Untitled VI

 

Hunched over noses with rings in them,

Old white shirts with sporting events plastered to them, washed too many times and unreadable,

Always either too much cologne or too little,

Beggars and beggars only of sympathy,

The deeply distraught, perfectly suspended in disaster,

Appetites for destruction and deviants of the sort,

Abused children and lost ones, boys and girls, mostly men,

The occasional veteran and a few spouses,

Always at least one of the terribly lonely, and many jealous

All of them fearful silhouettes in a dark room

Nicotine vapor makes his lungs spasm occasionally…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Untitled IV ft. Maya Angelou

 

My mind shifts

Just like the clouds do

Fall in love with a good girl

Like I’m bound to

White picket fence

And a house too

White Mercedes-Benz

In a stout coupe

Just for short trips

Like some house shoes

Life full of fluff

Like it’s soundproofed

 

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill

Of things unknown but longed for still…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sermon

 

For how his words strummed my soul

I could not help but feel scolded

For trying to conceal the sound.

I stared at him gravely.

 

For how my soul began to hum,

My defenses dissolved like sugar in warm water, I blushed.

Short bursts of laughter rolled through the audience,

I smiled drunkenly then.

 

For how my soul began to sing! I saw then every angel

Who had flown in and out of my life.

Oh how she burned me, she’s my sunshine!

Rough as any worth while lesson,  and blessing and loss…

The rivers I drink from and the rivers I cross.

The shoulders I cry on and the hills I die on.

I cried tears of joy and relief then during the sermon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If anger was a child

 

If anger was a child

I’d shove a pill into his mouth

And make him behave.

Yet he spits the pill from under his tongue,

Into the palm of his hand the moment I look away.

He grows to be a nasty boy,

Bitter from all the times I punished him

And took away his toys.

How my insecurities elude me,

as does a clever child

No matter hard I try to calm him

He only grows more wild.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Listening Room

 

White trumpet flowers

With fleshy petals that brush with the ceiling

In a room with no furniture

Except for the small pot of soil

In the center of the floor

That the gargantuan plant explodes from.

Multiple trumpet heads brush with all four walls

Thick, sweet smell hangs in the air

Like cigar smoke

The trumpets quiver and breathe gently.

 

 

 

Toy Chest

 

I hope my mama ain’t the one to find my mess

Like she came home from work, and I’d left all the toys out of the chest

Similar to how my thoughts explode out the back of my head

Across the wall and the bed

Unfinished poem still laid out on the desk…

 

 

 

 

 

Untitled V

 

My head’s bad

Like I’ve got headlice

I go through things

Like they’re red lights

We’re a perfect fit

We are airtight

I can see the monster

But I don’t dare look into it’s deathlights

 

I was a rotten child

Like gangrene

Lost a lot of time

Around eighteen

I should say less

And let my faith sing

But I get impatient

Waiting around until my faith speak

 

Lights are off upstairs

Like I didn’t pay the bill

I’ve got a new lease on life

But I’ve got payments still.

 

 

 

Exorcist

 

 

My poor mother had gone to see the priest

Then one by one they came to visit me

My naked body only partially robed in sheets.

 

My derangement only festered

I spouted profanities of their mother’s and of my own,

Their holy water left me blistered.

 

In my sleep, my conscience begged for mercy

But my possessor held me like a puppet and roughly worked me

 

I prayed and prayed, “God remove from me this hurt”

Expelling of the demon was an excruciating birth.

Casting him out the open window to once again walk the Earth

His escape stretched the esophageal passage to my soul to an impossible girth

 

His route from the depths of me, left bloody and clawed

Yet, as color returned to my cheeks little by little

I could only say “Thank you, God.”

 

 

The Ghost of Christmas Past

 

A set of brake lights turn the air purple in the cool, still dark morning. Morning due glistens like petroleum on the tar street. No sound but the low trembling of the car’s engine. He stepped from the front door through the shadowy grass, tiny bugs skipped over his feet. He no longer remembered what he had left the house for this early, maybe it was to go to the gym? He gets in the car’s passenger side. It was tighter inside than it looked. He could not quite see the drivers face but he could see a faint reflection of the purpled morning air over his hands. The glove box dropped open on its own onto his knees. A bottle of Glenfiddich 12 year sat there under the tiny orange light tucked inside. The car began to move, he didn’t question it. Instead taking the bottle in one hand and pulling at the cork top with the other. It could not have been later than four in the morning. He took a long, hard pull from the whiskey and pulled his lips away with a grimace. The car began to plow through short neighborhood streets. The drivers’ hands ran over the steering wheel firmly, guiding rapid rotations in either direction. The passenger lurched from side to side in his seat with every turn, he tried to brace himself with his legs; the bottle of Glenfiddich 12 year clenched between his thighs.

It was here under the yellow streetlamps that the passenger finally caught a glimpse of his drivers face. He recognized him at once. Hair that hung into his face in wet clumps, his cheek torn away from his jaw exposing those yellow teeth all the way back to his molars even as he stay trained forward on the road. His eye that was reduced to an empty, pulpy socket, and even his chest still caved in from the accident, here driving through the empty neighborhood at 60 miles an hour. The passenger studied his old friend in disbelief, still no older than 15, the age they were together when he had died. The passenger took another long pull from the whiskey and turned his own pale face towards the window. Just outside the glass he saw the car had apparently come to a stop, though the sensation of sitting in a fast-moving vehicle, and the momentum that pushed him back in his seat remained. He saw they had parked inside of a dark bedroom and judging by the by the stuffed lion on the small bed and the young boy laying beneath it; he stared into a bedroom which had once been his own.

 

 

 

 

Compulsion

 

Why should a ball of yarn be so soft,

Should a cat not be meant to swat it?

 

Where am I to keep folded bills,

If not inside my wallet?

 

Upon a grand bleeding sunset,

Should I not lay my eyes?

 

If a black widow lands on my shoulder,

Should I not yell out in surprise?

 

If cookie dough ice cream is set before me,

Shouldn’t I have a taste?

 

Would a thief still be a thief,

If there was nothing else left in the world to take?

 

 

 

 

Tip Toe Through The Tulips

 

He didn’t trample those tulips

Yet still, only lies escaped his two lips

He stumbled through the flower beds shortly after

And they could only ask why, oh why would he do this?

His unsound defenses came out broken and useless

And when he tried to retreat,

He stumbled over his shoes, tripped.

He landed flat on his ass and made it home with bruised hips.

In his mind, a blue shift…

He knew he didn’t trample those tulips,

But he knew it must have been someone just as clumsy as he, who did

And nothing soothed him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Hand and Arm of God

 

The hand and arm of god came down from heaven and hung there, out of the sky.

So they built a skyscraper around it, that disappeared into the clouds above.

Elevator tours carried on through the week, to the top and back again.

So the tourists could admire the vascularity of his forearm and bicep, and his translucent skin.

At the ground level, where his fingertips lay, lines of people wrapped around the block.

 

 

 

Untitled 4

 

Love me even when I wrong you

See the good in me when I swear it can’t be true

Help me see it,

And I will do the same for you.

 

I could never hold a grudge

Towards someone who loves me so much

 

Please don’t smother me

No matter how hard I beg.

Kiss me please,

Even when my heart is cracked like an egg.

 

And if you ever lie to me

Black, the sun and the sky would be.

Hanna’s Nightmare/ Dream

 

Eager pitter patter of stubby children’s feet

Making chase through the kitchen just before it’s time to eat.

 

The hanging tops of shaggy trees stand gentle guard at the window,

A sprawling river valley and woods beyond;

 

A lazy golden retriever lays by the fireplace, he wags his tail

And lets out a yawn

 

The two smallest children cling at their mother’s hip

With one in her arms

The other six already at their places at the table

Beaming with promising, innocent charm

 

A broad man steps in through the door from outside,

Smelling of the cool, leafy air

He makes his way across the foyer, to place a large dark hand on his wife’s shoulder

Looking into and through her eyes at the golden light shining there

His other hand lands on the baby’s head,

A soft mess of kinky hairs

 

Everything is swimming in a dreamy fog,

but its beginning to clear, revealing interchanging images

horses gallop passed, and the city sprouts up out of the grass

the floor is covered in cash. She rustles in her sleep,

soft golden light reflected against her closed eyelids

a thousand different ways.

 

 

Chains and Things

 

Bad, bad feeling

Crawling under my skin

Like roaches in the wall

That the rain brought in

My stomach turns

Like the world itself

If I can’t have you, I’ll just have to take someone else

I just can’t seem to be rid of

These chains and things…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A Nurse with Blue Gloves

 

Laid in bed, as stiffly as a burn victim

Slit eyes stare dazedly toward the ceiling

Yet vision someplace far away

Utterly heartbroken.

 

Rows and rows of critical patients

Every one of them covered in bandages or crudely splinted

Packed into the gymnasium

Through the high windows, reddish smoke

Still lingers outside.

Volunteer nurses with white masks and blue gloves

Tend them.

 

She kneels down and places the back of a gloved hand

Against a young boy’s face,

Completely shelled in white bandages,

Yellowing from the burns beneath.

Covered all but his blistered lips

She listens to his harsh, rustled breathing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All my Love // Violence

 

All they can do is fire crude pistols into the fog.

Brave, ignorant children,

Tears run in crystal deltas down their cheeks;

Fire in the direction of that foreign pattering sound,

And those strange murmurings,

And a low growl.

Sounds which all together become unrecognizable, sending a cold burn

Through their hearts.

The fog is too thick

To see the pattering of stubby children’s feet

Making chase through the kitchen

Just before supper.

Those murmurs, the loving coos of a golden eyed mother

Sitting with her broad husband, nearby.

A low growl, only the sound of cool air

Combing through grand oak trees

Just outside the open window.

Speedtrain

 

Speedtrain fills the tunnel with a hundred tons

Of steel shrieks,

Smudged with the speed it passes by

Like a finger on wet ink.

 

Cool air is plunged over those waiting on the platform

Who can only see the light of the train cars

And a blurry refraction of those who stand or sat there.

 

Weedpuller

 

 Down in the yard, a weed puller

With his knuckles bulging

And his knees swollen

Knelt over like he had spent days praying

To the soul of the holy spirit, The Father

Only to realize that the roots of those weeds

Grow much passed the garden

All the way up the yard and veranda

Then up the steps, beneath the door

Through the house and in the bed.

A long-abandoned country cottage

Its many memories blotted away

By tall wheat grasses in the living room

And dark-yellow sunflowers in the cupboard.

Yet the old prospector in the garden

Is hopelessly fucking stubborn.

My Muse

 

Hundreds of slaves emerge from the trees and drop to their knees

At the banks of the river.

They dunk their grimy heads in, taking long gulps of the cool, clear water.

Submerged faces cannot help but laugh with relief into the cold darkness,

 sending bubbles to the surface.

 

Brave children stand and stare into the wall of silver fog,

Within it housed the multiple pattering and murmurs of something so foreign to him

It could only have been the writhing tentacles of some giant Cthulhu like beast, swallower of worlds.

So unrecognizable to him and yet so indiscernibly familiar, a freezing burn exploded upon his heart and his stomach twisted.

Into the swimming, dreamy fog he fires a crude pistol, his most powerful tool hoping to kill the beast.

