H_NGM_N // OPEN SOURCE

[Nate Pritts]

Welcome to H_NGM_N // Open Source - an anthology of poems by H_NGM_N // W_RLD members. There is no editorial apparatus for Open Source; all members are invited to post up to 3 poems in the anthology (as a direct reply to this post). Poems must be unpublished &, upon appearing here, are considered published in H_NGM_N // Open Source. If poems are republished, either in print or online, please acknowledge first publication in the H_NGM_N // Open Source anthology.

Members are free to reply to individual poems with comments.

[Brooklyn Copeland]

Great idea! Can't wait to see what happens this month...

[Clay Matthews]

Cardinal Rules

The mud-flaps of a semi roll by, turning water
into a state of dense fog, so that I am lost
for a moment on the road, in darkness.
You will either come out the other side
or else you will come out the other side.
This is the general equation for resigning
oneself to fate, and getting through another day.
In some ways I am a safe man, a man conscious
of the dangers of the world, the universe.
But in other ways I have this constant urge
to disobey that which might save my life.
Seatbelts, for instance. Steaks, for instance.
For instance some of my favorite things.
The road goes by me, it washes over me
like the water that comes off it, so that the road
and water meld into one, so that I in my long car
feel like I’m driving a boat, a sailor today at last
lost in the long, long sea of longing.
And you linger in the passenger seat,
so safe there, so trusting even though I do not
always trust myself, but for you, I will keep the car
on the road. Outside the window a cardinal
passes on a fencepost and it is only a small red dot
that has come and gone, a small blip of passion,
a small reminder of the blood that runs
through my veins even now, that courses there,
beats there, keeps the flesh that my mother
and father made going there. I stand outside
and the rain gives up to the sun. Today, perhaps,
good has conquered evil. Three shots of bourbon
in the local saloon, and then the hero is on
his horse, on his way. And the bird shivers now.
The bird shakes itself free. We have all survived
another storm. I am alive and you are alive
and the bird is alive and gone back to his mate,
the small orange beak holding a worm pulled
fresh from the ground, and they eat, as I do,
bad gas station food, a hot dog and fried burrito
pulled from behind steaming glass. The road,
my friends, is a metaphor. Have they told you?
I sip hot coffee to shake off another near death,
or rather knowing of perhaps how near
death might have been. It is a story that has begun
the same way ten-thousand times: I almost died
once, they will say, and when they say this
to you, believe them, and listen to the sound
of survival as it cracks in their throats.

[sheila black]

Wow! Lovely...Lovely Lovely .....tks..sheila

[Cara Benson]

The User’s Guide to YOU ARE HERE

1. Remember that you put a book down recently.

2. What was it?

3. Do you know where it is now?

4. Picture that book in its place at this moment.

5. Notice the cursor arrow sometimes happy hand.

6. Feel the glee as the links appear.

7. Follow the fleeting feeling.

8. Open many new windows.

9. Switch between them frequently!

10. Reveal your hidden icons.

11. Return to the title.

12. Repeat steps 1-12.

[ChrissyBird]

Rose and Bureau

Oh, don't blame me
when the roses
you've posed on your bureau,
keep you up, late at night
clamouring.

Oh, don't blame me
when it's a sin
with the lilies you've left
beneath your bed
decomposing;

and it's a mess,
and it's such a mess,
of pistil and stamen.

[Candace]

I loved Cardinal Rules, it's beautiful!

Haiku

jagged crimson steps
pretty against moonlight flesh
a stairway to life

Desire

I've never seen a room so beautiful when it's torn apart by candlelight
Or the way your face wears shadows so perfectly
In between the flickers, there's a rain forest in the air
And I couldn't love you more if you were Aphrodite in the flesh

Your eyes search mine for a soul
While long, elaborate fingernails scavenge my spine for a point of weakness
It reminds me of Heaven
Yet here I sit, longing for Hell

[Nate Pritts]

POSTING for SHEILA BLACK

Had to change a word on my "hot new poem" ...that may happen again...any comments...feel free.

Waken Awakening

Shimmer. “Chimera. Cold feet.” Shivering.
a fear that time comes in quickly choking on
the food and gulping down the drink.
Terraphobia: a fear that wide-open land may eat the soles of my feet
forcing me to my knees. Pride: the neck won’t bend.

