Author: beighartman

Sometimes You Just Have To Suck It Up

poetry

Every once in a while, 
(More often if you’re not careful)
It doesn’t turn out like you planned. 

The pour misses, 
The spout miscalcuates,
The cup teeters (and falls).
Worst of all there’s a crack or tear. 

The waters sploshes along the tabletop.
The iced-tea splatters on the counter.
The Kool-Aid (of myriad colors) stains the tablecloth.
The orange juice slunks over the sink. 
The Pepsi simmers on the linoleum.

But sometimes you just have to slurp it up,
Cause what’s the use of crying over spilled milk
When it’s still perfectly good anyway?

God Made Noses to be Picked, Otherwise He Would Have Made Fingers Fatter or Nostrils Smaller

poetry

Beside the stroller,
Petting zoo’s spectacles temporarily forgotten;
Wheat-brown palms find their destination;
Protuberant pupils slant in concentration;
Tongue set between taut lips.

No miner’s tools—no light necessary;
Digging deep with precision—cache in the offing;
Explores, pinpoints, delivers.

Bashful mirth—victory coo; a toddler’s smile;
He extends a stout fingertip, smothered moist, green algae;
Offering exhibition of his treasure, nonpareil.

Peeling the Orange

poetry

The palpable scent—
Sweet, sickly,
heavy,
Clings to weigh down hydrogen,
citrus molecules,
Barometric pressure.

Discarded rinds—
Sliding, peeled
with grasps, gasps, gentle tug,
separating soft slices,
taste exotic fare.

Rinds redolent of potpourried sweat
tropical fruit—
Delicious, dripping bare.

Fall-ing

poetry

Autumn brunette
A dash of burnt orange
Ripe pumpkin
And pumpernickel
Layered fallen leaves
Intertwining amongst
A clear complexion
Of fresh, marble corn
Dotted with
Sparkling blueberries
The face of a fall harvest
Of beauty so common
But that doesn’t mean
I want to look away

The Curious Case of the Blinking Cursor

poetry

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|u n |d e |r l |i n |e _ |_
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|P r |e s |s _ |r e |p e |a t |_ _ |_ _
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|_ _ |_ _ |_ _ |_ R |e w |i n |d
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|I n |f i |n i |t y |_
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|I n |f i |n i |t e |s i |m a |l _ |_ _ |_ _ |_ _
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|_ I |t s |_ a |l l |_ t |h e |_ _ |_ _
|s a |m e |_ _
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|I t |s _ |n o |t h |i n |g _ |a t |_ a |l l |_ _ |_ _
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Lady in the Pink Hat

poetry

She sits a pew closer
– to God, I don’t know.
A sister, much older,
Enough to be my grandmother.
She wears a pink hat
Salt and pepper curls sprinkle her shoulders.
Passing her the offering plate, she doesn’t see.
I waggle to dish, gaining her attention,
Immediately feeling rude, irreverent and impatient.
Shortly she turns to show me the correct hymn,
Then before prayer, lovingly grasps my hand
– swathing blue veins on her aging fingers.
And I know all is well.

For A Limited Time Only

poetry

I’m not looking at the clock
except maybe on birthdays.
Working hard, but
for a limited time only.
For seventy or so years I’ll labor,
and then I’m going home.
And at home is where
I’ll shed my clothes,
shed my skin,
shed my muscles,
shed my bones.
I’ll sit at the table.
We’ll all sit around the table,
like a giant family reunion.
We’ll bow our heads and say grace,
and I’ll hold hands with my Father.

Pedals

poetry

Life is a street
On which we travel
Pedal over pedal spins the wheel of our years;
The end lost in futures,
They fly into our pasts,
We only watch their memoirs, stop/start.

Freighted with bitter,
Crimsoned with sweet,
We skitter around potholes to our bright potential;
Their cunning edges,
Their filthy centers,
We never shall know. And the bicycle as it goes
Navigates away,
Each one is overcome
Each beyond the turning spokes.
We alone pedal
While time journeys on,
The pedals churn wheels, though the memories remain.

Descent

poetry

From the brow we point—
‘Aye, they’s many a sea monster in the deep,’ we say.
Waves loll and rear-end one another.
‘Got to keep a wary eye out,’ we acknowledge, ‘they there.’

From cabin we clink beverages,
Jangling prisms refracting in the light.
Drinking down and never knowing until we go down.
Gazing between bars and goggles, our self-imposed captivity
Descends.

Down, the water swarming our feet.
Down, the green hues grow darker.
Down, the shattered light suffocating.
Down, the fading briny hull forename—Bliss.
And we are swallowed.

There are no more intermittent fins to marvel at.
No glimpses of accusation to position our supple fingers.
Consumed by teeth of an insatiable, blood lusting hunger.
Surrounded by sharks, swirling in a spectacle of slaughter.
Engulfed in a liquid grave, should we have stayed any longer.