The gun does not make any sound, but the fog begins to thin…

 

Elsewhere a small child is discovered

Shackled in a dark closet.

He shrinks against the wall as the flashlights fell over him.

He plainly refused to remove his backside from the wall, then from the floor

After so many rapes.

 

When his tiny head touched its first sun

Frail hair fell out in clumps.

He communicated with paramedics only with whimpers and grunts.

 

She is my oasis

Passion our escape for

Only long enough should a family complicate things

Just another that you can’t have! Torturous frustration

 

Little contraception, much self-deception

In-fighting of the family leads

To great depression.

Angry hearted children, take the lives of millions

They ask God to clean the awful

Stains as the devil spilt them.

 

A world beneath yellow streetlights

Rain from the day glistens on tar street

Cold eyes, eating with their fingers,

Healing love is quarantined away from here and yet it lingers.

 

Lofty soldiers ride in on masked horses

With swords they cut the chains

Among the striped jumpsuits and brown stars there are no voices

So famished, expressions so plain

As relieved as they are mortified of how

They will ever learn to live again!

 

All a man can say is thank you, Lord

Down to his millionth microscopic fiber

Across it, a perfect match

For every fragment, a filling. For every concave, a convex

Acupunctured through either flesh with dark yellow thread

As thin as the hairs of a cell.

Woven together all at once.

 

Wide slabs of spiraling, red washed stone

Like some gargantuan conch shell, the remainder of its anatomy

Tucked beneath the damp soil.

Bunches of them together and on top of each other.

Sneakered feet stomp and climb them, shuffling pebbles and pieces over them

As the crabs within them sleep.

 

Five small children patter about, a mothers pure joy shines as golden beauty in her eyes, she murmurs fondly

The air is silver and swimming with dreamy fog…

 

Goutenomics

 

 

He teetered up the stairs like he’d just won a duel

And survived the onslaught of his opponents’ fellow thugs thereafter.

He was even dragged behind a spooked horse

But he cut the rope around his ankle with a blade in his boot

And buried it to the hilt between another man’s shoulder blades.

 

At the top of the stairs, he realizes he forgot his medicine.

So he teeters back down them double time because he’s got gout between his toes.

As he saunters back up the stairs and into bed, he doesn’t feel it much tonight

But he feels satisfyingly drained as he drifts into dreamland.

Visions of the Macabre

 

His day started a fine one

He ate breakfast and brushed his teeth ‘till they shined some.

 

White sun in his wake

As he stepped from the front door

Naively tempting fate

 

Some hours later in the car…

Families and children crowd the sidewalk

With smiling faces.

He yearns to be like them but in his soul

He only feels the cold echo of empty spaces.

 

Cop cars tucked around corners lay still

With raised snouts like alligators camouflaged in a swamp.

 

His anxiety makes the lines of the road seem to expand

And contract and helix all at once.

His heart shivers like a puppy retriever

Trapped outside in a thunderstorm.

 

There’s a body in the trunk

He’s dead out of luck

 

The backseat is stained and littered with trash and lint

The knife is tossed back here, bloody and bent

He wonders if his mother will think to ask

Where her cleaver has went.

 

But all I want is a fucking nap!!!

From my trunk I swear I can still hear his spasming

Fingers tap.

Even when his eyes hung ajar and slack,

When I was sure he was mortally punctured

I was equally sure that his body would spring up and touch me.

 

Half a tank, tire pressure low

Air whistles from the back windows

That never fully close.

 

 

 

 

Brando

The white quiet of a dope house in the early morning

Yearn of eardrums with their corks popped

From gunshots in parking lots or hallways

Ricochet off lockers slammed anyways

Within them, stowed bottles and other contraband

 

Supple, fertile, pregnant fears in heat

Lay eggs in the brain by the millions in glistening clusters

Like honeycomb or salmon roe

Swim upstream, searching for home.

A million little bastards, mislabeled as migrants.

 

I do not trust these eyes

Anymore than I’ve ever trusted those that stare

From across desks and checkout lines or from behind glass

Watery and sunken, dark and beady

 

Purplish prisms form large shards the soul is

Reflected through and reflected from those too.

We train through these mirrors

 

Locked by complex combinations

Caverns where true desires reside

Stalagmites and meringue stone ceilings, echoes

Where gushing empathy flows in darkness

And murderous hate falls in hesitating, calcified droplets from above

 

The stone slowly erodes into new formations

There are jewels to be mined and a lifetime spent polishing.

Anti-Venom

 

Perilous anti-venom,

Fine as a glass ampoule

Filled with the potent scarlet lacquer.

 

From its dark shelf jingles faintly in a sliver of light

At the billowing air outside

 

It’s glass top melted shut

To ensure the airless purity of its contents

 

A single drop could treat a thousand men.

Torrential

 

Behind the words

Behind the feelings that float atop the water

Like lily pads and sweet-smelling river scum

Is the old moss

The dried up resinous memories stuck

To the bottom of the jar

Which usually require the application of a metal scraper

Like those used to free toe jam and dead skin around the cuticles

So that the old memories are released

Back into the water in small shards and filaments

So they can wash out to the ocean

And the water downstream no longer tastes of it.

 

 

 

Untitled 3

 

Yellowed, stained teeth that show when I talk

Stench from my crotch that lingers as I walk

 

Unkempt hair that stands frizzed with anxiety

My bloodshot eyes dart back and forth wildly

 

Wide, curled nostrils stuffed with clings of yellow mucus

Growling like a diesel motor just to breathe through them

 

Thirty feet of intestines coiled up like a ball of yarn

I crawl back under the shade and let out a yawn…

Purgatory

 

Finely dressed couples in heavy fabrics

Within pods of candlelight

In the dimly lit dining room

Swimming movements of ecstasy.

Heavy porcelain plates carry what little light,

Jingle with forks against them like sprinkling fairy dust

The food is exquisite

Everyone loves it, bites and conversation flow flawlessly

Broad, handsome waiters with expertly slicked back hair

And gentlemanly seaside colognes drift soundlessly

Among them over neat, heavy carpet

As do the notes of the piano through the not overly-eager air.

Tip toeing keys and the smooth moan of a saxophone

From a live duo playing at the far end of the dining room without amplifiers,

They are called The Ignorance and The Want

They stand glazed in austere light.

The food is exquisite. Everything is perfect.

 

Braised short ribs with red wine

Saffron polenta

Cognac bread pudding

And an espresso.

Let out a big sigh.

The Seal

 

Thin sheet of plastic pulled over my face

Sealing my nose and mouth, smothered my eyes

I tear my neck to toss it off, diminish my breath with every move I make

Both of my flippers pinned at my sides

Tangled with my hindquarters, I kick and ache

I sink into the depths where there is no light

 

Down the huge gray throat

Not even in death will my eyes be closed

 

My round incisors catch a bit, mouthful of plastic

I wrench, rip and slash it

 

The bones in my face break around the suffocating womb

And still worse birth canal

As I begin to break the seal

And wriggle my way free and back to the surface to breathe.

 

 

Day Trader / Interlude

 

Cheeks rosy, watery eyed day traders

As heart wrenched as compulsive masturbators

 

Incessantly faun over the cellphone

As if awaiting a call from a woman

In fact, only checking to see in which

Direction his stocks are moving

 

Cannibalized his mind

‘till he’s got no more ass left to hold

He takes his magnifier into the yard, gets down on his belly

And waits for the grass to grow

 

For gambling away his serenity, he’s got absolute brilliance

He takes the money and runs long before it can ever turn into millions

 

Other men, once again

And the whole town will stare

She loves trading stocks now that she’s a thousandaire

 

Housed fantasies like housed chiggers

Burrowed crazily in the ankles

Scratching until they bleed

They yearn for a life with no one else to thank for it.

 

 

Brackenridge

A young man’s crudely sawed, modified exhaust pipes loudly popped from an unseen car, sputtering like gunfire. Yet the noise softened into chalky strikes as it settled over the trees. Some shaggy with low hanging creepers like gray moss, others taught with curly foliage that shown a rich gold against the morning sun behind it. Loose white gravel crunched easily under a single pair of sneakered feet.

The highway was nearby too. Yet the sound of passing cars along wide curves softened over the trees into a sound like ocean waves. Like those trapped in a large Conch Shell.

A nearby river concealed by layers of forest, which in fact ran much past the highway, ran somewhere nearby. The water produced a smell as round and smooth as an eightball and as sweet as fresh watermelon. A lonesome nose and mouth took deep and healthy gulps of it.

Trees towered on either side of him, he used a finger to nudge his gold-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose to look up at them. More crude blasts of exhaust from some other muscle car out on the highway rained distantly over his ears. Or perhaps it was sounds of loud construction, common in the industrial central city near the nature park he now walked. His ears could not discern. Slender Herons and Egrets in the trees did not stir…

The sound continued. Now he saw a woman jogging the trail in the direction opposite his own; his feet kept the same relaxed cadence on the white gravel. He noticed the woman ran funny, her arms hanging slack and unathletically at her sides. Careful not to judge her as she came nearer, he diverted his eyes towards his own feet. That same distant sound warped into a sharper, popping noise that no longer sprinkled through the trees but cut through them.

When the woman fell flat on her face not ten yards in front of him. It was then that he saw one of her arms was freshly severed and she was covered in a fountain of blood. His eyes trained hard to her then, as he did so he saw the forest come alive behind her, the trees seemed to clamor amongst their own shadows converging on the trail. What he saw was in fact dozens, then hundreds of bodies moving almost soundlessly through the forest, from every direction, every single one of them critically injured or stricken with comatose eyes.

They began to pour out onto the trail around him and into the trees on the other side, all fleeing the same direction. Fat droplets and spills of blood loped over low hanging leaves and splattered with pastel brightness on the white gravel in the sun. He saw men holding their guts. A small girl crawling on her hands and knees with her bottom jaw blown from her face exposing a dark pulpy maw. Dozens with missing limbs stumbled or dragged out onto the trail, in the brightness of the sky for but a few labored paces before passing into the trees on the other side. A mother pulled the corpses of her two children in either hand, one of her eyes was gouged out and her clothes had been torn from her from what was indeed horrible shredding gunfire. There was no sound of popping vehicle exhaust or loud construction, but heavy automatic fire and it was close now. The silent Herons and the Egrets swam in the sky above now as horrible ripping gunfire rained down through the trees. Many dropped dead and many more kept going. He used a finger to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose, turned and ran with the hordes of them. More stray rounds peppered the trees as he began chopping through the dense brush. His glasses were almost immediately flung from his face by foliage as he ran, he endured scratches to his arms and face. He quickly overtook the army of clamoring wounded, leading them only by his advantages of a still able body, blinded now he ran.

The trees tore his clothes from him as he ran, he turned back around to see the trees still moved, the hundreds of injured seemed to follow his direction. They meandered close to the ground like hermit crabs. His foot, stepped back and disappeared beneath him into the sharp cold of the river. His hand came down a pair of panties on the river bed, his eyes came close to them and he saw they were hot pink and soiled with dirt and leaves. Quickly losing his footing, he tumbled back into the river. Maimed victims began

pouring out of the trees and into the river soon after. He waded across, slipping on the mossy floor before making it across totally soaked and continuing to run.

