I’ve never even seen
such a sight as a
volcano in the
back yard.
And the smoke
and the fire did
consume all of the
unprecious fuel we
fed it.
And I’m sure we shouldn’t
burn old tires and oil
but sir, I must admit
that it was cool, and
you can’t prove a
god damn thing
anyway.
Glancing along the bookshelf
Don Quixote stares back at me
And underneath him staggered sideways
There’s an infinite number
Watching back at me
Like hundreds of rectangular eyes
Hiding in the shadows of moons and suns
Finding respite in tollbooths and towers
Since the beginning
When red letters spilled onto delicate pages
Tenderly crafted so that even
The smallest rodent and elephants
Can drink from the same water
Until they finally come undone
The voyage ending
Returning to the roots
Alongside the stream
Perfection finds its place
lined up in a row just like ducks,
are so many happy, shiny products
that soon lost their shimmer,
lost their shine and glimmer,
and then what is to be done
when all usefulness is gone
but to trot them out on a weekend day
and try to sell them all away
to whomever is in need
or whomever is desiring
of something deemed to be junk
of something that’s been in a trunk,
locked away from the sun’s light
perhaps in an attic closed up tight,
and that will someday face the same fate
passing to the next who thinks it’s great,
only to be sold on again
and again and again and again.
when trouble falls like lemon-ny
drops high above the chim
mini chops thats where you;ll
fiiiiind sheeee
ooooo ooooo ooooo ooooo oo oo o
bu bu bu bu bu bu bu bu.
somewhere over this painful
feels good lies
and here i wait for therapy
i dont know why i dont die die die!
die die die
oooooo mmmmm ooo oo oo o o
bu bu bu bu bu po po po
i try to think
of a word, any word
to say and break the void
stretching between the two of us
like a tiny time bomb
that could blow at any moment,
you could blow at any moment.
glue like gas
smells when inhaled
but burns when
excreted
when it feels like all communication
has broken down and every station
lost it’s transmitting power, we are
left to wait and wonder, staring at
a blank screen, listening to a
dead line, hoping for
a single word or whisper,
for a single note to sound,
for a single piece of proof that
we are not the only ones that
have been suffering from
mis-communication
but we always get so antsy
with the dials left where they should be
and no good thing to fix the thing but
time.
But alas, at least
(sometimes) time is cheap,
and in these such circumstances,
plentiful.
I was born refined and pure
I was born refused and denied
All in all I was born, memories full
The sun hardened my form, while the moon pulled me round
Do not shake me too hard
deep within, I carry sounds of firing guns, mortars and tanks
loud and heavy.
Give me time to grow up and understand the haste to kill and
the ethnic difference in my thirteen year old body-
wounded and agonizing in the open grave.
Rage and fear squeezes my soul,
dulled and sullied
What to make of all this sorrow? and the night slipping inside me
such as a scabious dog to which stones are thrown
and seeks to die further away in a ditch.
So that war may leave me,
I would have liked to become aerial
run away and float under a sun that wouldn’t blush my cover
But, the void does not color, only the moon that nothing
disgusts shine through the living slum.
When the wind comes and blows the dust off me
the pain will finally be gone
So let us not mourn together anymore
all that will never be,
all that howls breathless and alone through the night.
I am back, such as the unfaithful wife returns after deserting her home,
humble and small
I have gone to sea and come back with my head on my hand
Almost slain, almost loved
I can only confess half of my sins and wish I had sinned more
Both world and home move on and over my dislodged limbs,
expanding in words and invisible shapes.
I confess I resent you half as much as I love you
Having loved only two people in my life, all of you included,
I have certainly returned just as sane.
the children arrived first
on the scene, and seeing them
in impressive numbers sprinting across
the square we thought
they were playing a game
until we heard someone say, a grin playing
across her lips,
“kavon’s been shot!”
digust crushed me thinking
perhaps she savored this moment, anticipating
times she’d get to retell it.
others, smiling similarly, emerged in uneven sudden bursts
from their houses, like puss from popped pimples,
and rushed towards the anguished screams
of those i assume were his loved ones
(but i can’t be sure since i refused
to make a spectacle of sorrow)
but am i any fucking better?
my first thought:
this needs to be a poem.
Vonnegut said, English consists
Of idiosyncratic arrangements
In horizontal lines of about
Twenty-six phonetic symbols.
These letters forming words,
They mean less and less every time.
Pick one out and say it over
And over.
And over.
And over.
Two.
Two.
Two.
Sounds like a tutu.
Two.
Two.
Two.
Sounds like a semi-automatic rifle.
