Paperweight Poetry

in my dreams i sing wild animals to sleep  -anna sluder

There are always blank spaces in between the lines on a page There are always blank spaces on the TIP line for a single mom waitress's wage  There are always blank spaces before   cars idle on after the sirens have passed  And there are always blank spaces when you conjure up your loved one's face when the memory can't last  But there are always blank spaces to be filled in those last few meters before the finish line And blank spaces in picture frames to be fitted with a family to call mine  And God bless for the blank space after the storm for the resplendent sun  And thank life for the blank spaces before the last note of a grand symphony is sung.  -anna sluder

Juniper branches slit open the throat of the sky And out, out, out of its mouth spills a gurgling chasm of life Veins chewed open and leaking arteries decapitated of air Russet rivers out of the sky's flaring nostrils Carmine creeks out of a slivered line The sky grappling it's throat, it stumbles back Slipping upon its own crimson cathartic blood It burbles and gushes upon the branches in percolating pools Until the eddy of its jugular swashes to a slow And the spume of claret dries to a crusted froth over the treetops And for the two thousandth year and another infinite night The sky quiets to its horizon grave as the sun pulses out. -anna sluder

We saw the light  We saw it coming And we laughed As his fingertips broke our horizon  We grinned goofily  As how his fragile step parted the seas And we overflowed  As all of us at once Rose tenderly into the light.  -anna sluder

When it comes there will be no sifting slow like sand through an hourglass No lapping of water upon the shore methodically, until the sweetness of death steals my breath No. No. No. No. I won't let it. If there be water, let it be icy tongues stabbing into the unadulterated marrow of my soul, Death is such a wuss when it gets you at the toes, then at the liver, soon at lungs, It makes its way around but it never goes straight for the fireworks, Where the grenade is pulled and the pin swallowed There will be no guessing, I won't let it No procrastination, all fire and then nothing When it comes it will be quick, and pretentious, and brave Make a spectacle out of me For I was born a show, I lived a show, and I will die a show. -anna sluder

Charlie, you must know Old Grandma Vivienne is a wild old hoot, No more than that, she's a crazy old bat, No, no, no, a sadistic psychedelic maniac So as mother always says: Don't listen to what she says, don't take her candy when offered, and don't smell her flowers, She used to be an apothecary you know. Oh Lydia! I'm sure she's not so bad, just you wait I'm sure Old Grandma Vivienne is nice, No Charlie! Don't listen to what she says, don't take her candy when offered, and don't smell her flowers! She used to be a mortician you know She can't be all of those things, Lydia! But! I promise that I won't listen to what she says, I won't take her candy when offered, or smell her flowers Good Charlie, because she used to be a taxidermist you know. At early noon, Charlie trekked through weeds and fallen logs, Chanting all Lydia had told him: Don't listen to what she says, don't take her candy when offered, and don't ...

sometimes I see the seemingly infinitesimal horizon, seamless and stretching sometimes I see the thin paper lips of a lungless boy, trying to breathe, trying to smile sometimes I see prison bars and my words are their prisoners banging their metal cups futilely against their sides until the paper is trembling and tearing like an earthquake and the lines are streaks of sapphire in a rare stone embedded in the earth sometimes I see periwinkle veins dripping off the page until my pencil is pumping and pumping and I'm turning pages to see where the veins lead to, but they always lead back to me, sometimes I see a world of things, other times I see blue lines on a page. -annals sluder