Luka's Works and Ramblings

My name is Luka. I'm 19, I live in California, and I like writing. Here you can expect my poetry/prose, works of others, and posts that inspire me. I do commissions- just shoot me a message or an ask >here< .

[lukapoet]

freedom

in city park a crow laughs, while a girl scatters rhinestones and crumbs.

the bird hops childlike over the warm cement, offering coins from his beak.

a frowning man at the bus stop probes the folds of his wallet for a bus token.

deft fingers meet softness- pinches of rhinestones, and crumbs.

he smiles, remembering freedom.

"fair trade for some," he says.

[lifeinpoetry]

But what do I do with all this leftover love? My hands were built for crawling on. How do I write myself gently. How do I not worship the shipwreck that stranded me here?

Sierra DeMulder, from “After Googling Affirmations for Abuse Survivors,”We Slept Here – LAST CHANCE for our holiday deal - 25% off all orders from Button Poetry through midnight CST, including books by Sierra DeMulder, Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib, Guante, Jacqui Germain, Neil Hilborn & more. Coupon code “buttonholiday16″. Don’t miss out - get your books here. (via buttonpoetry)

[lukapoet]

My Life in a Fishtank

"This is the end. There's nowhere to hide. Too much light, too many people, not enough space. All this sand but I am too big to bury myself. So big! I cannot run-- I am too slow and I have so many legs. Always too many legs. Why so many legs? There's nowhere to hide. They are coming. It's all over. I'm so cold. Oh God. I can't-"

The girl dips her hand into the icy water and trembling fingers lightly examine the object of her fascination. She does not know its name by touching. "Pisaster ochraceus," I tell her. "The ochre sea star." She knows now, and she is fascinated by its tiny, soft body: so cold and so foreign. The girl is all sea salt and wonder. The star slowly extends one arm towards her, but I think she misunderstands the gesture. "It doesn't want to be friends," I remind her. "It just wants to hold on to something, and all those little suckers can be a real pain."

"What is this soft, warm surface? It's squishy like me. Squishy and young. Can I eat it? I think I'll try to eat it. If I can just reach it-"

The girl-- eyes wide-- curls her little fingers around the sea star's waving arm. Her parents smile and look on, but I can't help but feel concern. We have a procedure for this-- should the star's feet get stuck onto a guest's hand, we need to carefully scrape them off so as to not damage the animal. I keep this in the back of my mind and a plastic card in my back pocket.

"The squishy creature has arms too. Five of them. Maybe it's a sea star like me. I'm not sure if I can eat that. Maybe I can climb on it!"

Soon, the girl's palm is flat against the underside of the animal. Nervously, I make small talk with the parents, but my eyes are on the girl with her hand submerged to the forearm. No one else sees my concern. Perhaps I'm worried for nothing.

"This is a good spot for resting. It's warm and soft. I think I'll attach to it for a while."

The girl grows uneasy. Maybe the water is too cold, or the sensation of all those little suction feet is too strange. She pulls away. I am slow to react because I didn't think it had grabbed her, and before I could stop her-

"What are you doing? Okay, I'll let go. Just give me a second. No, STOP-"

The star shivers limply, torn from its perch, and the girl bounces away, all sea salt and wonder.

[lukapoet]

Exposure

details slip through busy fingers but still warm the wistful touch and time over-exposes memory like a photograph left in the sun

so I don't recall what you wore or the music we played that day or where we were driving from or the photographer counting down...

but I remember the flashbulbs when you held me: the way they spun your hair gold and star-bursted my vision like we were the models of love

and this is picture proof that the sunlight captured our moment and I haven't forgotten what you said, "write a poem about this."

[burntcopper]

things english speakers know, but don’t know we know.

[writing-prompt-s]

The 11 Best Books on Writing I’ve Ever Read

Marie Arana. The Writing Life: Writers On How They Think and Work

James Scott Bell. Plot & Structure: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting a Plot that Grips Readers from Start to Finish

Brandilyn Collins. Getting into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn from Actors

Annie Dillard. The Writing Life

Stephen King. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Dean Koontz. How to Write Bestselling Fiction

Anne Lamott. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Donald Maass. Writing the Breakout Novel: Insider Advice for Taking Your Fiction to the Next Level

Sol Stein. Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies

William Zinsser. On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Now, don’t read any of those books, until…

…you’ve read the bible of writing books:

    11. William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, The Elements of Style

[lukapoet]

Little Cities

i grew up as the mayor of a city i dug out of the dirt around the jacaranda in the schoolyard. sometimes i'd collaborate with friends and we'd build empires together.

but, mostly, we fought over supplies and land; we couldn't stand it when one had more than the others. we flung seed pods as cannonballs, shrapnel out of leaf litter, even planned secret raids, but the aggression only turned our bright cities to dust.

the most valuable thing i've learned since becoming an adult- perhaps what separates me from that childhood- is that the most devastating weapon against feelings of inferiority is verbal reason, and that's not to say aggression makes us children, but i think we all have little cities.

[19-9x]

[writing-prompt-s]

You are suddenly able to see numbers above people’s heads which are counting down and you have no idea why. One person you meet reaches 0 and…

[sarcasticcollegestudent]

They sneeze. it then resets.

[illustratjon]

[moonwhispers]

I feel like a time traveler: June, July, August. Summer dissolves in my mouth and I can’t remember what it tasted like.

Zoë Lianne, “Erasure” (via memoryslandscape)

[books-n-quotes]

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

Pablo Neruda, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

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(via books-n-quotes)

[extraloved]

august was passed nectarine-sticky between our hands though we couldn’t hold anything but fear delicately. we pretended that your skinned knees could’ve been the streaks of meteors lurching through the sky, fading too briefly to sting / that your heaving chest could’ve hidden in the ruddy brown of the night.

august was every feeling i ever tried to name, even when i wanted to say savagery, wildness / despair? august was every promise i ever made to myself, but i broke them all for you again.

sometimes through a grimy window i’d try to see some piece of you that didn’t try to run itself down. sometimes, even your afterimage wasn’t waiting for a miracle anymore. and i know: maybe i hurt everything i try to become. maybe i wasted my summer falling in love with things i couldn’t have.

august was supposed to be yellow paint in my mouth / yellow flowers on my table / your hands on my lips. and i still can’t apologize for the way we burned, though i used my last match on the fire. i still can’t apologize for the way i let go of you, though you were never mine to begin with.

[lukapoet]

In my latest video I mention Z, a 24-year-old guy who claims sleep is a habit that can be broken. After 9 days straight of being awake, Z composed the following poem. The researchers said “It is the...

[keiranlusk]

A solitary tree at sunrise. A favourite scene from my adventure to #Beachmere earlier this week. Happy Friday to you! #canonaustralia #5dsr http://ift.tt/2baCtKq

[lukapoet]

i marvel at the way in which a kitten dances for its string toy in the way a child does at a birthday party:

white blurs into black blurs into movements by a creature unsure of its own feet,

every leap is overeager like a nephew to the ice cream truck,

each bound slightly overestimated as a tricycle downhill.

did no one tell this kitten the bird it scrambles for is just a mouthful of feathers?

[lukapoet]

ask a poet how it feels to fly, and you'll encounter a lot of conflicting answers. here's mine:

nothing feels quite like savoring the sweet notes of sunset as seen from the window seat of an airplane, on overnight route to a distant land: the way the pilot chases fleeting motes of sunlight in the way that they last just a bit longer-

i can't even imagine what the view must be like from the cockpit.