A whole bunch of fuckers (tasteful title, I know)

I really didn't want to post pieces separately so here's a whole bunch of latest ones. Read one, read the whole lot, or none at all... whatever tickles your pickle.

'Of fruitful flow'


If photos are your saviour, then mine would be found
in tragic words, underground, buried in lead,
dismissed with a trumpet's call.

You say I'm a mixture of
seventeen year old precociousness
and sixty five year old staggered wisdom,
a recipe calling for a quick whisk,
a patient eye, and a mouth that's tasted
countless times before.

I say I'd bury myself in philosophy
if I knew of one sparkling incentive
to know the difference between right and wrong,
between oranges in Seville looking lonely and pregnant,
between the grapes down in the Marlborough Sounds
picked by a fussy vintner's hands.

See? I dream of volcanoes erupting; 
of the pyroclastic flows enveloping my senses,
I'll taste willingly. There, over at Mount Merapi,
whom they worship as a God, they pile baskets
of banana leaves with vegetables
and fake money. 

If you must click a hundred times
to find that perfect shot,
do it now; do it
while this earth is yet fruitful,
a trial of perfection and love
a yearly labour for sunburnt lands.

I shall visit there one day.
I shall till the fields and dance amidst
their circle of drums, beating me onwards,
skyhigh, skyward into the lofty reaches,
into that mix of filth
and life.

 

 

'like taffeta'


what if? a poem
is a fractured stiletto,
flung off
from the nearest balcony
onto tarred pedestrians below.
they look skyward, search
for a disgruntled woman,  
find prayers
unreturned.
this day is
tarnished silver
tinged with blue.

and what if? poems
are sleepy infants
in soapy water,
the bath tuned
to lukewarm,
chamomile candles
offering benevolence
to all.

i
gave eve
over to starlight,
and dreamt
i was
one of  
anais nin's
fingers
clutching
a pencil,
a sketch unfinished,
waiting for more.

what if? amongst
skylights, teacups
and saucers,
i write a poem
for you.

 

 

'Craig gives this a 3 out of 4 on his poemeter scale
(4 now that his name's on it)'


You talk of silence and austerity being gifts
to soothe a troubled man. I am that man.
I am sky-high and ensorcelled in my definitions
of what purity and satisfaction truly mean.

Here, in this life, I am a wayward creature,
too caught up in the essence and art of
knowing absolution to be an impossible vision.
Hold me now. Tell me you believe in believing.
 
I think often we share fruitlessly. We speak
of terrible, tortured things. We drink and laugh,
dance and forgive unforgivable transgressions.
Show me a life of stability and security.

The idea of inviolable beauty drives me.
The taste of forever, while seemingly foolish
is what I've always strived to achieve.
This last line is an anti-climax for a reason.

 

 

 

'run-on, run on'


i'd
hoped to evolve
and returned
empty-handed,
a scar
and a rosary
all
i had.

time to
dip
below
the skyline,
find fault
in the earth's crust
vomiting green
and dusting off
its brown shoes.

it welcomes me.

i wave nonchalantly
back; my faith has
always been
of that swerv-
ing kind,
dodging, catching
silver bullets
between teeth
better
suited
to
munching
mutton chops

and stringy beans
grown
for a dollar a bag
at the local farmer's
front-of-house
setup.  

time to find the trail
i used to sniff with
my staffordshire terrier;
last time, my jar
of one and two
cent pieces
evaded my
wistful searching.

oh! i am seven again!
i am serendipity

reclaimed.

 

 

'Breathless: Prelude'


Skin folds over mine, milk on mocha.
         I remember far too much
                    over random gifts like this.
                                  Too long
                          under the sun
                I've woven sweat
                         and dust
                     in marriage,
         thoughtful of sublime nights
                waiting for me here

beckoning�"
a stranger whistles of Indian summers
folding into my hands.


          Lately,
              I've been draping
                            fiery skies�"
                                down, down into
                    the bone pendant
                         I wear
                 constantly:
        phoenix       and taniwha,
              rebirth        and water
             and mercurial things.
This is my boat. This is my voyage
which speaks of lonesome fog
                 some mornings,
              a touch away
                    from breathless spirit
                          wandering.

