Seven poems - Counterexample Poetics

Published Fall, 2009
Counterexample Poetics

Eight poems at Counterexample Poetics

Eight poems
by Alison Ross

Clocktocracy

There once was a network of autocratic Clocks
who with their terrible ticks and terrifying tocks
tyrannized the villages of Infinity

There once was a network of guerilla Watches
who rose up in the jungles of Paradoxes
to fight the dominion of the Clock despots

But the demonic Clocks
smashed every paradox
into an infinity of diminutive watches


Buddhaliciously Blasphemous

The Buddha is big and blasphemous
he wants you to rip out yer tongue
and take a vow of silent retribution
against the winds
(of change)

The Buddha is smiling and blasphemous
he wants you to mock the Catholic priests
and take a real vow of celibacy
(but you can fondle the dharma if you wish)

The Buddha is big and delicious.
He eats ephemera for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

But he wants you to fast for the rest of your karmic lives.



Plane love

his lips are parallel lines
his lips are parallel lines

my heart has eight sides:
9 - 1 sides
6 + 2 sides
2 x 4 sides

his parallel lips kiss my octagonal heart

my parallel heart
my parallel heart



Invisible twilight

Dusk dreams herself into being: the sun swallows itself whole, spits out slivers of lunatic light; an unknown hand scribbles graffiti of sightless eyes upon a mangled mask.

The trees with their many quivering tongues speak a terror of truth to the wind. Birds weave a maze of melody, and cats stalk invented shadows.

Time bursts into tiny spiders who coil white shadows to snare snatches of twilight. The spiders gulp their prey, and grow plump with darkness.

Starved spiders shrivel, and dawn screams himself awake, flinging blood-stained shrouds over a memory of mad moons and impossible twilights.



Hours

The hours rain down
like soft sparkling skulls.
The children
catch them on their tongues,
eat them like they’re stars,
and become illuminated time.



Loneliness had erased her face; her eyes caught fire in a blaze of tears, and her lips were swallowed in a song of lament. So she created a mask out of her loneliness, sculpting eyes from the sea and lips from the moon. And she sang melodies of mirrors, and saw her reflection in flames.



the melting face of god
nailed crosses to the wind

the fire sings maiden melodies
to a stone that sputters hymns
the spider wails blindly
to the priest who drowned the moon

the sleeping skull of solace
breathed light into my tomb



The spider and the moon

The moon sings shivering melodies
and the spider swoons silently

The spider spins webs like symphonies
and the moon shivers violently

The moon weaves violent melodies
into webs of silent symphony
that swoon like spiders shivering