 2014 Lex Vex

The Old Family Wallpaper - A Pantoum

The Old Family Wallpaper

And then daddy died

On a sunny day in a car-wreck,

Leaving his flaws to his first born son

Confusing them as his own.

On a sunny day in a car-wreck

A boy struggled on, feeling every ounce of blood—

Confusing it as his own

Not yet seeing what lay just behind.

A boy struggled on, feeling every ounce of blood

In his veins, as he paints over the old family wallpaper,

Not yet seeing what lay just behind

Will determine his relevant near-future.

In his veins, as he paints over the old family wallpaper

Contemplating the shotgun wife that

Will determine his relevant near-future,

The alcohol level spikes. Just one more sip, he says.

Contemplating the shotgun wife that

Wasn’t all what he’d hoped,

The alcohol level spikes. Just one more sip, he says,

Sitting at the old oak bar in-between his shifts.

Wasn’t all what he’d hoped—

Shouldn’t it be better than just

Sitting at the old oak bar in-between his shifts?

His last of ten whisky shots kissing his breath… his life—

Shouldn’t it be better than just

Driving down a blue ribbon road at ninety,

His last of ten whisky shots kissing his breath… his life

Turning over and over, rushing his forgotten son home?

Driving down a blue ribbon road at ninety,

He reached for the clutch as a truck hit, his car

Turning over and over. Rushing his forgotten son home,

He protected his boy best he could.

He reached for the child as the past hit his now,

And then daddy died.

He protected his boy best he could,

Leaving his flaws to his firstborn son

To redeem. 

© 2012-2014 Lex Vex