Joy inside those Tears

 

If I had told them no

As I had so many times before

These gifts that have grown so big and tall might never have had a chance to grow

Maybe I would be somewhere else

In a different world, as my other self

On the street eating from trashcans

On a Jet plane so deep in wealth.

Maybe I would die on the highway

My physical body forever gone

And a piece of my soul could live across the world in the eyes of a newborn son

But fate had been there for me, as she’d been all along

Tiny glimmers of light give me direction

I can finally grow towards!

In the darkness I wander, so very far off course

Believe it when they tell you, It could always get worse.

Like an asteroid in outer space, careening through my life

When the pain of change is far too great

And I think of suicide!

A jolting compulsion,

Electrical propulsion through the body and spirit

As warm as loving emotion

The lightning passes through me

Works its way all through my years

There’s love and joy trapped in those tears

As the world turns.

 

Strung Out Sober (S.O.S.)

 

Leaving early,

Arriving late,

The phone weighs one thousand pounds

 

The sink is dirty

Yet they use paper plates

And seldom bring company around

 

Their mind is dirty

Their words are fake

Of their own voice they cannot bare the sound

 

When pressed they insist that all is sterling

And argue if their words do not take

As they sit and stew atop the putrid mound

 

Piddling indiscernible messages in it

For passing ships.

Boiled Spoiled Chicken Hearts

 

Pink and raw and bloody and smeared

Boiled until the scummy water became clear

 

Lung shredding vapors escape open windows

Taken up in the wind

For some other poor son of a bitch to breathe in.

 

 

Guilt & Shame

 

Take the children from the squalor house

Hear the wretched mother cry and holler out

 

Crudely remove the woman’s kidney

But take her mind and she’ll surely kill ye’

 

Give the babies a fair chance

And use the time to clean your hands

 

Like the devilish thoughts themselves

The children cannot be housed here

Or they would smother me

To my guilt and shame I am

So protective, even motherly.

 

 

 

Untitled 2

 

A spherical world

With miracles to behold

What you’re hearing from the soul is music.

 

Choosing from the heavens

And only rolling sevens

Total strangers who seem to have been friends forever

Even closer than family

Can’t help but start dancing

Laughter, dilation yet far from hysterics

Cannot be described or numeric-

ally defined. One billion loving

hands wipe the tears from your eyes

The age of miracles is still upon us.

 

Playtime

 

Rusty, right angles

Elbows and notched straights

Ghostly whispers…

Pregnant, hesitating droplets fall

As shrilly as notes played

By felt tip to a xylophone

It is totally dark

In the narrow caverns beneath the light

Where the pipes run through…

Humid air down there is dense and unmoving

Metal squeals ever-more erect

As it fills with hot water

Yet the tiny, dark dwelling spiders

Do not stir in their webs

As either of the upstairs bathrooms

Hiss to life with steaming shower

Blotting out the naked figures in either mirror

The front door hangs ajar, gaping orange light.

 

Proceed Ya’

 

A procedure which proceeds the

Great Trifle;

Thirteen story pink macaron, high enough

For disgraced investors to jump from.

 

In cases cruel to deny her

Men of power open the drawer where the bible

Sits in the dark of nomenclature

God’s will could never be blocked

By man’s simple legislature

He who underlies the totality of all things

Will always send through the souls he needs to.

 

 

 

Shedding II

 

Strike a man in his belly

Watch him bleed out all his jelly

But let him blow a fuse

And let all his anger ooze

Out onto the floor like a leaky faucet

Better put him on the leash

Before he gets down on his knees

And thirstily straws-it.

Shedding

 

A madman’s bullet enters the chest

And exits the hip

Taste of a liar’s kiss upon my lips

Fragments careened off my spine

And my insides are ripped

 

Like a silky strand of loose stitches

On a pair of sturdy woven denim britches

I come apart.

My empty clothes fall dully to the floor

At the edge of the great big bed

Where grief and I make love.

The sheets are the starry night sky and

The mattress is simply a rectangle of hard soil

Where flower beds grow, small trees

Pose and contort above them with

Purple and white crape myrtles at their ends.

Within their puckered clusters humid breeze passes freely.

 

 

 

Tumultuous Romance

 

The Brown Recluse

Will and wait and wait and wait

From the dark of a wood pile

Furnishing the inside of a rotten log with drapes

Waits and waits and waits

Silently biding its time

Laying across its fat belly and bristly nape

It waits and waits and waits

Until someone comes swinging away with a hatchet

Spilling the light in

And enduring the vicious poison when it bites him.

Nursery Rhyme

 

The car swerved to escape debris                                                                         

Strewn all through the street

Blew a tire against the curb

Moans of pain they heard

  Who?

The strength was barely must-

ered, eyes instantly concussed

against the site of a drunk driver

who plowed a filled school bus                                                                               

  Who?

A young boy clearly ejected                                                                                      

His chin upon the grass

The explosion seemed to have deflated him

His eyes left empty and black

Undiscernible from pieces of bus or car

Smoke against cloudless blue sky

Children against the tar

And in the shock of passerby                                                                                    

No one thought to call.

Who can I turn to?

 Dogma

 

If that doggy is a pit

And she gives you a nip

Then she’ll get the needle in the scruff of her neck

 

Untethered soul sent home to Jesus

Up and down the hall pound cages are emptied as needed

A soul composed of large, simple pieces

 

If the mailman is tinny

And kicks the old dog Jenny

Right in the jaw off the patio

He might get a slap on his wrists

 

When he gets home to his own pups

And his attitude twists

The poor babies are at the mercy of his

 

In the cage until I’m home from work

Shittin’ and pissin’ herself the day away

Sacrifice of a man to strays

Man’s best friend and most easily persuaded ally

Don’t ask for much so they simply don’t receive it

Men who couldn’t cherish a bowl of baked beans

 

Believe direct contact with the soul will sting

And resort to the use of oft- brutal makeshift instruments

And self-surgery

God save the babies

 

We Euthanize the simplest creature by masses

Yet force the most complex into foster care and classes

That can warp into some un-loved thing

To stuff unemployment lines and ballot boxes

And they call it Dogma.

Fringe Jungle

 

Damned conspiracy for the heresy

Of The Century;

Melted me did the woman’s eyes

Who’s called my wife

The stubby hands of the boy they call mine

Sliced me like a knife.

I bled fat droplets onto the tile floor

And in their shimmering red reflection

Was the brave stare of our King

Who united states like adhesive tape

Not of the film which

Taped over all of my old memories

Of the fake I used to be

Before I woke up

From the light of the blade

I had driven into my own wrists

In the bathtub while my wife and child

Pounded the door I had locked.

 

The World’s Greatest Ant Farm

 

Today, another tragic bombing

This time a local Tourist

Unknowingly scarfs potato chips

Whilst standing over an anthill

Raining a crumb hell upon a riot of the insects

Inflicting heavy casualties

The Queen is safe,

But dozens of workers and soldiers are either

Dead or unaccounted for

Rations are expected to begin immediately

Paperweights

 

The Doctor had a wonderful office

A dried and preserved aorta on the desk

Like something from the Sea

It sat next to a giant seashell

And an ornate globe tinged brown

And the skull of a chimpanzee

My seat released

The plush sweetness of leather

As I sank into it

The Doctor could tell I was pleased

His fine loafers clicking was muffled

On the dark wool rug

As he took a seat in his own woven leather chair

Sprawled up and behind him

His questions tactfully pruned

At the shaggy overgrowth of my being

Into something at once neat and privileged.

Haiku Jamboree

 

Even my flattest

Roads are in-fact still an un-

Even cobblestone

 

Cruelly restricted

Feudal Japanese poets

Barely any room to-

 

Swole jalapeno

Charred and blackened all the way

Dried until crispy

 

Lopside crystalline

Carved brutally without sound

Sunlight on bedroom

 

Freedom like a bear

Huge northern salmon-eaters

Talkin’ like rich folk

 

The world is porno

Cool, stainless steel hydraulic

Mechanizations

 

Open the window

The very hardest window

Most stuck old window

 

Waterlogged III

 

I wonder when I’ll feel at home again

Explore the world and return to where my soul began

If we’re lucky maybe we can grow old as friends

 

Emergency lights spin nauseas yellow

As the halls of a quickly sinking ship are filled with panicked fellows

White Sailor’s uniforms and shined black shoes slosh up to their shins and exchange bellows.

 

Except for Private Mikey

Who was passed out drunk in his Dorm.

He would be the shipwreck’s only survivor;

He simply woke up vomiting starfish and other bits of Sea upon the shore.

 

Un-Wasteable Moments

 

Early morning rain

Is the type to stick your tongue out

And not be hurried back to shelter

Let it wash away what it can

And restore the world

To a crystalline refraction of its former self

If only for a few un-wasteable moments.

Rottweilers, Pitbulls and Pinschers

 

He was cuffed to the pipe beneath the bathroom sink

Luckily it leaked enough to afford him a drink

His captor had put him there some time before

After giving him a beating and making him a whore.

If he ever saw his captor again, he thought,

I’d surely melt

Although it had been so long, he wondered if perhaps he’d done it all to himself.

He ate roaches off the tile floor for protein

Which he smashed with his bare heels or a toe-squeeze

They squirted and wriggled as he chewed

And choked them down with winces

Outside was the horrible barking

Of his captors’ Rottweilers, Pitbulls and Pinschers.

Chained up starving and feral on the other side of the door

And just out of sight

They howled and thrashed with each other

All through the day and through the night.

It was the dogs that dashed his hope to ever escape

And petrified him

In the long hours of terror he’d shift his weight

To let his cuffs tear the skin around his wrists only to have some new sensation ignited.

One day the pipe finally came loose

Giving his face a cold and immediate wash,

When he discovered suddenly he could slide his cuffs right off.

He paused for a moment in disbelief

To the sound of the dog’s whine and roar

As he braced himself on bony knees then stood up from the floor.

He mustered a bit of courage then and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror

Already too numbed to be shocked by his sallow, starving features.

He thrust open the door to see neither captor nor dogs

But a chair facing him with a tape recorder sitting poised next to a couple of speakers.

The horrible baying of the dogs was louder now but he could not see them

He touched the recorder and it opened by inches.

When all fell silent as he read the title of the tape

Was Rottweilers, Pitbulls and Pinschers.

He realized then the house had been totally empty for some time.

Waterlogged II

 

The cold tides of truth

Arctic waters from far out to sea

Drown all the noise from busied ears

Drown the lungs of wasted breath.

Wash debris and bodies through the streets

Those commonly treaded avenues called identity.

The cold tides of truth

That were only see-sawing bumps

For the boats far out to cobalt sea.

Old fisherman with salty, white beards

And lined, bracketed faces

Watch the devastation with binoculars.

Like the Tsunami waves themselves

The cold tides of truth too shall recede

Granite

 

On the corner like a statue

Hungry flies upon pink, frothy eyelids

Blinded and unblinking

Skin as black as raw petroleum

But for the crisped ends of gray hairs

On the sides of his head.

What a pity notes the passerby

Cup of ice water is set by him

Old man doesn’t even reach for it

Because he died hours ago

On the corner as still as granite.