I avoid the telephone as well as anyone, except the constant ringing in my ears.
Kindness makes me cry. Waves of tears pour out of my neck.
A restless ocean centers the solidity of earth but halls close in with sucking noises.
An imagination looks like fingers waving from a great distance,
Finger-painting everything it sees.

The window opens wide enough to see the sky dripping into the water;
two or three thin bands of a pink & orange chemical burn off
light one end of the blue field and give one gleam of hope.
I am turning into shorter and shorter sentences with the advent of my
in the event of my
with the release of m y
dre
dreams only surface
when I let go.

Sheblk

[Brooklyn Copeland]

Vappu


In their white caps they
are the pardon begging waves

collapsing, unanswered, on
the melancholy sea.

The gray foam, the spray,
the sun, half-asleep,

the wall of crushed
remains, the moss-slick

concrete. And the sima,
lemon-bright.

And another first of May.
Another last parade:

another chance to escape
from land by knotted sheets.


-Brooklyn Copeland
[My spring weather contribution. Happy Spring!]

[Juliet Cook]

Dung Shower

Open that slut baby hippo mouth.
Slather another “butcher’s apron”
with your spastic onslaught
of partially digested debris.
It’s all too easy. It’s all too soft
to be projectile. Your wet sloppy splat
stickies up our fingers like bug guts.

Split-open thorax; cheap jewel case.
Your bare midriff with its pierced belly button
is just a silly little softcore tease.
Our style of porn shows more
than superficial prick in pussy.
Our stickpin to the abdomen
impales you to the corkboard.

A mess of breasts and bloody wings.
A non height/weight proportionate blob
of potted meat, your insides still steaming,
your gag reflex now obsolete. Hot stuff,
try to squeeze one out now. We want to see
how those “venom ducts” spurt when
you’re really under duress. When you’re hardcore
undressed for our close-up specimen hotbox.

[sheila black]

Drawing Water

A score of treated palm fronds, smelling like ginger,
magnolia blossoms, two wooden spoons,
seed-like imitation pearls,
blue magic markers, and a variety of colored,
including white,
posters. Emerging image erupts on the page.
What doesn't belong gets out of the way
A piece, a line, a part--
like a fuzzy intensity with claws that hold the pen.
A cockatiels head, fanned feathers spreading out like a wands flourish,
tilt to one side, beakless,
as it waits for the beaded pearl grey and off-white
shape to form. A flat brass picture hanger,
question marked
and attached to the hooked and braided head and mouth
suddenly loses its other use and clicks, whistles, and mimics
an imaginary retort. The words become a moving train in slow motion
leaving a phosphorescent trail.

Sheblk

[Sullivan]

Prow Maiden

Forshore, marquess!
tied to mast and head
thick, thick beds of sea-green marish
and our keel's sticky stick
stuck like leadbottom in the mud.

Here lies my Irish sweater, awash
my own dear pattern,
my mother sown sailor's suspicion,
and her merry maritime maidenhead.

[Gareth Durasow]

(extracts from) Metro Stances


The rickshaw mice are all stone deaf, having spent their
youth scavenging the gap. They consider this for the best,
and the only way to skin a cat. Let’s pay them no mind,
just the racket of cash and safeguard ourselves from the
cobbled tour – we’d be fools to let this opportunity pass,
to put an arm round you but talk about me, and address
the complication posed by surgeons and students who in
waging a tug of war with my murderous guts have come
to know me best. Here’s to the evening when you’ll chip
your new nails and find bits of my blood underneath.


Scrap your plans to sell the sky for advertising space
because our new mannequins have webcams for faces,
or mirrors at least, and quash that sweatshop stigma
by telling you about a Panorama they watched where
those children were smiling – with music for uppers,
spared the indignity of raving with giants, the relative
leisure of building a polyester Jerusalem here: where
bubblewrap billows on the scarecrow trees and there
be bodies in them there hills. What we’re telling you
now is this: the model we flogged you prior was shit.


Dear Father, I’m apprenticed to the bloke in the back
whose duty is to re-adhere the flies to the replica heads
that the punters end up blundering through in the dark.
Son, imagine your city, the city of misnomers, its story
unfold in a minute or less. Consider the horror of the
populace petering off till one morning there’s nobody
about in the street – the poverty’s eaten its HD façade.
Dear Father, I hope this photo will bring you over to
my way of thinking. We met at the closure of the last
laundrette. Her washer was caput. I was just fortunate.