adulthood aka the fall from grace

poetry

once I was a star-eyed child
standing still
between a muddy earth and a glistening sky and
dream of fire and God.
I had not learned how to tip toe
I was lighter then,
and silence was still.

Give me a holiday without
holes beneath my feet,
clowns dancing above my head.
oh a holiday,
a holiday’s
scent of lilac and jasmine,
soft and intoxicating.

reflections on the imminent fatherhood of fellow amateur poet roger mugs

poetry

i cannot believe–

the same guy who shaved
a single mutton chop just
to see to if anyone would
notice (and then forgot)

the same guy who vowed
to wear black pants and a
white shirt for an entire
year (but failed because of a girl)

the very same guy who ran
nude with us across
Norlin quad and into the
shockingly cold night (after some hesitation)

the exact same guy who breathed
in the Pacific after we drove
to the edge of the continent to
sleep under Redwood trees (eventually)

–will soon be a father.

i cannot believe the guy who

shaved
vowed
ran
breathed

will soon be a father.

but i am confident he will
be brilliant (and quite the
embarrassment during her
teenage years).

the father to be

tomorrow at 5 am we’ll induce and by tomorrow night i’m gonna be a daddy!

poetry

red and pink
pack your bags
tomorrow you’ll be a dad

and notes scribbled on the back
of receipts showing your desire
to not lose even one word of
whats coming

all the people wondering why you chose here
to write it down

will words
can a word
describe the experience

new – not feelings or experience
LIFE
of mine!

no desire to eat
placenta
but oh to see her break
into the world the very first time

that very first breath
i want to see her

but much more
to kiss your head
to pray for you

i want to hold my daughter

26 jan 5

poetry

eyelids cower back to call on arms and brain but mind enough

curse your mom once your chin breathes and you find where you’ve been dropped

float or swim around you’ll drown or hit the wall

(tired or not)

but if you busy yourself going nowhere long enough to turn your head on purpose, even if upstream, you’ll soon enough reach one place: where you guessed and saw better and better

 

 

 

wishing for utopias from my dystopian world

poetry

24 years after 1984
and i’m still reading dystopias
because they seem the most true

I Want to Believe
That the world will be a better place
That everyone will be equal
That the future is on an upward course.

but no matter how much i want to believe
i can’t get past the lessons
that Mulder taught and the fear
that we are all mind slaves
caught up in our ideology:
capitalism
communism
what’s the difference-ism
if in the end
we are always wrong
in the end.

there may be no Big Brother prying around
but is America all that different?
there may be no Fahrenheit 451
but surely Fahrenheit 911 isn’t much better.
in our quest for a better world
do We inevitably end with a Brave New one?
or is it as Nathaniel said
that man’s accidents are God’s purposes
that no purposeful action will ever do what we intend?
after the Earth’s Holocaust
will everything merely be the same
in the end?

spring 4

poetry

hurtful in texture but not to touch

because imagination is the foreplay of experience.

i think therefore i am,

and i also trust all i can see,

and believe only what i can predict

all it means is that i’m embarrassed when alone

not guilty.

fresh sashes over empty faces,

both struggling;

patience and keep worthless once a martyr is announced value.

seduced by the supple taste abreast

i wander the waning wide-open.

 

 

 

When a poem refuses to come out,

poetry

Convince others that one sees the world exactly as it is, rotten and unreedemed, and understands that one will change nothing of it not even our aging bodies.
Yet believe in the secrecy of ones soul that one can improve the world, even the neighbor of stage who sneers and cackles when she sees you.
Make her beautiful like politics, noble like justice, and generous like life. All turn in circle, so and how little it matters if she is vicious, if one is vicious, if the world is old, because all turn and stop not. Otherwise it’s death, the death people loathe or welcome, which despite everything never misses its secret rendez vous and lurks in silence, prompt to gather someone, anyone in its arms at the least excessive sign. The anguish of being no more is banal, one wears it on the forehead like an invisible tag:”will die one day”, and engraved in the feisty spirit:”as late as possible.”
Nothing is to be done, one is born mortal. Nevertheless, everyone precipitates ones life differently. Some people save and manage life like the budget of a country with an imminent crisis, others consume life intensely and fast as if they have only few minutes left. Most people, however, either resort not to think about it or emulate someone else life.
Still none of it matters, life holds everyone in the palm of her hand, and magnanimously question ones existence. She tickles and throws ones vulnerability in the face by simply asking: “who are you?”, and “what are you doing here on earth?”

two friends. and i swear one is not beer.

poetry

one.
giving you up
like ignoring
that itch on my leg

i know it’ll pass
if i just

wait.

but you’re so soft
cooling my sweat
slowing my heart
easing me to sleep every night

and the worst part?
i can justify you

two.
dont forget when you almost
died
and i was there to pull you out

remember how i held you
and watched over you as you cried

do i lose
points for bringing it up

why do you fear salvation?

the song your band never sang

poetry

and breathe
life is not about

(please pause for the bass interlude)

what you think it is
because no one cares
for your 40 inch

(please pause for the guitar solo)

tv
because everyone knows
its not about the size
but rather about

(please pause as the drummer does his thing)

how well it drives in
your new car but its not about that

breathe

(silence as the words go on but the music stops)

life is not about
all the things you never handles well or all the things you wear and hear and
who you knew and what you wanted out of it
because you know its just not like you thought it was

(crescendo and pause as you scream)

just something more

Damaged

poetry

Behind the glass window, she waits
for lust and obsession to pass,
for claustrophobic thoughts and the spasmodic soul to stop

In the living room shadows, nasty ogling beasts wait for her- to
crack, snap and break
till there is nothing left-
maybe bones or ashes scattered somewhere no one cares to look

At the bottom of eternity a boy waits,
amidst the tomorrows that never came,
the ashes of furtive passions,
for the second before he hurt her