Author: David X. Hugo

worms on the sidewalk

poetry

we went downtown and we made it happen
me, dustin, and brown boy went to an
unchristened skate shop to score some
of that ol’ pick-me-up-rocket-ship

we rode it back to locust and pine
where the drunkards were yelling

i was smashed and kind of on edge
facing face to face with faces
reminding them that johnny law
has an itchy trigger finger (ya dig?)

ms. white was in the closet talking
budgeting and finance, cogs and
gears and regicide and fire

we were howling at the lonely moon
wringing whiskey out of the night’s
spirit-soaked blanket
with jesus asleep on the couch
and
the sky had white clouds blocking
the stars just because

we had the tunes and the intoxicants
flowing like blood through the streets while
the men and women with twisted spines
were trying to sleep under itchy sheets with
the sound of our madness ringing in their
ears keeping their stupid dreams from ever
coming.

technology, entertainment, design

poetry

i posit that all of this gas
and carbon nonsense is
the molecules within a falling
raindrop, electrons and
other scientific things popping
and fizzing as supernovas in
a black abyss. that chances are
we will be crushed on an umbrella,
that man will have spent all
of his time sitting in front of computer
screens, watching geniuses blabber,
positing about carbon and raindrops,
and plop,
right on some 9 year old’s hannah
montana umbrella. she’ll be livin’ like
us, ears closed, just like one big
epic irony. for feelings,
i guess.

re: Desert

poetry

deleting poems about snake oil
pant-less, dead bodies piled in
my closet. sniffing residue off
of the facts, and thinking about
throwing them out. writing the
letters about this period, cursing
because i haven’t thrown the
facts out the window yet. they cry,
i laugh. bought a skin cream
called “the darkness” and it
makes my skin seem ten fucking
years younger but i’m afraid
that it’s sinking into my soul,
also one of the ingredients is
snake oil. i can’t tell what
genre of humor the mind’s
assumptions fall under, and i
laugh but i don’t think that’s
right either. i think that there
is no need for searching
because all of the truth is
hidden under your nose.
turning around in my computer chair
thinking nothing.

pining for the 424

poetry

swimming in a man-made lake
on my plastic factory break
“oh god!” i say feeling like a snake
after i intake the toxic rape
of the buildings cutting in
to the sky’s real estate

oh the m t p streets covered
in feces and empty seeds
all signs hiding an awful
deceit, promising weight
behind the word compete
feeding an off-tempo beat
to the hungry and weak

but the whistle blows and
i suppose i should put on
my clothes and be composed
for my home groans for the
oil and bones and keeping it
fed is part of a human being’s
growth (or a human being a ghost).

jalopy

poetry

i drove this rusty bucket down
what apparently was the wrong
way on a one way street, i noticed
because all of the ladies with their
children were dropping their jaws

i grinned because they look funny
with their mouths wide, waiting

my grin says be prepared

i was having a wicked conversation
that stuttered and stopped like
my old jalopy, i’d keep going
over the same lines driving
the wrong way and eventually
they’d get me (i knew)

i had the gumption but not
the guts to just gas it when they
pulled up behind me screaming,
waving their batons talking
about one way streets and
their directional nonsense

behind bars i dream of driving,
still.

gorgeous

poetry

only when lonely men
howl at the impostors
does the world spin justly
and thrustly it shall be
when on nights like this
i swerve and weave
through the traffic claim
a mailbox or two on this
evening of leaving and
solitude
thinking of leaving mount
pleasant, soon.
at night i rise to grip her
thighs the dark’s supple
trouble stirring my coffee
and ready to fornicate
with this nighttime i am
holding and riding the
best that i can like a madman
howling away at impostors
making the world spin
proper.

upon reading a poem titled “upon my demise”

poetry

i saw the poem you wrote
and figured it fancy
and although i’m a poet
i’ve just got to say
no words are proper,
upon my demise.

that is at least to say
that upon this day
my command of language
and knowledge of words
and understanding of death
and thoughts and processes
are not sufficient,
i suppose,
to write a thing
about after i die.

