PSH: Poets of the Week

Bio (auto)

The Afar lives in the empty old gin bottle that is Hollywood. He walks midnight streets with whores, pimps, users, dealers, queens and dreamers. And with them he dreams... Dreams through the dust and dirt and blood and sweat...Of the Island of California and walking hand-in-hand with Queen Califia.

Los(t) Angel(e)s

This cage has become a city
Big and ranging, a rock and roll suicide on every corner
Comings and goings
Their going, our cumming
There's a touch and a poet
who's words are a whiskey dick
Soft and ineffective
unable to bring ears to orgasm
So we worship the prospect of death
A thrill to bring firmness back to flesh
Cigarettes and liquor
There's a moment and a catch
Because only the righteous can enter the Kingdom
and as we redefine righteousness to encompass ourselvesThe Kingdom redefines itself to become our prison
City walls that quiver on demand
Pornstars
Rockstars
Satellites and cigarette butts
Yes, and love
Caged up, its all eyes and lips
Hands and hips
Fucking becomes prayer
Palm to palm is holy palmers kiss
Flesh to flesh to please the Moon
Gouging out our eyes to become the sun
Lust under false pretenses makes us one
In our cage city
We become commercials
Enlightenment through self destruction,
there's nothing we haven't been
My fear is my catalyst
Cause and effect licked out like fingers meshing
We dodge the challenge with a cringe
and smile like children as night falls
We ignore our nothing now
in an attempt to regain innocence through a convoluted tomorrow of misplaced lust and trust
Forget me when you go
Or you'll just catch my sickness of
Lost angels and contact lies
We're born to forget as animals and church bells
So, forgive us tonight and punish us tomorrow
For the Lord is my shepherd and I shall not tire
trudging through the Valley of Names
A trap blind to our leaving
as it was blind when we came
City night
Cage of light

Walter Ruhlmann
wruhlmann@gmail.com

Bio (auto)

Walter Ruhlmann was born in 1974 in Caen, Normandy, France. He currently lives in Le Mans where he works as an English teacher. Walter lived in England from 1995 to 1997 after taking a degree in English at University. He began publishing Mauvaise graine, a literary magazine, in 1996. Back in France, he has carried on publishing and writing mostly poetry, although he has published short stories in several French-language magazines. Walter is the author of several poetry booklets and published poems in magazines such as Poetic Diversity, Aesthetica Magazine, Ygdrasil, Above Ground Testing and many more.

With Love from Euphor

On the tiled floor, I saw strange forms appearing.
The head of Spartacus
or that, more exciting, more modern also, of Actarus.

Princes
whether they come from Thrace or Euphor
always haunted my frozen mornings,
my capsized nights.

Later
- much later -
it is by their laughter that I was started the most.

The princes always had an open throat
and amazed eyes
in bed.

I saw their wings growing
at the same rate as their sexes
which were spread out around me
everywhere
in me
on me
in my eyes and the clouds.

I flew away too
far from this nest
to join
in dream
in the bathroom
unreal colorings,
small encrusted gravels,
in the shape of happy princes,
in the shape of dark princes.

The Angels’ Birth – 1

The tiger is thinking of you
and throwing the wind
over your shoulder
like the red scarf
hung onto the coat rack.

The winged horses
are quenching their thirst from your thoughts,
our broadcasted dragons
are roused
so fires start.

The tiger is listening to you
while you are painting the wintry feelings
and from your heart and from your guts
and from your blood and from your tears
you draw the East
and a charming nature

The tiger hid himself
in Winter’s arms.
His delicious song
woke love up
and the dying sun
resuscitated
on a soft, serene
and foggy
morning.

The tiger between your hands
hums
uncertainty.