1.25.2012

a poem a day for four days | day 3


1.25.2012

-----

What direction are you now from this Nordic mountain house?

dusty, vacant
chipping beamwork,
capsized cabin.

No matter the route -
Just follow me down,
to the boat that needs an anchor,
though she floats
bold balloon
only just above the ground.
siphoned death weight,
midday waverin
black eyed crater.

that parallel: my closest cousin
folded me ‘round
and slit the moon into her mouth
that lofty spectator.

decadent dreamer, with cinder feet
and breath of soot
would you concede?
It signed and swore our oaths in flames
to palms of water.

four gloaming basins
carved us there

2 marionettes where, once, a tree.

cold vine bushels
past-prime fruits
scarlet guilt upon our cheeks.

Same sorta ghosts, we.

those limber
linden grove
dream thieves.

----

ash xo

1.23.2012

a poem a day, for four days | day 2


written 12.18.2011 @ 38,000 ft. without a pen, on a red eye plane strolling west.
i repeated it to myself for 3 hours until we landed and i ran for a pen finally getting it down on the last page of a book i had, my only paper. the employees on the flight would not allow me to borrow a pen from them. :p

the following is © Ashley Lebedev | Bottle Bell ™
please enjoy, but please don't swipe. | xo

----

i watched the sun rise,
for three hours
bursting from the sky
like a swollen tidal wave
unfolding itself across my waking americana.

a castle of mirages
rose up
3000 mile billow of
lit bonfire
two honey eyed bobbers like
cathedral beacons
those fleeting arches
were traces of zion.

i saw an avalanche there,
in her kettle below
lead-bellied curves
rolling from the hands
of mineral giants,
rousing from her clouds
and evergreen terrain
like a frozen breath of chalk dust.

i felt the youth of virtue
revisiting me in her strange pace
as we plunged from blue
to the milky white,
stirred quilt,
concoction of fog.

prism of patchwork
underbelly of rainbows.

a soft child's hand
treaded my face
in all the weight of ghosts
pondering along
a game of remembrance,
shaky hopscotch.

her permanent mirror,
chisel of
spooky craters
or course cloak,
descendent of oceans,

two orphans coming home.

---

ash

1.22.2012

"untitled" | poem a day for 4 days.


i've decided to post a poem a day, through thursday. long or short.
first one, long. ;)

this was written in the teens of this january, one very early mornin'.

ps. please don't swipe.


ashtree. x

------

we slept, ten days too tired
under the perfect hum of your winter hymnal
ghosts of seattle snow,
still mourning itself through your speakers
seeding the bed
and resting you.

the youth of men - eternal and wounded
where every pore remembers
that thing you didn't choose.

tears beaded along, the both of us
martyrs of conditioning
and brought me into the blue hour.
where the loan bird called to me
with it's diamond throat and shifty, opiate knowings.
such things.

and, for a time, our eyes met - lawless.
different souls, same wings.
through your low slung, level window
to that branchy, branchy tree
a harbinger or angel
where i took in it's mutterings of utter, gutting truth
drawing me with shadows, speaking:
2 reflections now
1 fading...

and the light treaded me even closer than the cradle of you - my silhouetted stranger.
who i met too late or too soon.
who i knew without knowing.
patient lover
badge of danger
flask of ginger spit water
delayed traveler.

hey pretty baby
i'm catching my plane, it seems, just a little too soon.

to the ghost of warmer seasons
affixing me to memories
of dresses
that gathered leaves with hemline hands
spinning little filly
pheasant feather gypsy.

so, i paused in your pocket sized space
tucking in to itself, custom tailored to you.
between microphone, that condom, and a waning moon
ever present, ever fleeting.
and time stood for what it was:
it's own pinnacle
it's own culmination.
where it became, not irreverent but irrelevant.

and you stirred in heavy pleasure breaths
brother bear across your toes
from that other place where we dream without rules
and don't fence our fields.

i watched you,
time of pause,
for an era.
the elegant romance
nixing out
this task of absence.
learning everything and memorizing you.

this what i saw, with my cat eyes:

i saw your
summer lashes, light as sandy ocracoke - those beaches i wandered
the both of you.
she, with shells
and you with braille bumps
ink blots
maps for pleading dart fingers.
flitting lids like restless southern summers.

thick neck, briny skin
tiny chain upon it
with the saint you trust to keep you. (and so he does)
your fuzzy blanket of late season wheat grasses
sun faded, wild and winding to your briary chest
chock full
to the root of you.
part serpent, part man
where your laughs are held
gathered in their boney bed of ivory rafters
dripping with pulse.
lone echoes and
whispers -
those stowaway stockpiles
with renegade lineage
your call of honor
prone to surrender
self perpetuating.

the symphony, pretty foreground to
to the day that followed:
her timelapsed, flaking, pastry snows
my last midwestern day
beckoned me to stay
from a cinematic terminal.

where the tremors hushed
silent
resigning to deaf ears
a world orchestra and snow globe
of busy mannequins

toasting the morning w/ a shot glass
2 parts leaving
1 part you
heart bursting with dreams
of a far away willow grove and a
heavy mellow chaser of freedom.