let us hope that i do not
die soon,
because all that’ll be read
is the poem about how i hadn’t
made up my mind about what
to say upon my demise
(along with everything else
i have not made up my mind
about yet).

pissed off

poetry

my fists are my sanctuary today

i throw them at:

the chinese clouds
raining their water-torcher

my box
and pet roaches and in
animate objects

cans of pop
indefinitely tipping

my own hands
knocking things
over and off

my eyes for their
tricks

every thing that
does not bend to
them gets broken
by my fists today

(i try so hard on every
other day but today)

and i hide in them
genuinely wanting to be
left alone from even
myself.

songs to never be re-peated, re-membered, re-played

poetry

we drunkenly drove
on long high-ways,
curving around the planet,
foretelling of it’s destruction
with no words.
higher and higher the
high-ways climbed,
and drunker and drunker
we all became,
until our car crashed
like the melody.
songs by candle light produced by
electric keyboard, drum machine,
the occasional bongo,
only to be played once,
are always, always, always
the saddest.
i remember thinking that
we all must be the same
sad,
so i painted everything
indiscriminately.
you reached for more,
but i drove us all home,
drove us all back to
the funny farm,
leaving sanity and
tunes to never be
recreated by the
candle light.

the highway to madness is madness

poetry

let us not be uncertain,
this map of ours is always
changing. let us run gallantly
towards insanity, headfirst, in
cart-pull-horse fashion.
let us listen with all ears
to our dead fathers and
contemporaries on different
parts of this path,
let us study their madness.
go now,
run,
dauntless till body gaunt
and thinner wire than current,
strung tighter than now,
let us get there because it
is the only way.
but how?
it is not the only direction!
let us first discern with
certainty the next direction
to follow from our map of
great confoundment.
let us get there or we,
gentlemen,
are all nothing.

my tombstone should include “wide-eyed” on it somewhere

poetry

i am wide eyed and high floating
above rivers of happy
philistines and i find that
everything is funny because
it’s all so very grave.
waves of irony end their journey
from: our massive sun-god
to: my face and
amplify my smile;
coloring all things in their
deep, deep comedy.

i smile and graze over the
earth with my eyes lightly
so as to not break a thing.

“humans are bad balloons”
i think and
look down
as i deflate
the crumbly breaky surface
giving way at the thought of
my come-down. sunshine
turning into heat
bird chirps
turning into traffic
smog
all things blackening and
crumbling as i come down.
i grab at the comedy but
cannot hold anything,
not even the air.

i walk this lonely road the only one that i have ever known

poetry

going down the streets i don’t know
the same way that my fathers have
drunken and beaten and all that mess
all of it just like it is in my mind

any time i’d thank you for a dance
of transcendental nature
any one of you walking this road
any one wandrin’ at any pace

today was a sunshiney beautiful day
the best for beatin’ yourself up with
kickin’ a rock between your steps
the same way that my fathers have

dim light, on still

poetry

is it the black walls
and black carpet and
black floor and black
mold? could it be the
gradual blackening of
my skin,
my organs,
the essentials?
is it the black ceiling,
with the black monsters
that live above us…
or maybe the big(ger)
black ones that live
below? is it all of
these things that suck
my lust from my chest
and the smile from my
face?
i wish i had cleaned
this truth-less place
the first time i’d offered
to,
i’m
beginning
to
mistake
me
for
it.

50% opacity

poetry

losing myself
daily
now
brains eyes ears
dulling
every day now
all these things looking
sounding
differently
either that or i’m remembering it
wrong
again. is it the light…
or the sleep
wearing
me
down?
these thieves in every air
particle
even now stealing my
breath.
too tired to get me
back.

tea

poetry

there’s a fire in the city;
it was not started by me,
whiskey drunk.
i am only dancing,
dancing in the ember-
snow.
the reds are killing
the blues, i am green,
my things can fit in
a backpack so i dance,
dance,
dance in the fire.
my eyes are fed
with the fire when
the wind blows and
if a big enough gust
comes along i
wont fight it.