 

 

'mostly'


mostly, it's just me here, waiting
for clouds to trace circles
on my face. and i think back
to my room, books stacked high:
some read, some left there
for a special day.

i am a compulsive entity, waiting,
waiting to shuffle cards, to split them,
to scatter four kings to each corner
for some unknown ritual inside my head,
thinking: what is the significance
i attach to this act?

my brows tighten. veins decompress.
lungs widen. lips crackle under duress.  
to create: this is poetry i've learnt to forget.
a jazz opera, a pop-funk mess.
and mostly, it's always been me here,
waiting for a touch, a rough caress.

 

 

'insert jaded artfuck response here'


progressive beauty. i have no idea what that means.
perhaps it's too post-modern for my liking.
too

i
am
art
and
love
and
denial
and conflict
savouring
moments
of wretchedness.

how quaint.
nervous.
a kick to the kidneys.
a busker with ten cent pieces
flicked solemnly
by samaritan cityfolk
with a touch of reserved
bohemianness.

is that a word?
is that

oh
who
gives
a
flying
...

faint.
squiggles.
words
pretending
to be
a poem. 

 

 

'Breathing: Song'


Flash sharkbone teeth
and dive under�"

This is home, a blue touch, a silver penny
of sparrows and tuis and mynahs
circling, circling.

Breathe: it's song and shadow, conch
and heaving shore. 

 

 

'Veritas'


I knocked on her door, left orangeblossoms
on the varnished floor. I could see my reflection,
all flustered-eyed and mussed-up bed hair.

But that's irrelevant, a petri-dish of unreturned calls:
somnambulance. So, wish for ocean and spirals in your sleep;
that's where I've always been. It's my stream of condolences
given form: winged bravado, machismo flatly run over.

Why do birds sing when I'm continuously quiet? To blast them
out of my sight: I'm sorely tempted some days. Some days.
Of maroon and burgundy, of plastic wheels on a Tonka truck,
squeaky-rusted from the sandpit it's always resided in.

This youthful lozenge I spat out years ago.
This toast I buttered and threw
on that same floor.

I wish for hollandaise and bechamel sauce. No mint. A touch
of tarragon and music from Vienna, pure and forlorn. Somehow,
these wishes become three kisses I've yearned for.
Eternally.

Windswept caves with anemones at its gates. Flax
and Pohutukawa lining the edges. That was Christmas
all those months ago.

There, I spoke of roots and waves returning, of sunsets
rainbow-runed and benevolently stained. Here, it's rain
and endless rain, polished stones in a crystal bowl, shivering.
Today is a muted aria cut short, left reeling.

What fish in this world could overcome my temptation to join
sea and sky together, to obliterate the lines of earth between?
What world of lips is worth all of this?

Author's Note

If you read through all of these, I'll be mightily impressed.

Reviews

[zig]

"What fish in this world could overcome my temptation to join
sea and sky together, to obliterate the lines of earth between?
What world of lips is worth all of this?"

yeah, f**k yeah. this is a great little collection here, love how it all ended, mixed and new, everthing before it irreverent, mute. great wording great flow, love how the whole thing bends. awesome poetry here, my kind of poetry. zig

[J. Hampton]

#2) "Like Tafetta"

Some use simili and metaphor ...as a gentle stroke of added dimension in their writes...
you boldly toss them wildly like pop-art .....or surrealism with manageable clarity
and one-of-a-kind form

the stiletto and baby ...perfect

you are so....4th eye J


The title...brought back memories of scratchy taffeta dresses that refused to let out the august heat at weddings and events...yet people somehow felt compelled to choose ,..simply by the initial sheen of it,

Blessssssssss

[J. Hampton]

alrighty J ~

This may take i bit...but I'll read ...savor...and treasure each one...

" of Fruitful Flow"

Love the objective and subjective play between these two stanzas...

I must say they have you in part...lol

"You say I'm a mixture of
seventeen year old precociousness
and sixty five year old staggered wisdom,
a recipe calling for a quick whisk,
a patient eye, and a mouth that's tasted
countless times before.

I say I'd bury myself in philosophy
if I knew there was one sparkling incentive
to know the difference between right and wrong,
between oranges in Seville looking lonely and pregnant,
between the grapes down in the Marlborough Sounds
picked by a fussy vintner's hands. "

You have the most delicious vocabulary...

Blesssssssssssssss

[Just Manoosh]

You have such an amazing grasp of words.

Each piece gripped me and left me wobbly for very different reasons. Quiet strangely I could pick out my favourite stanza in each, I knew them straight off, but I don't feel listing them here would mean anything and do them justice.

And that is the Veritas.