Eve

Pale, naked muse

Exposed is her softened, ripe physique

Where crimson lust glows as warm

As the unsunned skin over the femoral arteries

As densely as cabernet.

She reaches for the hand that came

Down between the dark clouds of the thunderstorm

Unfurled from fingers the size of oak trees

She grabs the sword from its palm.

Smoker

A man is not a smoker

Until he begins to accept

His shortness of breath.

Skyscrapers

 

Garrish

Skyscrapers

Scrape the sky,

Chunks of clouds and atmosphere

Caked under the fingernails

In the struggle

Traces of stratosphere found unfortunately too

In the underwear

Upon the bloated corpse baking in the sun.

 

Obsidian 2

 

From the shadows of every dim, rose-lit bedroom

In this city

Faintly twinkles the obsidian beak and marble eyes

Of a massive crow.

Bouquet of black feathers

Extend back into the darkness of the walls

And the ceiling.

Turn off the light and invite it closer

The drum of a heartbeat

Through shut but restless eyes

Is the drumming of a giant crows’ wings batting at the air

Afloat just above the bed.

Crepe Myrtle

 

Dark chambers…

Wallop of my heart

Contractions of the stomach

Inflating of my lungs

Squirming of the veins

Swaying of the branches

Pucker of the flowers

Glisten of hot pink color in plenty of sun.

Tingling of the mind,

Sweet and tart

From the cool air, staring dazedly through the blinds

Scraped dried up resinous memories

From the bottom of my mind with

The thin, flowery ends of the Crepe Myrtle.

Waterlogged 1

 

Jacket me in algae

Buried beneath the sea.

The skeletons of unlucky passengers

Still float inside of me.

Sharks and crabs now flock it,

Armoires, leather luggage and a tiny golden locket

Half buried in the sand.

A steel anchor leans on its haunches

As would a pondering man.

My sails have long dissolved

Into bushes of furry barnacles

That sway in the water like palms

And slowly break down my wooden mast

Into easily digestible particles.

The rare ribbon of sunlight

Might glance the slightest part of me

Down here the pressure alone is enough to burst a man’s arteries.

And yet many decades on my final crossroads,

Would surely be my discovery

When heavily armored scuba divers

Shine bright lights all inside and under me.

Startling the crabs and sharks

From out of their watery pockets,

And all the divers took back to the surface

Was my tiny golden locket.

Asteroids

Of a sort of very sudden collision

That does not stop a man in his tracks,

But sends him flying in an opposite direction

Like asteroids colliding in space.

Travelling violently, usually clipping others

And ricocheting like a bullet.

Bits and pieces of him are flung away,

Crashed on any one of a trillion stars and lost forever

Yet often treasured as artifacts.

Known only as cold and heavy stone.

 

 

Asteroids II

Propelled without motor or breeze-like whisp,

Floating on in the blackness like a deep-sea fish.

Somewhere far down and to the right a star twinkles,

He only wags his body and his nose wrinkles.

The air is a vacuum and perfectly clear,

A trillion stars out in space, not a single one near.

With a shimmy of his shoulders his whole body sank,

Floating on in the blackness, his mind utterly blank.

 

 

 

 Green River

The top of the water moves like silk linens

Its subtle dimensions capture both shadows and light.

 

They stretch and fold over an overturned log.

A perfect viscosity of river water,

The very meaning of cleansing.

 

Close air is refrigerated by it

And noted for its sweet yet sugarless aroma.

 

Small bits of debris are caught in muddy pockets along the banks,

So that the water may continue to flow purely.

 

Somewhere up and out of sight

Warblers call to each other with prolonged flute like octuplets

Of alternating high notes.

 

Ducks speak a simple language to their little ones

Nasally and maternal and mostly single verbs.

 

Further up the river moves faster, taking up an entirely new form;

It snarls with white foam and reflects neither shadows nor light.

Resembling only the madness of a concerto or a mad dog.

 

 

Bicycle

 

Thin pages with small font turn

Like the wheels of a bicycle to the tune of

A Gears’ singular whirring along with the gliding

Of rubber tires along smooth pavement;

As the pen is dragged across white page.

 

Left behind handwritten letters as diversions

For our captors and to our families back home

To fool them into thinking we’ve been indoctrinated,

So that the silent coup may trudge on.

 

On the top of the motion, the leg retracts at the knee.

On the bottom of the motion, the leg is fully extended for a brief moment;

As the pedal is depressed and the

Cyclist pedals round and round.

Clench and extend, clench and extend in a fluid motion.

Contract and release, contract and release

Like the wallop of a beating heart that motions fluid.

 

One thought behind the other.

So perfectly predictable;

Picture paragraphs pruned into perilously perfect passages,

Without any point of views or punctuation.

OddTopsy (Autopsy)

 

 

High like resolution and lack solution,

A brain full of contusions, sensitive to movements, and bright lights like studios.

Eyes set to blinking like lights with bad wires;

The mind will burn like wildfires, that makes smoke cloud away the sky so you don’t cast shadows.

 

The soul is trapped in pop-pieces like the deathly hallows,

We roast marshmallows over burning trashcans;

Hooded like an Axeman in the square, the people stare but nobody is really there.

Even though they stand like hairs on the back of necks;

Stuck in the bathroom, puking guts and holding chests,

Of booty like pirate ships.

 

Wider than the Seven Seas is open mindedness to please

Pass the peas like they used to say. Who is they?

Visions of home that fade to gray near the third bay where we stay;

And all of the things we say to strays like

Here, Kitty…

Fear can spear cities, appear innocent like old ladies

In candy houses made of chocolate that children stuff their mouths’ with.

It’s all around us, glistening

Like gasoline that revolutionaries are doused with;

Agitation aroused by craters left in leather chairs that’s been lounged in.

 

The thought pounced something like cats on top of fences, perfectly balanced without corrections.

The tail reaches like a feeler as they sidle walls and hurdle balconies beneath open windows,

While widows make calls just before the baby falls from her arms.

She cries tears like hot tar,

That dries under the breeze of dusty airways and remains there for weeks that leave streaks

Like Varicose Veins on the face.

Sitting back and interrupting your own reminiscing of those days,

Of burning love and cold rain. You don’t say?

Here, Kitty, Kitty…

Frustrated like bad sex,

Drinking water with black flecks

That make the abs flex

With pain from that enflamed abscess;

That oozes regret mixed with puss.

 

Incel types all alone, raping themselves,

Over despairing dames potently hating themselves;

Contemplating the hell of their own mind.

Praying for forgiveness only on their own time,

Die young like the old times.

Break open stones with pickaxes swung by striated backs

Until gold shines like a fresh bag of pork rinds.

 

Temptations

 

If only I could levitate mere inches off the ground,

All noise beneath my feet, erased;

I could get close enough to pet those skittish, wild deer.

Cold, brown ponds in either eye,

Unmeant for needful love of you or I.

Scatter and prance like disturbed gnats,

And settling the same.

In packs they reproduce with abandon,

Without accident or adultery,

Into families of beautiful refugees, paranoid,

Whose necks snap at the crack of a single leaf.

Like the snap of a tree branch under the belts of a tank.

I found her very evasive, though she lay close enough to touch.

The sound of my feet was boisterous and echoed,

In her ears like the sound of her own bones breaking.

Those boots marched on…

Rads

 

Plucked every blade of grass with

The attention of a set of tweezers,

Then swept away from the brow by brilliant solar breezes.

Like the winds of wheezing coughs, blown

Every ship far off course.

Of course to new and exotic lands, where

skin flaked up and off like embers from their

faces and their hands.

Demands remedy for this sensation, hot and prickly,

The most beautiful of us all suddenly

Become old and sickly.

As the very cells of their makeup died and came apart,

Lesions formed across the brain and the heart,

And spleen.

The effects of radiation previously unforeseen.

Teams of the finest scientists in white coats in white labs,

Documented how those monkeys either died or went mad.

And jabbed at the button, across it labeled

Launch.

The greatest obstacle of space travel,

Radiation we’ll surely come across,

Like a secret garden.

Obsidian

 

As you told your story

My heart plunged

As the Hawk dives upon canyon winds.

Huge swathes and deltas of engorged rock

Made entirely of coal-colored obsidian

Stone without layers or pigment

As dark as the night sky, whose sheen

Twinkled like stars.

 

 

Silver

 

The mind; A pail of molten silver

Poured from a very thin spout.

Words; the many three-dimensional postures of silver nuggets

That form out of the cool pool below.

 

Below this line of text consists entirely of work composed before December 31st, 2019. Opinions may no longer be my own and should be considered for scholastic purposes only. Thank you.

Katrina’s Theme and Mom’s Office

 He stepped gingerly in the darkness,

Over snoring dreams, tumbled pews.

A taste of copper upon his lips.

He felt his teeth loose in his jaw,

Like broken levers.

Moonlight caught his hands, so deathly smooth

And devoid of any hair or even follicles.

 

He smashed his forehead over the altar

In the dark and fell back over his heels,

Landing on three snoring monks,

And startling them into a shriek!

 

Untitled

A socket in the memories,

A train ride that softens up reality

Blurred to gray by velocity

Smudged like a finger on wet ink.

 

Lewyv

Distorts the world,

Into perfect place.

 

A Seething Minority

Armies of leathery vowel benders

With red work hammered into their shoulders

And fat wives who love to talk;

Who wash the same red patched up quilt

This is war country.

There is quiet love to be made by the light of rosy hardwood.

White morning and warm growth

Green skinned boys,

Who may die for the land someday,

Long after their old pa’ became a tumbler

And died unremarkably.

 

 Fortunate

 Fortunate my fortune is,

 Despite my court with foolishness,

 No therapy or bucketlist,

 ‘Twas truly quite the crock of shit.

 I’m youthful built and I’ve no kids,

 Praise ye lord,

 Then praise again.

 Easy dodge the memories,

 That jagged talons dig,

 Smear the red all down my legs

 To wonder how you’ve been.

 I’ll sail away in gin,

 Fortunate, my fortune is,

 I’ll Sail away in gin.

 

 

 Pristine Fluorescents

Good lighting hides the shadows

So they may better learn to hide

The blood suckers and the killers,

But the shadows never cease.

Shaggy fiends with lolling eyes and spindly limbs

Voyeurs of the night at your windowsill who

Fight and fuck like sick dogs

At the sight and scent of you.

Naked and shivering and pour a drink.

At the sight of a man slash his lovers docile throat,

When they had never been lovers at all, but he’d clutch

And masturbate to her picture in the dark where

He didn’t have to look at himself.

The shadows howl and climax and share

The beds of venerable spunk

When the lights click to sleep.

Good lighting hides the shadows, and the most beautiful are always the most surprised.

 

Peaches

Pound puppy’s patchy pelt,

Pricked and plucked in putrid pustules,

Sweeter than peaches picked in July.

 Double helix

Let it flow and ebb,

In and out, stream along the banks,

Weave like DNA, surge

Through my veins like a fever,

I believe it, thought I could leave her.

Comfort is, knowing I could

To a place alone where I could love her infinitely,

As we should.

