Day: February 28, 2010

passive-aggressive

poetry

sitting in your little
room,
shaking,
pressing playPRESSINGSTOP,
you grin.

you continue shaking.

you breathe a sigh of
relief,
“at least no one knows”
you think to yourself,
sating your nerves with
positivity.

your eyes see a bathroom
on your computer screen,
brought to you by apple
inc. and your girlfriend
is sleeping in the other room
and noticing this you get up
and walk what seems miles
to hear her loudly snoring and
you thinkSHITILEFTITON
and you hurry back and
you realize that you’re shaking
again and this sigh stutters
out of your mouth and falls
to the pit of your stomach

again you press play

you skip past the part
where you set up the
camera,
past the part where you
leave,
past the part where she
uses the bathroom

again you press play

the shakes come on
hard,
real hard,
you smile
grin
you smile and grin
i see you smiling
and grinning
cheesing
pressing play
i see your white teeth
through your smile
i see and i know i smelled
it on you,
i smelled it on your breath
trailing every word that
you said,
i wont forget that smell
and i wont let you live
with that.

not with that smile.

Speak to me, Ms. Universe

poetry

Your contours are just
right
but when your plastic pieces
break
how will your body bring
your fetid mind to bear
against the daunting task
of teaching it

I suppose you’ll learn
the hard way
what the choice of
beautiful vapidity
can do to a girl.

Or,
more likely,
you just won’t
learn at all.

do not associate the focus of this poem with any type of pre-existing ideal or concept that exists within your brain unless, of course, you’re right

poetry

you have shown me how
to get things done
you have shown me what
emotions can do
i have seen how you let
random entities bounce
chaotically off of each-other
for eternity

you have shown me how
i can be fooled
i have witnessed the steadfast
nature of your creations and
i have listened to old men
talk,
old men who really had it;
i listened and understood

i have seen men beating
their heads against walls
until they bled out into the
streets,
i have seen how little
communication exists between
people,
i have heard how much
you have to say–
i have listened when i could,
i am afraid i have not understood
much;
i am also afraid that there is not
much to understand

i cannot tell you how life is
across the universe
but i can hazard a guess that
will come very close

i can still not understand people,
i cannot believe;
which is why i cannot understand
you,
or much of what you say,
however loud you say it

i can never let the ink dry
before i throw away today’s
draft,
because i wake up with the sun
and see it erase the meaning
of all that i had imagined that
very day with it’s waning
over the horizon like white-out
over a dissertation written by
humanity,
who, collectively, is unsure
when exactly the paper is due.

Mr. Pierce

poetry

Mr. Pierce was a
Mechanic. In the
Second Big War, he
worked on tanks and
trucks and jeeps
and other things
that mechanics might
work on in war.

His hands were sort
of a dark gray,
from all the grease
and oil and years
and years, his
fingernails the only
clean spot on those
hard used, elder
hands. Oh, they’ll
never come clean.

He killed a man,
he said. Those
dirtied hands had
pulled the trigger
on a rifle, aimed
at some poor fool
with a different
patch on his
uniform.

He washes his hands
after every meal,
and he doesn’t
even change his own
oil these days,
but his hands
are still that gray
color, and oh,
they’ll never come
clean.

He says that blood
and oil run a
different sort
of color, but
it all stains the
hands the same.
He washes his hands
after every meal,
but oh, they’ll
never come clean.

To My Lovesick Cactus

poetry

I could travel from your heart to mine, engross myself in a decadent passion, even learn how to flatter and tickle your little heart already dressed up for a flirt stroll. Smother and disappoint you over and over.
Love comes over me like a disease, so run before I get to you. I bring with me a deluge. Spit and let go, i am already on the ground. Rabid souls scream to the wind their rage, but I lay my fury at your feet- leave before it buries you. 
Do not cry or laugh as you go, I am not so humble or stupid. I know I am not the only one. You can always run with the herd or join the pack. I envy the space they give to lies; i can’t mimic a moo or show you shinny fangs. I can only fall with raindrops.

    

i’d give you a reason to grieve but my mind, she keeps running loops around my words. i reel her in for not.

poetry

in modest times
we wore our faces
full of beards we could
not bear to bare in public
before audiences of
both men and the ladies
to whom we preached
the awkward lies
of global cooling
to soothe those of
weaker consciousness
the ones our mothers
told us we should include
on the playground
but despite our good
intentions we dared not
approach their leper
like social status

alpha

poetry

back in the
d
a
y
we used to ride the dead
leaves through the hellish
michigan winters
all shady hazed and listless

and my blue car was nervous
around college girls

we made it out like kings of
a shit-hill-made-of-gold,
crowns reflected in our
bloodshot eyes

and we forgot all the names
of the days and the places

now, between stints in county
lock-up and governmental fines
we breath in deep and waste
our time waiting;
because they always catch the
fire but they never catch the
fireworks.