PoetryAssignment.com » phone book

Phone Book

illuminatedeye — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 01:49:42 +0000

Nobody uses them anymore,
those big, bound, wasteful dinosaurs
of paper, glue and environmentally harmful inks.

Let’s make a fire and stay warm.

miss you

red_ascot — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 02:06:58 +0000

i saw you by chance today
sipping a latte on the patio
of a tiny cafe
at 18th and main
looking as cute as i remembered you
the same red shoes i recall from before
matching your scarlet jacket
the one i got you two christmases ago
the sparkle in your eye said you liked it
when we passed by the store window that day
you sat alone
“the stranger” by camus in your hand
your expertly polished nails
flipping the pages between sips
your lipstick staining the lid
swiftly i made my way home
flurries in the air
made the landscape look
like a pristine renoir
i looked you up in the phone book
after i got to my humble apartment
and draped my green sweater
across the back of the couch
to see if by chance you were listed
i found you
i wish i had the nerve to call…

http://poetryassignment.com/2008/12/assignment-phone-book/

Anniversary

Heather — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:07:09 +0000

You go to work, drink your coffee, chat with your friends
You start your computer, open your spreadsheet, find a pen that still writes
You look at the calendar
You realize what today is.

It’s not your anniversary, or birthday, or payday
It’s an anniversary of sorts.
It’s been a year since your life changed.
It’s funny how you still don’t know if the change is for the better.

You feel the time compress as 364 days unhappen.
You’re there again, on the phone, in the bathroom, dripping from your interrupted shower.
You’d hoped he would call, so you could demand answers
You needed to know.

It didn’t go the way you’d planned. You’d scripted the whole thing in your head.
It wasn’t supposed to be a marathon conversation, with you shivering and wet
It was possibly the most important conversation of your life, and you were screwing it up
It was all his fault. He tricked you.

You just blurted it out
You said, “I love you.”
You wanted to throw up.
You waited as the silence echoed off the tiles until he replied.

It was okay, for a little while.
It got wonderful, for a little while.
It was over, after a little while.
It has been a long while since you threw his number away.

You’re back now, today, wishing tomorrow was 363 days ago.
You wonder if he’s in the phone book. You look. He is.
You dial all but the last digit. You hang up.
You feel time stretch back out, and you go on with your day.

Assignment: Phone Book

One weekend, a lifetime ago

melissaoyler — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 02:17:23 +0000

One night in a crowded bar and she was hooked.

She couldn’t tell him how ready she was to love
so she instead chose to pretend, as he had,
that this sort of thing happened all the time.

Then she spent the next years searching for him.
Of course, she had to know it was futile.

After all, he had been just a moment in time.

Listings in the phone book uncovered nothing
But she felt – his name one whisper on her lips
away from everything changing

So she instead chose to live in the memory of him
Tried not to wonder how often he didn’t think of her.

———-

See other phone book poems here.

Room Service

muttmutt — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 01:45:53 +0000

for cb

I strolled down the hallway
with Ed’s wife Sara, her eyes
askance

Together but not together
scatterings of early room
service litter the hallway
bits of old food cling
to chipped hotel china
my stomach rolled

Into the room, silent
undressed under dim
fluorescent light
that cast a pallor over
Sara’s pale skin

Sara, her 110 pounds naked
bent in half before me
“Do it!”
I hit her ass with my hand,
hard. And again. And again.

“Hit me!” she screamed
“Harder, you fuck!”
hands clench ankles,
her tight body bent double,
tits dangling from her
chest, swaying gently,
her bare ass flushed
with blows already
delivered.

From the desk, I grab
a phone book in both hands
and wind up for another shot at
that perfect, round ass. The
sound of contact
paper on flesh
echos off the
dingy walls.

Anonymous paintings by
anonymous painters
gaze down impassively
while we dance
our potent ritual.
“Fucking pussy! I said HARDER!”.
Smile,
swing,
contact.
“Oh God, YES! YES!
Fuck YES!”

Casting the paper weapon aside I
rammed my stiff cock into her as
far as it would go.

I catch sight of the phone book
laying open on the floor
to the restaurant section.
it’s pages a subtle, erotic V

Moving rhythmically
in and out
in and out
in and out
the smell of our sex swirled
around us, cloying, intoxicating,
breathing harder
and harder
and harder

“How about Chinese?”
She moans a vague agreement.
My body shudders as I come hard
inside her.

“Kung Pao Chicken,” she gasps.
“Spicy.”

http://poetryassignment.com/2008/12/assignment-phone-book/