 

Mother’s scrap book

I looked back at my mother’s scrap book,

Like an obituary,

Not even a fucking headline,

Surprise, Surprise,

I was scared,

 I still don’t think it was fair,

Take care, pick up your duffle’s and go,

Spent too much time on my shoulders,

I’m a mule for you,

Until it’s through,

Put the pistol to my skull,

My swollen eyes just cry for you,

Leave me as fine print in the obituary,

My old ma’ would probably scrap it too.

 

Dizzy in Death

We are not so alone,

You and I.

Not so different either.

When the shells hit the floor,

We scatter like rats,

Fat bellied, dizzy in death,

Stealing and feral,

Conscience, the curse of the animal.

So forget it, rat’s can’t

Shut the fuck up and listen,

A rolling stone, blister down the hill

‘Till it glisten, these ain’t crystals boy,

Put these diamonds in your AR

Like hands in the aye, urr

Contemplater, the Rat Slayer.

We are not so alone, my fellow

Denominator.

 

 

 Nasty !1!

I got the fuckin,

Meanest rhymes in the game,

Stick the landing,

Then say it again,

I got the fuckin,

Meanest rhymes in the game,

I spray, like tidal waves,

Flowing all down my face,

And running down the drain,

Out into the pipes,

Then back again,

Catch my pen doing backflips on ESPN,

My pen pimps,

Just to feed her children,

My mean ass rhymes,

Sentenced to life in the Pen,

Nothing but guilty pleas,

Whole bunch of crying mothers and fathers

In the stands,

Praying to forgive me,

These rhymes ain’t forgivin,

They for givin,

Like a blade to ya throat,

Or a sickle, I’ll hold with both hands.

Bitch,

I gotta go,

Don’t act up while I’m gone.

 

 

Rinse

Kiss my forehead,

So gingerly,

Auburn Supernova.

 

Gelled to amorphous fever,

My recoil,

Beyond a strangest depth, of

Interstellar explanation.

I needed badly.

 

 

 Sacrificial Slam: John/Jane Doe

 

I gotta problem, It’s been bothering me,

In fact, It’s chronic, and I’ve got a whole lot of ‘em,

No matter how hard I go,

This liquor ain’t solvin’ ‘em, Pill swallowing,

It’s permanent, It’s terminal,

I’m like Alice in Wonderland, It still hurts,

While I toss and I turn,

 

No rest for the weary,

No rest for the wicked,

No rest when I sleep,

 

I dream visions of,

Death by my enemies, of

Kids like me,

Met with mean barking lethal bee’s,

One thousand degree Dobermans,

Stinking piles of bodies, of

Only children in short sleeves,

Somebody stop him,

I see my Mama’s tears,

Screaming at me to get the fuck out, GO! JUST FUCKING LEAVE!

When I needed her so bad,

From my knees,

I seen Alec, same age as me,

A tough motherfucker like you wouldn’t believe,

That look in his eyes,

Like we were walking single file back in elementary,

When the judge told us,

He won’t see the streets again ‘till July Twenty Forty,

I see my very first shot of whiskey,

I remember my dad when the bottle went missing,

Now this blood in my Kidneys,

 

Only God I Fear,

 

John Doe, Maybe Jane, Cold stone engraved,

At this rate, I might need a damn brain surgeon,

Think I’m hemorrhaging, I’ve been amputated

How can I see my shadow with so few sunny days?

Excruciating education,

To the last breath that I take,

Educated,

Over there look,

Educate him,

Pull it out in class and educate,

All the kids you play with, sedated,

Hate the game in this shape and learn to play without a name or a team,

I will spit in your face, The way my pen detonates,

I will snap on you hoes like tree branches, under a TANK

 

Anoint my head in oil, My cup overflows,

Give me strength,

If I am to die before I wake.

Caterpillar Miller

 

Sweet, stupid caterpillar,

Fuzzy, Urchin black,

Thought he’d been dead and damned to hell

Until he passed hot asphalt path,

Where front yard lawns did whisker and pleasant dew grass fell.

Caterpillar Miller, sweet, stupid ickle lad,

So refreshed and cooled he felt,

He yelped,

“Why!

This grass!

“Surely be a garden of heaven!”

As far as he could tell.

Alcapulco

Tongue-less newt mere cock his head,

Fastened in bed by jaded leather.

 

Spoon-fed blends of cheese and peas,

He doesn’t sleep.

 

He writhes and spits at stalky nurses,

Who share frowns and cigarettes.

 

‘Til a flock of ‘em rush,

And plunge a syringe, press in his neck.

He rests.

 

He dreams of Alcapulco,

And other places he’s never been,

Other people he’s never met.

 

 

 Invariably Cornered

 

Invariably cornered,

Be the envelopes lip,

Like the napping sniper,

I so pitifully forebode,

That slash my fingers.

 

 

“David and Goliath- Contemporary”

 

Golden is, The ecstasy of battle,

Proud fever breeze, Pollinate does the perennial of strength,

That boils to a Tango-Waltz of some furious ballet,

O’ the peace, O’ the elegance of the slain,

A sacred dance beckon warrior’s death at the blade, Remembered in paint,

 

Like the gentle wrists behold of David’s dipped Saber,

Back when there was no battle, If there was no fervor,

And there was no passion, If no blood spilled.

 

Perhaps, our contemporaries?

Who stir into unsuspecting crowds like a bowl of egg yolks?

Whisked by barking lethal bees,

No prowess there.  

 

Far, far away is passion from clapping fat bellied rodents,

That writhe and squeal, Dizzy in murder,

Caged like cold, stagnant breeze.

 

 

Ms. Deborah

 

I met Ms. Deborah initially,

Only on the phone,

But the sugary girl I’d spoken to,

Ain’t the one who showed.

I came in for an interview,

Quitw petrified to blow,

 

Where, to my surprise, I came to find,

Ms. Deborah is a rare, gargantuan toad.

With nauseas yellow nickels for eyes,

A trust fund and people-clothes.

 

Body like a shelless boiled egg, bless her heart,

Peppered by oozing black moles.

A big helium carnival balloon,

Bulged and alive in her throat.

 

Hello, I said.

Ms. Deborah could only croak.

Damn shame, thought I,

My hopes, an anvil in my belly

So I just smiled, approached her desk

And took a seat real slow.

 

When Ms. Deborah’s tongue shot out at me,

To my chair in firm Lasso,

As if I, myself was a fresh platter,

Of ‘Flies a la Mode’

I choked!

 

When her big ole’ tongue like an anaconda,

Turned,

And Ms. Deborah pulled me close.

DREAMEATER 1

To the cab driver,

Whose dreams, only visit in night.

If at all he sleeps.

Tossed and turned,

Since his teens,

Bad back, bad knees.

Widdles his treads in the same way does the Lord,

In a big coloring book on poor Cabbie’s hairline recede.

Scribbles the same streets,

 Seven days a week.                                                  

So he can afford,

to eat

And sleep?

 

TEN CUIDADO/ STRENGTH AND NOBILITY

Be careful,

That Marvin feeling can rise,

In simple proximity.

Then again,

I’ve yet to have a wine and dine that wasn’t good to me.

Be careful,

Remember the layers of proximity,

Not just seeing one ya ape fuckin creeps!

Haha.

Your nerves will ease,

You’ll hear a funny sounding lyre’s strings

When the rhythm comes clean,

And if not?

What happened to goddamn Chivalry.

A knight of both strength and nobility,

But it is 2018, and I’ve,

Yet to have a wine and dine that wasn’t good to me.

 

CREEPING JASMINE

Same brain, same kidneys,

But that’s irrelevant.

Never treat others, how you want to be treated,

mama’s babies might just quit breathing.

What’s worse in the suburbs than a pharmahemoth?

Families who grow together,

 lying and cheating.

Like climbing honeysuckle, running straight over the deepend

Of a cliff, into a chasm

Filled with slobbering trolls, who’ve gone days without eating.

A little run on but how ‘bout that tension?

Say it even if it’s stupid,

Just might, relieve a whole scripts worth of pressure.

Those who know their weakness,

And grab it by it’s balls

Is an unconquerable spirit.

He, they, she, it.

Same Brain, same kidneys,

Irrelevant.

 

Last dance

 

My darling, I’m sorry

Perhaps take a break,

Because this last dance

Is but mine to take.

Not even my clothes,

My shoes or my socks,

With you, they’ll stay.

I promise I haven’t gone mad,

In fact, where is the madness?

If this last dance is for,

but my skin and the rain.

 

Off

Remember kids,

Always dip your arrowheads in poison.

What’s the good in sending one,

If they forget what the point is.

If you see people on the sidewalk,

You should see only choices.

Learn to read a brow’s arc for,

How meat their moist is.

 

IT, Exist More.

 

Please!

ANYBODY PLEASE!?

Can anybody tell me,

What’s a real muthafuckin G?

 

They already know what I’m searching,

So you tell me.

 

Life just seems to be coming,

 too quickly,

And daddy’s not around,

We need a real muthafuckin G to come and straighten things out.

‘Pparently everyone’s an artist,

And everywhere’s the South,

Scratching our heads, the smart ones are scared,

Lookin’ around, wondering how?

It feels like all of time and space is headed down.

Down.

Well get this shit:

Natural Selection, 1846.

Where the losers just lose

And it’s constantly happenin’.

Where you can have 9 kids and die fat,

Or some eagle gon’ chomp your candy ass in half,

Like that, Like that

Just like that,

Like “Every 30 seconds another baby is born wack.”

And all of them other scary Facts.

Facts. Facts. Facts.

 

“Um your making me uncomfortable, don’t talk to me to like that”

The kinda bitter shit.

Sends sick and hot shivers down your back,

That remind you of your mother,

Of your dead grandmother,

the gap in your teeth,

Your leukemia little brother,

 Ya darkest insecurities, the pleas.

Or maybe just some creepy shit,

That makes you plain shudder.

 

Yet first thing we learn is,

“Nobody’s perfect.”

Nobody’s Perfect.

But do your best,

And here’s your list of punishments,

Certainly not a threat,

Rules are only in place,

To keep everyone in check.

But let me emphasize about

“THE TAPPING ON MY DESK!”

 

Word. Rip Eazy. Long live dreams. Long live recess. Exist more.

 

 

Efficient (Effing)

 

I was about to google,

Hawk Hunting, just for fun.

But my phone must be under the seat,

I swear, I wish I could just roll around on the thing.

 

Education

 

Aids bitch,

Educated,

Over there, look,

Educate him.

C’mon just taste it,

It’s fucking famous.

You’ll want to pull it out in class

And educate,

All the kids ya play with...

 

 

Thoughts?

 

Could do without the snoopin',

Through my frequent searches,

My pursuit of translucence,

Already been quite the nuisance.

 Often can’t tell if,

Weight's movin’ or,

I’m fuckin' losin' it.

Been Lost.

Fingers Been Crossed.

Innocence, Been slaughtered,

Been tossed.

Losing what?

Too bad I've gone deaf from the sound of,

 Those high caliber shots.

So I reckon if I’m losin' it,

‘least I’ll lose it with my thoughts.

Thoughts?

 

 

STUCK!

                       

These old tracks,

The old tracks,

 Down, only freight will crawl.

Inch by inch by inch.

 

A soulless steel behemoth,

Floats squealing axels sprint.

 

Like a millipede’s scutter

Atop a thousand greedy limbs.

Jittering to top speed,

Inch by inch by inch.

