Author: David X. Hugo

you

poetry

you are a big black monster that is
the color of a black hole and loud
as hell standing behind everyone in
some sort of transcendental fashion
but our ears are dulled to the point
to where your incessant sucking no
longer piques our interests.

but you, you are hiding everywhere
and your energy makes everything
work.

it makes the engines turn with
heat your energy flows through
the veins of us all packaged in
pretty bows. but in all of those
pretty bows also is your loud
screaming and your lack-of-color.

and you, since you do all of these
things people will say that, when
confronted with your existence,
that this is reason enough for you
to still be alive.

sucking and poking and prodding and
demanding and taking and ripping up
the earth like slurping noodles or
pulling the fabric off of the top of
the table but all of the things on
top of it falling down. all of the
trees and buildings and things just
falling down and making the loudest
sound only comparable to the one
you make at all times that we,
as a people, under god, indivisible,
have decided to ignore with our
utmost and purely sincere American
dreams.

you, nameless, horrible wretched
demon of the conscious or subconscious.
you are on the face of everyone at
all times, you are on the cusp of
every feeling, the tip of every tongue,
the parenthesis to every sentence,
you ooze and seep through cracks like
smoke or the oily-creature-thing from
the animated film fern gully.

you, it is not possible to kill you.

you gotta get to the top (so you can win that race)

poetry

there is never anywhere you
can go without there being
things on your face,
they put them there to remind
you of tax day.
truth is, we live in a
glass bubble and are all
slaves to the things they
put on our faces.
little
pieces of
paper
with ones
or tens
or twenties
on them.
and if you ever stop thinking
about them once you’ll be crazy
or homeless.
or goddamn both.

you just gotta have the right friends

poetry

they say they are drugs
and that they do nothin’
but bad,
unless they filter it through
the bureaucracy and all of their
committees and sheets of
paper thick with molasses.

i, say, i love you all when
my little white friends drift
lazily down my throat.
i say that i’m at 100% when my
good old friends sit around
on velvet couches and chat
about things that make us happy
resting our feet on a coffee table
made of pure opium.

doodoodododoot
dodoot dodoot doot dadoot doot
doodoodododoot
dodoot dodoot doot dadoot doo doot.

i say my vein lines vibrate like
bass lines when i’m high
and i am at one with lower
pitches and the smoother licks
that life brings. i say that the
cold rain up against my face
trickles down to my spine and
is smile inducing at times.

hey, senator man, church man,
why don’t you let loose?
you wouldn’t think it poison if
you saw how it makes you
more alive.

Things; big, small, medium-sized

poetry

after the day a million nocturnal Things
begin to run around in my head

all of the Things and their parents
make such a loud and awful racket

although I am told the Things are
me and I am them and we are all
together,
I have a hard time thinking when
the Things are running their mucks

the Things fight and argue a million
little Thing things,
leaving me all around my room
on different corners of the globe and
so-on

and
when you hear things come out of
my mouth sometimes the Things
slip out and I can’t explain how
it is just
not
me

the birds are sleeping somewhere
around in bushes and hedges along
the sidewalks of michigan,
and today was the first day that the
snow snuck it’s way down in the
rain…
tomorrow is the day that we all sit
and pray and say thanks to the real
big Thing upstairs and for all of the
little to medium-sized Things we have
permanently made in our 3d world
or in our heads, or for the people
that we think we know or that think
they know themselves. and every day
is another that the Things in my head
will spend erasing my memory.

someday soon

poetry

i met a girl in my dreams who whispered
in my ear as the wind picked up and
weaved and flowed beneath my hands
clung tight to the grips i’ve been holding
to keep me from falling off this cliff
and loosened it enough as a final re
minder that yes, indeed,
the time has come. do you want to
know what she said though? she said
“nín hǎo” and she was like
breathing on a window and drawing
a heart and seeing it there when
you wash your car. i swear, too,
that i saw her one day and i
feared i might lose my job
or my pride or my kids or
my wife or my mortage or
my bed or my blankets or
my sedentary life-style if i
went up to her and said “hi.”
so i didn’t,
but i will.

the complexity of infinity found by the ceasless mind

poetry

life is an ouroboros
or: ouroouroouroorououro
ouroouroouroouroouro
ouroouroouroouroborus etc.
why? well,
love is blind! things of
that nature, like,
christian capitalists…
like, freedom.
like, how…youth is wasted
on us poor folk. spent endlessly
drudging through homework and
work at the minimum wage legally
allowed to pay a human being
and spent not experiencing
anything, unless, of course
you are a hippy,
drug-addict,
good-for-nothing,
hobo. of course.
in america, freedom is most
surely dead.
for if i were to sit in one
spot i would be sued or
some such legal rigmarole,
though, that is all i really
wanna do (to sit in one spot,
not to get sued).

last day of summer and/or fall sucks

poetry

i can write LOVE on my arm
all day long but i cannot
stop the fall from falling
all over me like a whale.
sanity leaving with the
leaves i am a helpless
child to the rhymeless
wastes and abandoned humanity
that is MOUNT PLEASANT,
MI 48858 (Apt #A253).
all the debts must be
wrung in,
all of the snide comments
must be said,
all of the comfort must
get sucked with the humidity
and brought down south
to comfort the old souls
in florida being fed
by tubes and so-on.

do you remember the last
day of summer? when
we traded a pack of
cigarettes for a beautiful
sun, clouds, temperature,
scenery and situation?
that day was the last
drop of water in our
trip through the sahara.