The words mutate until they’re meaningless
Only funny, awkward sounds
Squirting from my contorted mouth
Purple.
Purple.
Purple.
Pur-Pull.
Per-Pull.
Poor Bull.
Purble?
Purgle?
And nothing makes sense anymore.
“you never count your money
while you’re sittin at the table,”
and i’ve learned that today:
not for the first time;
not for the last time.
but what if the dealing is never done?
night ache from an unknown source
caused luigi more pain than he’s seen
since jr. high wrestling when a dinkus
named bob kneed him
morning came with neck pain to boot
thinking i’m too young for this i mounted
my bike and rode till everything went a
blissful noticeable numb
home and showering as luigi reminds
me he still hurts
left my baby earth-side
for a cold steel sphere in space
and here i am in the void
with a black tin can sky
and i feel dry
I can’t
accomplish
much
when there’s
nothing
to
accomplish.
Alternatively
I’m at least
half-
way
lying
“Woohooha, we’re monkey boys!”
We yelled.
Jumping up and
down
on the old tractor wagon.
Plucking banana shaped leaves
off the ancient tree out back.
The days were endless
in our magical ship
through the jungle.
Four years old and beaming
at our newly hoarded stash.
Then we became hungry,
racing inside for supper,
to escape the giant gorilla.
i don’t know whether
to root for my success
or court my failure.
bring relief and reminders
that life isn’t only about trying
to find words to describe our daily
travel through death defying
skull and cross-bone warning
creaky, dusty, burned out, deserted
hallways and rooms of old
its also about friends and family
and life outside outside our own
box.
but then the publishers write
and i get confused again
(today i got an email from lulu
saying they wanted to put our book
for sale up at amazon – weird)
The urge to wander
SWELLS
within one’s being, pushing,
coaxing one to tarry
just behind the line of
automatic people
that they
MUST
follow.
But, the urge to wander
SWELLS
so great, sometimes
it is impossible
to resist, despite
one’s own automatic
gearing.
The urge has
SWOLLEN
now. Throbbing just beneath
my breast, oh-so-near the
SOUL,
which I hold oh-so-dear.
I’ve since begun to tarry.
I’ve since gone to the shop.
It’s expensive, but they’re
changing my transmission
to a manual.
make me feel guilty
at my own lack of
dedication to extract
beauty from
each day
at least once.
It’s been twelve days
Since you briskly exited the room
Walking through the ornately carved
Dark cherry coloured door,
A resounding click as the lever fell into place.
We could’ve had some great times—
Sip diner coffee at two in the morning,
Black, two sugars and free refills.
Cheer boisterously at baseball games,
You got so excited you spilled your soda.
Could’ve shared our writing,
My favorite was the one set in Boston—
If only I would have introduced myself.
a flock of
birds circle
the courtyard
like foamy waves
breaking
at forty stories.
open the door and
take the elevator down,
down, down, down, down, down;
into the dark and
the smoke that swirls around,
down, down, down, down, down;
into the past where
that prohibition feeling surrounds,
down, down, down, down, down;
where the music pervades
filling every crevisce with sound,
down, down, down, down, down;
where heads grow light
as drink after drink goes down,
down, down, down, down, down.
cast about for words
that don’t seem to come
because there’s nothing,
nothing on the surface to say,
and we don’t want to go
beyond the surface
because if we were open,
really, really open,
then everything would change,
and we would never again laugh together
because the shadow of the depth,
the shadow would always remain,
tinting and tainting our mirth,
striking it away;
so we’ll perpetually sit in silence
until only the silence remains.
“It’s so nice to be together
but to not feel like we have to talk,”
I found myself thinking
whilst driving with old friends
to whom I had no idea what to say;
and I all but convinced myself
that this was how it should be,
trying to not recognize the probability
that our friendship had passed away,
and that only a faint semblance remained.
No-one’s sure
where they went
but everyone knows
that they’re back
by popular demand.
Punk Rock will
hardly be the same.
the ones with no core
because they’re heartless in a fruity
kind of way that lacks both pit
and love and every emotion
because while it technically lives
it lives in an “I absorb my
nutrition through a process call
photosynthicrap, you ever heard of it?”
kind of a way which no one even
in your vicinity appreciates
especially for someone that looks
like you
we just have less patience i suppose
because
Productivity
Is relative
To the amount
Of work
Being done
In the first place.
Perhaps to feel more
Productive
The least
Amount of work
Should be produced
In order
To feel more
Productive
So that
When any progress
Is made
I feel much more
Productive
Than I had been.
Relatively speaking.