 

Like running in a nightmare,

Stuck! in place with lead shins.

 An easy meal for the Basilisk,

My subconscious dreamt again.

Circling now, closing in..

 

Inch by inch by inch.

Right over the highway,

 Traffic thickens and clots,

Stuck!

To watch freight cars disappear into the horizon,

And meet with the blue of the sky,

 Some place far out of sight.

 

 

 

MOTEL

 

I always look for change

When it’s heads up

I hear it’s lucky.

 

Many blackened coin in this dirty lot

With trash and eczema pavement.

 

Cause coin is all we got to drop:

Guests behind me nod.

Maybe a cigarette or two:

More nods.

 

Doesn’t feel so lucky here.

Grabbing change in my lot will only shut the blinds.

 

 

 

Granny’s Motel

When you’re old

(‘ccording to purely observation)

The lines of ones face shade

Quite thick,

One’s hair dies before does life,

Turning grey and wiry.

And depending the war

Or famine

Or suffering one might have lived,

One may become quite fat.

 

Spending days, waking early,

Lost in Television remote buttons

As if congratulating a millipede.

In a “my chair”

That knows one’s ass better than anyone in years.

 

Which could explain why,

(‘ccording to purely observation)

One might become sour as some two percent

Forgotten in the fridge during that,

Well,

Tumultuous custody battle.

 

When you’re old, ya not so peachy keen of meetin’ people, makin friends,

And if we’re being honest, in this place, neither am I.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emo Poetry 2

 

Keep that

Fanged beast at bay

So he’ll quit gnawing at my confidence.

He keeps reminding of the gap in my teeth,

And my incompetence

Making me sour when I leave the house,

causing arguments

 

With my bitch,

I swear I hate it and it makes me sick.

I try to tell her in the café where we used to sit

 

 When it all felt so innocuous.

Until I’m by myself and I feel small enough,

That my damn mirror needs binoculars.

 

I swear,

I’d roar and spit when I tear out his throat

And watch his chords spray,

Toss it in the river just to let it wash away

How I’d look up to the sky and taste the salty rain

With a conscience crystal clear.

 

 

Manners 1

 

When you give a dog a bone,

see them big, watery eyes,

furry tail whirlin' with a mind of it's own.

Ya just might give her another

and another,

and another.

She'll eat em until she's grown so fat

her belly will roll and her feet will hover,

and she'll eat a few more

and a few more after that.

'till she explodes with bony shrapnel

that'll fill ya full of holes. 

 

 

Beet Red

Sailors in white uniforms, holding caps to their heads

As they sprint through cramped metallic halls,

Emergency lights spin nauseas yellow.

 

Sloshing water through polished dress shoes, kicking as they ran

And the noise of water’s chuckle, becomes static,

Becomes a boisterous howl.

 

In a submarine, on it's way

The sound of man’s panic,

 becomes the sound of flooding water

that swells.

Until the sea can wing the feat of man, send it’s nose towards abyss

Like the feat of man it was.

 

Only the wise sailor, perhaps not right in his head

Kept his dress shoes off his toes, uniform folded in his trunk,

and tried to fall asleep.

He woke up coughing starfish on the shore.

 

Sister Cyanide

Like most days, I end up

Driving

On a highway, down in Texas.

Since I’ve been back on the streets, my

Driving

Is quite defensive.

But no matter, Officer Brady’s wailing siren elected

Me,

In need of justice and a shiv through my intestines.

 

White light stars, tinted

Blue and red,

I could have pulled over technically

But floored the gas instead.

 

What I’ve got tucked away,

Twice wrapped in my glovebox hiding.

 

What I’ve got sewn into the stitches,

Of my jacket’s pocket lining,

Two capsules I vowed to take, if again they ever find me

Driving…  gulp… gulp…

 

 

 

 

 

A Look Around

 

When I was a yougin’

my first job,

In a colored uniform.

Boxy, bright fabrics- glorified patches,

Obviously printed on a scale of ‘Industrial shitload’ (many)

From a growling machine with state of the art, Artificial Intelligence.

Intelligence likely plotting the barbaric demise of each and every staff in the factory who kept the machine in captivity. 

Then!

Then, after the bloodbath,

those uniforms shall be vanquished at last.

 

I wouldn’t have much to say to that youngin’,

It’s a small time job and small times pass.

Can pass that is, owns the affinity.

 

But how can ambition possibly fail?

When every human on two feet, can

and is

a professional gambler,

to keep those feet attached to his legs without a suit of armor.

Again, can be. Owns the affinity.

 

When I was a youngin’

In the plush grass yard, in my knobby bare feet,

I’d gallop

Clop, clop, clop

Well,

For the children:

Pitter Patter Pitter

Across toasted soil, not baked or fried.

 

If only the Tike and I could share a memory,

With years stretched between us.

I assume, at precisely the same time

 Tossing and turning in our respective bedrooms,

 Then and now, deep in the night.

With a weighted heart, I would not put it passed what I have seen.

Hell! I don’t think I’d be surprised if tike and I did meet,

To bonk heads on the sidewalk, send groceries airborne to the street.

Ole tike would not make any sound, but his soft cheeks turn ripe beet.

 

Boy do I remember, that stealing kinda shame.

When ole tike, me, hadn't the bread to pay,

Ole tike me played a dangerous game,

But I’d say he did okay.

 

PASSING IN A TURN LANE (rEVISED) 

 

Lift my loafer backwards

Place it right back where I stepped,

Hit back,

Rewind these lines from my cheeks,

Rewind this knowledge from my thinks,

Scared turtle my beard back in my chin

Take me back to last night’s dreams.

 

I saw a car pass by today,

A man drove, a woman beside,

Two rosy cheeked infant girls sat behind.

I know that man, how

too long’s it been?

Way.

When his hair was long

Those were nice days,

Filed away.

 

I was not sad a moment ago, time had filled that space.

But now yearning I do feel,

Like a young man returning from war, with gold medals and a distance in his face.

 I am reminded,

Better yet reunited

And I cannot help but cry.

 

Medic!

 

I had this view of the vrooming car

For a second and a half

Before that family’s vrooming car,

Went vrooming car right passed.

So fast, it could be just a guy

doppelganger at best

But now, I’d rather not ask

To bask,

With love.

 

 

 

PASSING IN A TURN LANE  (BETA)

 

Lift my loafer from the concrete,

Place it right back where I stepped,

Rewind these lines off my cheeks,

Rewind this knowledge from my thinks,

 

I saw a car pass by today,

A man drove, a woman sat beside,

Two rosy cheeked infant girls sat behind.

I know that man, how too long’s it been?

Way.

When your hair was long

In our bare feet we’d play.

I am not sad,

But a yearning I do feel.

In those moments together,

A family apart was surreal.

Now I am reminded,

Of a bleeding wound to heal.

 

I had this view of the vrooming car

For a second and a half

Before that family’s vrooming car,

Went vrooming car right passed.

So fast, it could be just a guy

With a pridefighting resemblance at best.

But now, I’d rather not ask.

 

 

THIS AND THAT

 

I'm a son, I'm a friend,

I'm a couple of friends, I'm a lover?

Or I'm none, and I am alone.

So what does that make me?

 

Some shlub, the fruit of my mother's loin?

Gross, 

or not, when asleep in the void.

Thank you mother, for this life

and hope with it, well,

I hope, you hope with it,

That I treat this life well,

 and learn to grow. 

 

 

LONG TOED FELLA' (SITUATIONS)

 

If a long toed fella,

Stepped those long toes on a rake,

his nose might break,

a sound like chomping corn it would make.

All crooked and swollen, still,

Likely still,

The fella could smell his grandmamma’s cheddar crust apple pie,

Cooling on the window sill.

Now if a long toed fella, trimming the nails on those damned long toes,

Were to catch a clipping in his eye,

That fella best pray he’s lucky,

Cause’ his eyeball won’t be broken, per say,

But he’ll surely go blind.

 

Nona

 Nona,

If only I coulda,

Nona thing or two,

Before I, well...

 

Pink Lady

 

So I’m holding this apple, firm.

A pink lady,

when I have one, I always picture a sweet lady,

at the park, with an umbrella maybe,

but only to keep the sun off of her shoulders like a real,

ahhh got you there, old sport!

Though I prefer my women with a bit of caramel, Mr. Gatsby.

I bite into it’s flesh,

minus the rows of teeth,

I’m Jaws beneath a set of paddling feet.

It's sweet, so I grin, as I've been 

Like Huck Finn,

 under an apple tree, on a sunny day,

overalls that stop mid-shin.

I personally think the ole apple is red, it is

and I dont't want to muddle these images,

So i reckon Pink will do, yet

flesh ripens before the hide. 

 

 

TRUCKIN

 

Truckin,’ like the do-dah man,

Once told me, “got to play your hand!”

Sometimes, your cards ain’t worth a dime,

If you don’t lay em down.

 

Sittin and staring out of my bedroom window, out at the people,

fixed to their watches below.

Head first into traffic towards a dayjob,

but hell,

they aint leave no cards at home.

 

Please!

Get some rest before you travel.

Cuz’ listen brother, your gonna need your head,

Even if some woman takes it off ya,

Like a guillotine, send it rolling away instead.

 

Truckin,

Got the ways and means,

Woah woah baby, got no home.

Just play ya’ cards out, then wait and see,

Pray the lights glisten, shining down on me!

What a long strange trip it’s been

 

 

FEDORAS IN THE JUNGLE CLEARING

 

How very noir,

how very classic Mafioso,

hardwood and coffeeshop

of you,

To crutch a cigarette between your fingers,

That smells of earth,

Old soil and old practice,

And harvest.

I won’t smoke but a few,

To paint the chords in my throat

but grey.

Like the eyes of a puppy,

always locked in her cage,

jammed next to her brother

from night,

until day.

Because I’m busy at work

and I smoke on my breaks,

who am I to bud in?

is it worth it?

 

 

 

Oh!

 

Oh!

What have I done,

pressed to my windpipe, 

The air, my blood, my voice

has wrung

like a towel set to dry,

dyed black and sewn into a hood,

then pulled over my eyes.

Tethered to the permanence of it all,

yet who am I to say?

A tectonic shift has torn the plates,

and it’s not but simple change.

Oh!

Relief floats through my flooded hearts ache,

and I shame!

The least I could do is give this day,

to lay and think to you,

I toast,

My friend.

 

 

 

 

ON A JOURNEY

How far I’ve come,

The heavy hide of my boots,

Caked with every soil, every thorn,

Every vine, from everywhere

I’ve gone.

And from those lands,

I’m gone.

 

I’ve no tonto to guide me,

No sacajaweia to show me the land,

I’ve learned which berries to seek and pick,

And how to build fires,

By hand,

I can,

Shade this map,

As I do.

To see all of the forests and towns I've been through,

and ease my heart that my stops are not gone,

I've just up and moved. 

I keep this pen to mark my map,

or even use mud from my boots,

and someday, I'll pass it to you. 

 

 

LEAVE THE DOG (OUT OF THIS)

 

Is it a scream, or perhaps a serenade?

On the note and the singer, it does depend.

The vibrations of the chords,  electric,

Dance of a harps wire, strummed specific

Within the throat of a woman’s scream,

as the hurricane takes her home,

into a nest of wood and brick. 

