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orphicfiddler β Nave
Published: 2011-08-08 02:54:08 +0000 UTC; Views: 745; Favourites: 10; Downloads: 4
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Description
My alleyway smells of piss and borax,Of the thousand
Sweating soles that pungent creeping tread;
And here is where a bum may crawl to die,
A rat to claw,
Each carmine eye reflecting back the final spittle fleck
Against a baked and cataracted wall,
While Niles of cold,
Transmuted bile converge with tattered cloth
To mold strange shrines for buzzing acolytesβ
Each day I slip
As cautious as a needle suckling thread
Between the crenellated couches on my clacking heels
(Like some poor puppet
Mouthing prayers upon a bone, his wooden teeth
Betraying nothing of his soul), and I ponder
The exquisite pain
Of crashing to my knees upon the fractured walk
That I might shed a hood of hollowed flesh
From each small cap
And wash the cobbles to a soft baptismal red.
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Comments: 18
There seem to places in all cities where the residues of expired hopes and unrealised dreams decay.
Your poem has a visionary quality, conveyed through the rich orchestration of your language.
The DLD is well deserved
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Thank you very much. 
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Sounds good! I'm watching you.
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Hope I don't disappoint.
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Your wonderful literary work has been chosen to be featured by DLD (Daily Literature Deviations) in a news article that can be found here [link]
Be sure to check out the other artists featured and show your support by 
Keep writing and keep creating.
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Oh, wow, thank you!
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This is brilliant. i love how there is something so sacred and beautiful to be found in places where many never even stop to look. Truly fascinating depiction of a place that clearly has magic amongst it - even if that magic is in the dark and forbidden practices. i love it.
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Thank you! I'm so thrilled to be in a big city finally - practically everything fascinates me. I like things and places that make me feel like I'm living.
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i'm originally from Atlanta and i can say with certainty that i understand exactly what you mean with those words. i also used to be a punk and know a lot more about underground Atlanta than anyone ever should so poems like this especially resonate with the skate-board, buildin' tagging, trouble makin', city-punk i still harbor inside me.
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How do you make a gruesome fall sound so sweet? The smell welled up to my distaste on the first line - so you bleed my senses, then my fears with your way of making this alley just as relevant for the 18th century (if I had not seen the picture) - only to leave me relieved that there is no worse fate to be suffered here than a mangled aftermath? Ah Dear Poet, at least I do not have to be the bum sleeping in the rancid leftovers of his own scent.
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The smell is by far the most distinctive thing about that place, I think - I started drafting the first half of this poem before I had taken the photo for it, and my boyfriend joked that, yeah, there was no need to look at a photograph to remember what the alley looked like, since smell is the sense tied strongest to memory.
I'm strange. I think I find just about everything beautiful somehow.
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"(Like some poor puppet
Mouthing prayers upon a bone, his wooden teeth
Betraying nothing of his soul), and I ponder
The exquisite pain
Of crashing to my knees upon the fractured walk
" that resounded deeply.
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That was one of my favorite bits to write. I'm glad you liked it.
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Fantastic, but not making a big sell to move to the city
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Yeah, prolly shouldn't put this in the travel brochure . . . Still, I really do love this place in a strange way. Most likely has something to do with growing up in a city so peaceful that you could leave the door unlocked in an apartment near the downtown area and not have to worry much about it. I'm excited that I have to be on my toes a little here, and of course it's great to have more access to concerts and plays and such. I will admit, though, that I wouldn't want to stay here in the long-term, especially not in Pioneer Square.
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