Thank you for sharing Emily.
Mx

[Touché Armada]

3)
A 3 out of a 4? C'mon Craig sheesh ...
Its a baby's breath taken at 12:01 on the first of January, or the last scallop yet ate with red wine.
Believing is feeling some say seeing, but both senses can be as deceiving as the other, so feeling is better.
Stability is the ability to not have to walk on all fours =P and security is not having to lock my doors.
Ahhhh bestill the pitter pattering hearts, J's killer diabetic dangerous arts.. Man you don't do ordinary do you.. Love it.

[Touché Armada]

2)
I think a poem is exactly that a fractured stiletto, and the fractured mind that plummeted with it, but that would be distasteful, far more tasteful to sit on the edge and only have a shoe fall. Got any brass o? Polish up the silver that went black with the last tizzy fit (have you noticed how silver does that? Enough to turn anyone to gold, just so people don't become aware of the tizzy fits LOL) What if a poem is a sleepy infant, awwww, mine is all grown up but she still lets me bury my nose on her head while she's reading to me it valerian for mothers mmmm. I ajust had an art overdose after the valerian and now I think when I sleep I might turn inside out like the ceiling to the sky while those tea cups tinkle like fine bone china should and as they fall into time they will sound like monks at a temple and take me on a mini break... continent hopping all in just a few hours and cured from any effects of jetlag. Or I might wind up at a circus with someone spinning that saucer still damp unfired bending and growing like a pizza dough that will end me up in Venice on a warm spring day to the sound of crunchy gravel roads just outside the hustle and bustle but down wind so I can smell the fires and rosy red peppers being prepared for lunch. =D ... thats tonights order, but the waiter always stuffs up LOL.... Night.

[Touché Armada]

Ok you asked for it LOL... the first of 8.. It might take me a few days but I'll make it eventually =P

1)
I am loving the opening few lines, for a number of reasons but mostly because I have a thing for lead in poetry it adds weight.. Ok ok I know thats really lame, but thats true I really do think it adds weight in a write thats supposed to be a bit heavy hearted. Going into your next stanza, now I'm hating it but not because I hate it but because of the truth it contains, not just pertaining to yourself but so so many people men and women. There is this really twisted trait that some people have, myself included that always looks beyond everything in a person besides their essence and as a consequence, you can find yourself falling for anyone. Young enough to be your child or old enough to be your father, this is a real inconvenience sometimes, but a good reason for always always grrrr always keeping yourself in check. Haha, ok loving again, (got to love the up and downs here) throwing the morals out the window.. Maybe one day that will be main street well one can only hope LOL, but not in a lurid and sleazy way but more in a set free sort of way (without embracing the 60's with in that) Oh and let me say the grapes down in the Marlborough Sounds for a good citrusy white they really don�t come better.. I bought an SA sauvignon about three weeks ago drank half the glass and really ... put it aside to cook with it was total filth I cant even fathom how they could call it a sauv bla yuck. There is something to be said for the cold and fussy hands. Nice visuals in that next stanza J aromatic and super sweet a nice flood to the senses. . Picture perfect J kind of find myself smoothly making perfect speed through your lines and lines of harmony.. Good and bad you dress every concept in a fairy tutu, seriously with leys hanging off where you cross the t's and place a k and it turns into a beach bon fire every time, with tribal sounds just begging for more people to get in touch, in touch with whatever they need to get in touch with as you say all the filth and life and really lets face it life can be filthy and it seems to be what makes it squeaky clean sometimes, kind of funny really... Ok I know sorry for the ramble, its all I can do really, I'm green over your talent and passion.. Makes me want to feast on jalape�os for some sort of sensory torture.. Or just go home one of these days so I feel connected with something anything the hills I think or perhaps its the rivers, or the beach whatever it is it never let me go.

[Emily B]

Some day I want to see an elegant volume of 'The Collected Works of J. Morales' on my bookshelf. The words of the brilliant young poet will find an honored place among those others who taught me long ago to love words. Until that day I'll have this in my favorites.

[Fabian G. Franklin]

Amazing to find treasures under trash, I found courage and tenderness, frailty and beauty in your words. And that is not an "art f**k" response. And I'm just as mightily impressed by the caliber of this collection. The city dwellers do seem to have a Bohemianivity about them. lol

I did,

and I am more mightily impressed.

Great form, choice of words, the title made me curious. I am great at choosing poems that way

I loved the imagery and effectivity of how the message was imparted.

A wonderful piece.