 

A roar, blood curdling,

Winds scream, fencepost and mailbox hurling,

Through the windows of what homes still stand,

Against the rage of typhoons swirling,

and flooding into the coldasack,

damned by lords vengeful murdering

There will be no service, the rain is here to bury me,

To this noise, O’ most depraved,

Screams of the hurricane will break your wine glass,

before do the waves.

And you must escape,

Grab your things, your clothes,

And all your pictures in their frames,

Too many, to carry with the dog,

So kiss her and pray,

that she is brave.

 

 

A GOOD RAIN

 

Gloss’d the twinkle in her eyes,

Painted on thick the glow of her skin

and rosy of her cheeks,

refreshed,

like a forest after a good rain

in the dead of summer.

 

SHARKS AND POLICE

 

I don’t smell it,

but there’s blood in the water.

That runs into the road on a rainy day,

Or drips from the faucets,

When your pa’ has gone away,

O’ the advice he’d have to say.

But if he were to stay,

we’d all be drenched thick once again,

as soon, the sky does rain.

 

 

 

ROADTRIP V1 - "We don't welcome your kind here"

 

O’ the towns,

Well more the outposts,

Outliar shanty’s among the trees,

That shrink in the rearview,

And window’s breeze

Like a wax sealed letter, received

Shrinking to a speck in the furnace,

By flames’ sure but gentle recede.

Wendy at the station,

Maybe Beverly or Marie.

Asks from behind her register,

What it is I need.

 

Of course,

only if I were to stop,

To see Wendy’s mushroom waistline

And liver spots on top.

In a shanty among the trees, I can surely say is not,

What it is about a country girl I had seen, been taught or thought

No overalls and bucktooth smiles, barefeet, or skipping rocks.

But a town, I’ll leave far behind, to shrink in the rearview to a speck

Or rot.

 

 

 

TALES OF RIDING SHOOTING STARS AND I COULD SHOW YOU HOW

 

Longing, prolonging whatever it is.

Dreams of gold,

but the doctor’s say those damned movies have programmed,

all we see as success.  

Dreams of a family,

and a white picket fence,

but how far than a few good meals and a few good nights

are we from a ring at any time,

I’ve lost the suspense.

Perhaps a man is meant to hunt and gather,

I can’t get fat or rich on sense.

 

Time’s like these I beg,

For rescue,

A sweet release.

Though I’ll be honest I’m afraid to end it all,

And bet against the slot machine,

On the chance, this game

I learn to beat.

 

Perhaps it takes a good concede,

A surrender of the ego,

or perhaps a long look in the mirror,

in a nice tuxedo,

Or just the warmth of a hug,

from a caring amigo.

 

 

With enough hopeless toiling of a bobby pin,

To pick a pitch black lock,

Every row of cylinders will eventually clear,

And you can see right through,

the door may not yet open

But the hopeless toiling can stop,

Whatever it is.

and you just might be surprised

 

 

 

GOLDEN EGG OR MOUNTAINOUS DEATH

 

The coveted final page does peek it’s giggling head on the horizon,

Like a rosy cheeked cherub from heaven above,

Oh this writing I’ve grown to love.

But a fear does creep from the beaches.

If my keyboard were to fail,

How my skin would go pale and I would be speechless.

Then I could only write by hand,

And no publisher could read my scratching!

But oh this got me asking,

 

To ponder such a tip of the scale to failure,

Is perhaps a sign of greatness,

As I approach the phoenix nest,

And eye it’s golden egg.

 

Or it could just be my genes to stress

From my grandmother instead,

Her memories of marching boots,

And bombings overhead.

I could always stop I reckon,

And start a plumbing business,

In this economy would surely flourish

But I think I can live with the ponder of loss,

I’ll snatch that egg,

And a coin, I will toss.

 

 

ALL IN THE WRISTS

 

When my mind has gone dark,

A light behind my iris does spark,

Burning

And my eyes glow red,

Under a full moon,

And the sheets of my bed,

Whispers of suffering float through my head,

Whispers of demons,

And those demons said

 

“We’ll take your wine,

And we’ll take your bread,

We’ll take your soul

And off with your head

 

You can,

Shudder

Under your covers,

We lick our lips,

 at your soft belly’s flutter,

We’ll rape your friends,

And drink the blood of your mother.”

 

I stare my glowing red eyes to the dark,

Chords in my neck bulge from the pain,

That it took me to say,

Okay.

I could hear the demon’s whispers,

As they had a double take,

As long im granted wrists of gold,

My soul is yours to take.

 

 

 

              

TOBACCO

 

A working man’s cigarettes,

Go next to his keys,

Right next to his wallet,

Beside the bed where he sleeps.

 

A cloud forms above him,

But does it storm?

It sure passes time,

At times keeps him warm.

 

Another day,

Without a raise,

Though it doesn’t much matter,

Once he’s paid.

Once he’s paid.

 

 

KNOCKOUT

I don’t bear my teeth when I smile,

Because of the holes,

Like I got my teeth knocked out,

When I was 18 years old.

 

I can still remember how it tasted,

Spitting blood and molars,

Onto the pavement.

Cold and shakin',

I knew what they were after,

But only my smile was taken.

 

Isn’t it funny,

How we can feel so warm, yet be so naked?

Until it hits you.

 

 

 

I AM THE TREE

I let a branch steam between my fingers.

I am the tree.

When I saw a face in the smoke,

And he said to me,

 

Now if you’re the tree,

What does that make me?

The seed?

I’ve some things to tell my son,

Indeed.

 

I take a hard swallow of my pride,

Down my gullet to the flutter of butterflies.

 

How nice it is to see my prize!

With a swirl of darkness,

I cannot shake.

Don’ t think I’ve come for my mistakes.

 

Why if you shake a tree,

There are leaves to rake,

Now my roots make a fist,

To the soil.

 

His face did warp,

A forest fire takes a spark,

But this is mere smoke.

That dissipates,

To the orchard.

 

 

RAVEN'S SONG

Aint a thing wrong,

Wish I could stop telling myself otherwise.

My choir is the ravens when we harmonize.

 

My eyes,

Catch the moonlight in the darkest skys

And then I wonder.

 

All that glitters isn’t gold,

Or at least that’s what I’ve been told.

How sticks and stones may break my bones.

 

So wheres the helmet?

I wear a helmet,

at least I try

To stop telling myself otherwise.

 

 

 

LONELYTOPIA

 A few weeks ago,

My plane crashed,

You know it hurts to even say that.

I’m on this island,

and I cannot find my way back.

 

I think I’m the only one here,

Unless nobody is in range of my ears,

I heard a rustle in the bushes,

It was only a deer,

I hope nobody see’s me like this,

Drinking my tears.

 

Theres no water,

And I’m no where close to open up,

I’m barely coping - ugh

On the island of Lonelytopia.

 

I see boats so far away,

They look tiny,

And I try to wave.

I made a fire, and I thought it burned a couple days,

But I see those boats go on their way,

Away.

 

I wonder if my family’s looking,

If they  know that I’m gone.

If they spend all day waiting,

And there lonely nights are long.

 

I know mine are,

And its comforting to be missed,

When if anything my family is just probably pissed.

While I’m stuck on lonelytopia.

Will it end like this?

 

 

JIVING UNDER THE INFLUENCE

My hair slicked to one side,

 two fingers in the product,

I like my curls to glisten!

No im not drunk!

A few drinks?

Im barely sippin!

 

Your not takin my keys from me,

I’m hittin the street, taking i-83

And I might just stop for a quick Jim Beam!

So hop off!

 

I get on the road, pedal to the floor

I’m driving just fine,

I told those suckers, these keys are mine!

But I do wonder who painted these curvy white lines.

 

Then I saw a flash through the sky!

I thought it was white lightning!

But it was those goddamn red and blue lights up behind me!

 

Oh good going, god! Good gracious!

Good god from,

Bethlehem,

 to Philly!

Good god it’s the cops, im drunk,

Fuck me silly!

 

I pull off to the side, c’mon, KEEP IT COOL!

I’M COOL!

COOL DRY PLACE,

COLD,

THE PANTRY,

THE ARTIC,

THE MOVIE THEATRE!

MY HEART!

 

RELAX, RELAX,

EASY AS CHEESE!

 

Um excuse me, mister,

License and registration please.

 

So I took out my license,

And I gave it a pass,

And I squirmed from the hipflask shoved way up my ass,

I better not reach for my glovebox too fast!

 

He looked at my picture,

Then back at my eyes,

I tried to smile!

And he smiled back real nice!

Then he said,

 

Sir, have you been drinking tonight?

 

I shook my head!

My eyes did swell,

I was ready to cry,

To beg for gods help!

 

Not so fast, mister.

I won’t make an arrest,

But your crying like a bitch,

Not really looking your best.

 

Look, your alright,

I don’t even carry a burner,

I just feel a little bad is all

For being a government murderer.

 

You have a good night out there,

Just making sure you weren’t in any kind of hurry.

Stay safe tonight, and bud,

Don’t you worry.

 

 

EXPERIMENTAL ELDERLY POETRY (EEP)

 

Sprawled on porcelain tile,

A bitter old man does lay.

He’s been stranded on the bathroom floor,

Since he fell down, yesterday.

 

He thinks of television’s sizzle,

It’s contents, black and white.

When the old man was a boy,

and he was tucked to bed at night.

 

My stinkin wife has left me,

And so have both my kids.

I thought that woman was the one,

But now she’s got half my shit.

How I do resent them, those goddamn lazy brats.

 

Now grandpa,

 

at least im not stuck in the bathroom like a turtle on it’s back!

 

God?

 

No, you lumpy sack of skin! Is that really what you think?

No wonder you’ll be on that tile until you rot and stink!

 

Do you think I’m scared to die?

I’ve seen the goddam jungles, I’ve taken grown mens lives.

 

But you can’t seem to keep a woman happy, and you tried with both your wives!

 

Hey, who do you think you are! I’m too old for this

If it was up to me, we’d all be happy, ease my consciousness. 

 

I’m just giving you shit old man, I don’t blame your tunnel vision

But wouldn’t a family help with this little lump to floor collision?

 

Life happens, a shame or not,

I don’t regret a thing.

I may not regret it, but I never said life won’t sometimes sting.

 

Not bad old man, I’ll tell ya,

That was almost sweet.

But all the life you’ve lived and you’ll settle with defeat?

 

Maybe so, alright.

 

I am but just a man.

I grew up in a time, where things already had their plan.

But doesn’t it feel natural, to mourn your families love?

Well shit, I guess it does.

The old man lay, eyes wide,

Sprawled on the porcelain floor, hungry and alone.

Starving, starved, and had been famished for many many years.

Now he dies on the bathroom floor, his cheeks fresh streaked with tears.

 

4 POEMS

 

Nomads

The nomads of a history book

Natives with feather pelts.

Who sell the white men all of their land for just a handful of shells.

 

But oh how those pages burn,

Foul smelling ghosts float off of them,

Are not missed.

 

And I’ve no place to go.

 

Sure I’ve got a bed and,

a few frames from my mother.

 

But I wouldn’t call it home.

 

Burn the books! Torch the shelves!