indecision, perfection, treadmills

poetry

i just can’t make it
twiddling my thumbs all the day long
like a dopamine fiend
picking up boulders and putting them
back down like a modern day
sisyphus, or something.
thinking
re-thinking
doing and then
un-doing
stopping
starting
stopping again,
to start, one
last final time
(this time
i’ll make it
right)
and i am going to rip these
cement feet right off if
i can’t go see the sunset
tonight.

the civil war that depleted all the soil of the soul

poetry

the worst part is
i’ve got nothing to say to myself
let alone at all
the colors of fall
they blind me with apathy
coat me with meloncholy
stifle me with uno

rigi

nali

ty
clog my veins into a syrupy
oil so thick it’s
not to be used by
farm tractors

…

let alone human beings
i touch the brink of a
thought with the tongue
of my mind and then it
withers away in the
laziest way
the craziest way
how can an artist ever
get payed this way?
i mean,
how long until i chop
off my ear?
or
will i even ever chop
it off?
that failure, too,
is the worst part.

On: Mendelssohn Sinfonia No. 11

poetry

life at one’s leisure
is a solitary achievement
a lonely achievement
but one must sacrifice such
things for freedom
but one must sacrifice those
things in name of honor
and all the things accompanying
those company
those company
that drive you wild, wild
wild wild,
wild with anger and distain

but on this beautiful day
but on this beautiful evening
i will cut the strings that
bind my soul and keep me bonded
i will get to the bottom
bottom
bottom
bottom
bottom of this entire thing.

diary entry from a shipmate

poetry

the oceans currents go into
circulate around in
and through my brain
on this damned ship
of which i am the only
sane man.
they save me when i jump,
nothing could be more
maddening,
having a ship of loons
save your life and call
you mad,
you.
i have forgotten where
we are going, though
the captain is assuring
us all that “we will
make it.”
his words sting worse
than the cold water
after leaping off
board.
must it be a 5th time
before they let me
float like an angel
in the ocean of god’s
arms?

your father

poetry

to write a poem about
your father would be
to assume that the words
i would put down could
change some part of the
fundamental stages of
life or the cold, hard
fact that someone has
disappeared from your life
in the way that you under
stood it and understand
it currently at this very
moment.

this is more
like an anti-poem,
because it is raining today
and your father is dead.

i am sitting in a chair,
thinking idly about what
it would feel like if my
father died,
the way yours did.
a black hole is eating all
of the words that could
be used to describe it.

and when i picture you, or
me,
or anyone, for that matter,
in old reel footage of a sunny
day with the sprinklers in the
lawn and propelling down a slip-
‘n-
slide
with your father there,
safely,
keeping everything safe and warm,
this black hole grows larger.
the words start spiraling towards
the floor.

i fear if i do not stop thinking
about this now it will most likely
swallow me alive like it is
trying to do to you and your entire
family at this very second, jeff.
you must struggle against that tide
and i will help you with any hand
that is possible to give even if
“i’m sorry for your loss” is the
only
dead
replacement
for “grab my hand.”

solitary man

poetry

i will travel to the end and back
because it is fun for me no matter
how much matter gets taken or how
much matter it is, or bother, or does;
yet, i digress,
the interest you inject, warranted
or
not
into my mirrors (placed around
my tiny square home)
does not give you the right,
and to be very honest with you
i wish to no longer allow you,
to then get
yourself all
worked up in
your curious
little torrent
and expect me to
give you
the
time
of
day
nay,
i am a solitary man.

qvc

poetry

DO YOU REMEMBER THE RIDE TO CRAIGS CRUISERS
DSC00542
WHEN IT WAS REALLY SUNNY
AND WE WERE PLAYING THE RADIO LOUD
AND WE HAD ALL OF THOSE TRAMADOL
THAT YOUR GRANDMOTHER LEFT YOUR MOTHER?
WASN’T THE SUN LIKE GOD AND
THE CLOUDS LIKE ANGELS AND
THE BLUE SKY LIKE HEAVEN?
bluesky
REMEMBER GETTING HIGH RIGHT BEFORE
WALKING INTO YOUR PARENT’S HOUSE?
BECAUSE SOMETIMES BAD IDEAS CAN
BE GOOD ONES, TOO.
DO YOU KNOW THAT YOU HAUNT
ME?
OR I HAUNT ME?
OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT?
YOU KNOW, IN REGARDS TO THESE THINGS
BEING MEMORIES?
THE PAST FUCKING HAUNTS ME,
I GUESS.
AND SONGS LIKE “SHOULD HAVE TAKEN
ACID WITH YOU” BY NEON INDIAN
MAKE ME WANT TO JUMP OFF OF
MY SECOND STORY BALCONY TO MAKE
A POINT TO MYSELF,
OR TO BE HONEST TO MYSELF.
BECAUSE THINKING OF YOU MAKES
ME
DO
THINGS
LIKETHAT.

yingying (china garden)

poetry

if confucius
was alive to-day
i bet he’d know
he’d be a hack
in the now,
mary. yet you
mis-quote his ancient
and relative
words/concepts
on your little
reminders,
taped to the
wall just like
your employees,
mary. and though
ritual propriety
is nice,
and so were the
things that kongzi
said, i doubt,
very firmly,
that he’d have
much to say
of the modern world.
even less of your
chinese restaurant
and the misdeeds
you’ve done to his
words and concepts,
mary.

i love women too much

poetry

there are electric storms
birthed by chemical wars
that are caused by electric storms
birthed by the very same wars
and so on,
and so forth,
they come from my eyes
when i see your lips,
face,
legs,
thighs,
emotions which
can
not
be
wise
are now driving my extremities
i now feel i’m in my seventies
looking out the window dreaming
of being touched somewhere
inappropriate for once
because i
love
women
too
much.