Author: David X. Hugo

partial lyrics on a sunday

poetry

the ghosts of rocks tap your window
your friends are all dust in the air
you feel like some low-budget horror movie
trashed on a god-given sunday

and i’ve not got any pain left
and i might die but that’s okay
and this old movie called “youth”
well it gets old in it’s own way

the monkeys turn tricks on the boulevard
the leaves flap around in the sunlight
well painkillers make me feel alright
i guess that’s how i lie to get by sometimes
i guess that’s how i lie to get by alright.

untitled

poetry

life has her hands down
her pants and she’s
thinking of someone else
you are
in the
right hand
lane,
following all of the
exit signs

the crows they line up
by the high-way side

it’s getting dark out
and you’re getting tired
so you’ll go to a motel
where she will fake it
to keep
you alive
for herself

the acid rain clouds
seem to follow your car

you wonder if you’ll ever
make it home.

florida monday

poetry

i get my fix alone
in my grandfather’s shoes
in my grandmother’s home

he left his shoes and tore
out his heart
she left her home and drowned
in perfume

i make my way to the
old sea
churning up sludge

i stand there and get my
fix again like all beasts but
think something of it

or think something will
come of it

i write with his pen
i whisper in her words

i let the sun asphixiate my anxiety
i shake the dirt off my skin
like a rug
i run head first into the sludge

i swim

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.