I won’t trade my rings for no damn shells!

But I’ll leave this place for whatever comes my way,

Because I’ve no place else.

 

Celebration

Can a lightning bug’s flicker?

Or a peacocks flourish?

Match the rosy of a warm cheeks glow,

On a woman you so adore?

When the dogs do wrestle and holler,

Do they drink and cry for their past?

Smile for their future?

Perhaps a dolphin,

Its dull slicing soar through the ocean green

may fall in love?

 

Yet not from their glass cage, counting days with shamu.

 

When the supermarkets close,

We’ll be left to the buzzards.

They will pick at our carcass then fly away,

No matter the harvest.

 

But a pampered flame does burn

Through the day and through the night.

A kindling of groups,

A spark of an iris.

Celebration is our claim to be.

With a holiday feast.

 

 

 

Cancer

No cancer does ravage a man,

Like an iris infectious: apathy.

 

No pastry, no fruit so sweet: Delicate

Like a Huxley pair of luminescent doors,

Spread ajar.

 

A still pond,

That does knead videre to its width,

And leaves them limber.

 

No pond is ever still,

The motion, divine impressionist strokes in real time,

By only her lightest wrist.

 

A simple reaction,

Abstained surpassing.

 

 

 

Her

A fire dances with the fast, twitch scurry of a spider.

Though a crackling flame, has a bit more rhythm.

A waving tango, scolding- seduce.

Go on.

 

The silhouette of a vase, the curve of a flame

And the scent of pollen,

Perfume.

 

A shape like a secret algorithm, that does activate.

How the embers do float off a dancing flames waist into a glaring orange stare.

Inviting to its warmth.

 

Such a process that is as much fire, as its heat:

Sparks on a bed of kindling,

Delicate pursed lips to rear a cradle of sparks,

To a most wondrous necessity.

 

 

 

AN INTRO FOLLOWED BY 2 UNNAMED POEMS

 

Hormonal sad boy, has his prose cross hairs (today) set on the many differing angles and unforgiving nature of love. From young love: a swelling bubble so great, it is impossible to step out of, which many experience along a near sense of masochism. To old love: of which the bubble is at times evidently deflated, the sense of masochism has faded into maturity and those with experience are more compelled to “tear out the hook” and continue their search towards self-fulfillment. Of course, as much of a feeling as hunger or pain, when we are hungry, a full belly is all we need. When we are really hungry, what we eat matters exponentially less. However, what difference does the fuel make if our needs are met? And who came out of the whom with a refined, healthy pallet, asking for fruits and veggies before they asked for mac n' cheese? And no matter how many cows had to get their titties squeezed in an industrial torture chamber/dairy farm, and it might clog your arteries eventually, does that make mac' n cheese any less great? O.K..K.O.

 

 

Unnamed Poem 1

A fishing hook, in some strange accident, has lodged itself inside my head.

The day it happened on the docks, how blood ran down my temples!

A horrid sight, a horrid pain, the worst that I’ve been through.

But worst of all the doctor says, there’s nothing he could do.

 

Now I live a normal life, in time my hair has grown passed the anchor in my scalp.

Though on occasion, I will admit that I do have some pain.

Like a fishing line from just off shore, tries to reel me in again!

At times I think the pain will never cease, I was always meant to choke.

But O’ that pain is good to me, I know the line ain’t broke.

 

 

Unnamed Poem 2

This dog sleeps, in one big heap, under the rocker at an old mans feet.

This dog sleeps, in one big heap, under the rocker at an old mans feet.

Now the old man lie six feet deep,

And his dog lie still, while his wife does weep.

This dog stares at the widow cold,

As the old man once did, when he had grown old.

The widow now quiet, yet her cheeks still streaked, she thinks

“That old man was never good to me!”

She stares at the dog in one big heap, under the rocker at an old mans feet.

She thinks of that sour old man who sleeps,

And the widow kicked this old dog out to the street.

 

 

 

SHADOW POETRY 1

 

Like a shadow far greater than mine,

It casts over me

A secret growth that does sometimes pain

 

Is a part of me

 

Do I cast a shadow?

I wish there was a way to learn,

When the sunny days are scarce

 

ANNUALS AND PERENNIALS

A simple distinction between annuals and perennials of the garden.

 

Annual, The delicate, velvety petal of a Vinca’s blossom. Opulent woven linens, shimmering to a near shade of silver. To the deepest, most handsome royal purple of depths, marine.

Delicate foliage strum melodies at the angel’s lyre of ones senses, as if a tickle only she could itch. The stem of an annual, always sprouts with elegance, the gentle curve of mother natures’ most seductive pose.

She holds her arms out to the world under the suns fullest shower. Like the fiery, orange burst of a marigold reaching out for her softest embrace.

Though an annual knows no period of blue, it will simply die. Its germination will halt from the sun that birthed her, after a maximum, hence the name, one year. To be replanted, from a new seed, by gloved hands in pursuit of finding her effortless beauty once more. 

A Perennial will seldom bare the gentle curve of an Annual stem. In fact, more of a branch. Hearty if you will. Tending to grow slower, of outward beauty that will take time to develop, if she ever gets a chance. However, the journey a flower makes through the shaft of a Crape Myrtle, from its buried seed, is a journey well worth a sweetest, most exquisite ripple of rosy pink flower, blushing at the beauty she thought impossible to achieve. Outstretching a docile, flattered smile into the wind, at the tip of a sturdy branch. 

As seasons pass, the flowers of a crape myrtle will fray and descend, leaving the empty stalks of autumn. Yet, her perennial will return year after year, flowering again in spring, like every tree you've ever seen. Never needing to be re-planted, crafted somewhere, to endure.

 

 

UNDERWATER

 

When I’m underwater, the body I’m in matters much less,

The body I’m in also matters much less.

My eyes did not open to the salt even when I became weak.

My senses could not detect my struggle.

Underwater, in the dark,  I was only my breath,

And underwater I took no breaths.

 

A warmth in my belly did bring comfort slight,

I thought I had reached the end.

Underwater I did not feel life in those arms that clutched my torso.

Yet I was not afraid,

even if those arms came of a giant crab standing over me.

I was quite sure of a threshold, I had broken.

I was ready.

 

But those arms held me tighter and I ascend the ocean floor.

I left behind the crabs, the coral

And the sandy grave, I must say was so soft.

I had found my first comfort since the night before at the patch of sand I landed.

My first reaction as I neared the surface was annoyance- that of an old man, awaken too early.

I nearly had it!

I realized just how “nearly” when I could not tell we had reached the surface.

 

Perhaps I had blacked out,

as they rung me dry on the docks.

Though on the surface, those arms did become warm and caressing.

I awoke on my back, the air took a mad dash into my lungs, clamoring at the doors for their open.

I was still soaking wet, my breathing still choppy.

But now I was scared.

The sun shined so bright I could not look towards the sky.

Sightless limits in that moment were intimidating.

All I could have missed for better or for worse!

Sweet relief did massage my gullet.

Perhaps I should see a doctor! But first let me dry off.

 

 

 

AIN'T SHIT SWEET BUT MY SWISHER

A veil across her tender lips, blur her soft complexion. A gown that glides across the floor, which drapes right passed her figure.

Yet shoulders peak besides her neck, elegant curves, strokes from the gentle wrists wielding mother earth’s pen. Though her blurred expression is indiscernible, gloved hands by her side. A gown so broad, as if to spare such beauty from wandering eyes.

How could a world continue working without some kind of shade?

Yet born into beauty, is no reason to hide.

A working world that’s tinted green, our eyes forget how to wander.

A world of life shielded with tint, is a world of life that’s squandered.

Though every child is a maestro on their macintosh piano, our mothers and fathers have lost the influence, as youth they could not escape. Now, Mother earth has lost her gown, it gets tangled with her feet. The beauty of earth we can all admire along our twisted swisher sweet.

 

 

 

 

YO GLENDA, PUMP YO BRAKES

There was once an old woman named Glenda, who only stood about 4 foot, 10. She lived on her own as a widow, pushed her kids away, way back when. One day Glenda got a call, that startled her just a bit. So she turned the volume down on Antiques Roadshow, and placed the phone up to her lips...

"helloo?"

She was hoping that it was her grandson (although he hasn't called back in years), but instead it was a prince from Nigeria and he was already, nearly in tears. He spoke of gold and riches, beyond either their wildest dreams, but the turmoil in his country had made him "simply want to scream!" As long as he was back home, his riches stayed locked away, he'd only be able to reach them from god blessed U.S. of A. The prince's request was simple and really not so much to ask, he just needed a credit card number so he could finally check his bags. Now Glenda was surely touched, by the story she had just heard, but oh old Glenda was greedy, to deny such a chance would be absurd. She was exult with the luck she perceived, "out of anyone, why call me?" Old Glenda, pulled out her wallet, read her info and repeated it twice, how could her grandchildren not like her? she thought, "I'm just so goddamn nice!"

Now once the Prince could read it back to her, she asked him when he would arrive, promised him a bed and supper, until his riches could come alive. A few moments of silence fell on the phone, when Glenda noticed the line had choked, she tried and tried to call him back, but now Glenda is fucking broke. 

 

CHANGES

Could never see eye to eye, and didn’t bring another set of clothes

To search the pockets of my other jeans for this change I truly need.

Searching through these pages, time and through the ages, looking for someone out there who survived these changes.

And sometimes it feels dangerous. Am I supposed to be thinking this much?

If I didn’t, I could be like everyone who never had a heartbreak, who never had big dreams to fail. With thinking this much, It’s like all we can do is go off the rails.

But as long as we see changes and they leave us confused. All we can ever see is other humans with changes of their own.

We could never know judgement because of where you’re from. Or what you say or what you think, just people more confused than us. If only they'd admit for all of our sake. 

See, any animal can adapt, even if it’s abstract. To the changes and confusion that only time can ever crack.

If we’re feeling around in the dark, feeling changes is the only progress we can grab. So grab it and hold on tight, as tight as you can and learn from the challenges in your head, and listen to what those changes said.

 

A SHORT POEM WRITTEN COLD AND POOR IN NYC

As water is to wine,

As feeling is to mountains,

Cascading range of majesty,

Perhaps there is a fountain.

 

TURTLE DOVES CAN'T SMOKE WEED

A turtle dove will sail the winds as a doe will prance the foliage, to the cadence of natures breast.

A man knows no such instinct, a decision at every breath.

A dove will never know heart break or stress about a job, and will never learn rules of fire safety like touching a hot door knob.

With so much between man and nature, it's easy to get confused,

So we smoke weed, make love as much as we can and hope to dream away the blues.

A turtle dove only knows it's place, a mind will never pass his nest.

While man, some way can look past what we see of that which is concrete,

peaks higher than any mountain, filled with faces we'll never meet.

A prancing doe cannot improve on the life of which it leads, 

while man is left to conquer nature we cannot truly see.

Anger, Love, Compassion, I cannot touch my own dispair

I cannot feel the smoke upon my lips but I know it's surely there.

To put ones head into the clouds, among the turtles glide.

Our world goes passed our senses, and what our hands can hold.

Perhaps it seems unfair,

A dove can live and die by instinct, no need for the abstract.

But turtle doves can't smoke weed,

and that's a mothafuckin fact.