And upon reemerging—gasping not for air,
But release from this elevator into a living hell.
‘They is monsters down there’ we say,
But it’s different this time.
‘Almost got me, almost plunged.’
Fins carve the waterline like serrated knives.
‘Them poor souls. You’d never know they was like that.’

The Lost

poetry

Second story dive bar; October’s eve.
Lights dimmed, laced with red neon signs
Snaking shapes and letters; booze and boobs.
Flat screens; baseball; one on, two strikes, two outs; muted.
Glass bottles, glass shelves, glass panes overlooking
Gum stained sidewalks and grimy snow
And flakes—falling—mocking, from the other side.
Indistinct figures; faces ensnared in shadows,
Like hosts of lost spirits waiting for their curtain call.
Amateur Comedy Night; laughing in the dark.
This guy, the emcee postures, this son of bitch is here every time.
Let’s hear it for Jay Cruise!
On stage with no stage, no laughs for meticulous words.
He’d show them he could do it, he would show them.
He swore it would work this time, just this once.
Every past scorn—faggot, you worthless faggot—
Swallows his conscience in white noise:
Fuck it, he says after two jokes and descends; back next week.
Emcee recovers, all right all right, moving on, next up,
He says, next up we got a real funny guy, give it up for Mike D!
Applause, it’s all he’s ever wanted:
Dad, dad, look at what I can do, he said, and could never stop trying to forget.
Shut the hell up! What’s the matter with you?
Ever interrupt me like that again and I’ll split your goddamn lip!
Nervous lines in a tangled smile; please look, his hollow eyes plead.
Please?—but no one does.
The microphone passes from his trembling hand.
I know ladies ain’t people, and ain’t funny but we got one in the house anyway.
Put your hands together for this dumb broad,
She’ll be in back for twenty bucks a person after her set.
Loud cackles and refills all around as she faces the audience.
Hanging onto his last words she wonders if he’s right.
It was last night; night before; she prepared for tonight.
Can you just hold me? She asked when he finished.
Flicking wrinkled bills onto her yellowed and naked body, he glared:
You’re not my wife, he said, and spat on her.
If she only could convince them that she had more to offer,
But the set is already over and she’s feeling lonely.
Tough crowd tonight, emcee rumbles, but let’s keep it rollin’.
Heard him before, get his party started for the man known only as The Kevin!
Only a first name because he doesn’t want to remember more,
Believing that the more cracks about molestation, the less real it becomes.
I trusted him, how could he? How could he? Keep laughing!
They’re laughing, but he can’t hide the memories.
It’s our little secret, the sensuous whispers remind him with every feigned chuckle.
He’s used the same line too—can’t help himself anymore. She’s so young.
Met this character tonight, don’t care what his name is, the emcee laughs
Funny guy though, and I know cause this kid even looks funny! C’mon up Corky!
Tightened stomach with a drunken brain and its happened:
I’ve been waiting for this!
But the spectators are shrouded in darkness;
A meeting of the undead with vein-red eyes.
Something’s wrong. What’s wrong?
An imperceptible darkening in his eyes;
A gleam of reality fists a dagger between his ribs:
This isn’t what I want, this isn’t what I want. Oh God, this isn’t what I want!
And somewhere outside—beyond the windowpanes,
Like a glass house, it’s still snowing.
Flawlessly luminous flakes touching down in silent ecstasy,
Transforming like chameleons into gray flecks like sidewalk;
Like asphalt, like skin, like statues, like shadows—
Like asphyxiating souls scouring amongst
The living and the dead of an empty heart:
Still beating, still sacred, still loved, but still lost.

Chartres

poetry

Aye, the fateful French
Never anticipated
That centuries later oui would have
Such perverse portmanteau,
Creating a word akin
To flatulence and excretion,
And markedly similar to their city.
So needless to say
But said nonetheless:
It appears something was
‘Lost in translation.’

Three on the Eve

poetry

That very morning,
Before the bell rang, I denied him three times.

Now sitting in a desk a peer turned to ask me,
“Hey, ‘carry the light,’ what does that mean?”
I don’t know, nothing, I denied.
But he asked again,
“It’s a cool looking shirt; you don’t know what it means?”
No, I don’t know. It’s just a shirt, I denied again.
“So it’s just a shirt then?”
It’s just a shirt, I swore.

Just then the bell rang.
Just then the rooster crowed.

Liquid Inspiration

poetry

All great writers are drunkards—
It’s a prerequisite, perhaps,
That too be profound
One must also be inebriated—
This glass and aluminum key
Unlocking chests of insight.
Thoughts flow evenly, quickly—
A bottle tilted to parched lips
Wearing worn pathways
Across yellowed pages.
Words that speak of fight
Words that speak of rest—
Saying nothing at all.
Waking to begin anew—
Waiting to find answers
Underneath sea spun foam,
Crashing into shattered shores
Hoping to find forlorn messages
Sealed safely in bottles.
Swirling stories fill full mouths,
Spilling over the oceans side—
But diluted behind a liquid veil
Pain cannot dissolve in truth—
There is never an escape.
It will always be a fantasy.

Shape Sorter

poetry

Scrambling like a firehouse
twirling down poles a’ clamoring
If theses shapes don’t go in soon
I’m goin’ to get a’ hammering
The alarm compliments the squealing screeching tires
I hurry to complete the task before the time expires
The wobbly and goin’ a’rollin’ stone
Falls into the circular shape of its own
Better be a’hurryin’ cause times a runnin’ out soon
Place it next to the star, slide in the crescent moon
Tick, tick! Yes, make it quick!
Will I make it in the nick?
Oh no, the square, it’s home, oh where?
If I can’t find it then—oh look, its there!
So urgently, oh the polygonal urgency!
Pick up the pace, this is an emergency!
The last two shapes are swallowed and contained
Times up! The piece pop! Let’s do it all over again

Everything Seemed Normal at the Time

poetry

After all, who doesn’t have their birthday party in the Pentagon?
Sean and I were partners as we colored espionage fish.
Cut them out with dull scissors, pasted them on the wall
Because then we’d get the tax break.
The trampoline we were on took to long to cross;
I didn’t feel as light as I should.
A few of us took pictures of the fish; no one could color very well.
We didn’t have time to asses our folly
Because that was when the eight thugs on rollerblades starting stealing presents
In the parking lot.
I knew one of them, his name was Lance.
He charged at me and I sidestepped under his swipe,
Grabbed his shirt and jabbed him in the neck.
Kevin punched another one and I tripped him as he reeled.
They ran, but I kept Lance’s shirt—it was a level nine.
The action must have been too much for Andrew though,
He kept screaming, ‘I’m going to freeze my dick! I’m going to freeze my dick!’
Your mom yelled at him not to,
But he peed in the misty corner of the room all by himself.
Outside was the beach and a verdant island.
Couldn’t visit though because Natalie wanted to leave and ran the other way.
There was a pathway between the valleys we were in with a barrier in the middle
That she couldn’t climb over,
Like when Ash tried to ride his bike over the miniature cliffs in Pokemon.
It was okay though,
Because Kenny quickly ran over and ate three circular holes through the barrier.
Natalie was still fat and couldn’t fit, so I think she went home.
The rest of us decided with her gone the next best course of action:
We spun in the sand.
Crowds joined and the tide came in.
When the waves were chest high, I saw the uniformed police officer,
He asked, “a little cold isn’t it?”
I told him it wasn’t that bad and climbed out of the lake,
The bear-sized teddy bear named Molly had been working
As a minimum-wage ranch hand all day
And we didn’t want to exploit the fact that he couldn’t swim.
His fur would get wet and then mold.
We went over to the truck rigs since we were in the industrial plant
And underneath a mountain of black trash bags we uncovered a duck suit.
The tall black guy with the mustache volunteered to wear it.
The farmer’s wife brought us eggs for breakfast and we ate them.
It would have been rude to tell her it was 28:02 o’clock.

Why Do I Do These Things I Do?

poetry

Not again? Not again!
It makes my blood boil.
Sold, misunderstanding—a slave to sin.
A slave to law.
Spiritually void at times.
For what I want to do I do not do,
but what I hate I do.
This law, this restriction—this good.
It is good, but I am not, am I?
I am good, but I am a slave to sin.
And yet?
Nothing good lives in me, that is,
in my sinful nature.
The desire is there—for good.
But I will always fall short.
For what I do is not the good I want to do;
no, the evil I do not want to do—
this I keep on doing.
But it’s not want I want.
It’s not who I am.
It is sin.
And I am not sin.
I am redeemed.

The Conception of You in Relation to My Fantasies

poetry

It’s nothing I have haven’t experienced before
And yet, that’s what makes the possibility all the more enthralling.
It’s no longer about the act or the finished product.
Hardly at all. In fact, that might very well ruin everything!
Well, almost.
But truth be told, it’s the enticement of opportunity,
The mere perception of the act that I revel.
Some call it the journey,
Some call it foreplay.
I’m not sure which of the two I agree with more.
It’s the mystery which piques my every sense,
It’s the unknown that I chase after with gratuitous diligence.
It’s the almost that I crave with ravenous appetite.
And there you have been, unknowing but tempting at every turn;
A leg, a sigh, a smile, and yes, cleavage.
Yet with exploitation or exposure is there victory?
Contrary, it becomes the inevitable demise.
Behind the shroud, the lust.
Beyond the shroud, it’s all the same.
We’re all the same.