Author: David X. Hugo

robots, paranoia, leaving

poetry

once they decided to extend the day time
due to poor productivity during the night
he knew it was time to get out, time to
pull the plastic metal machine out from
his neck. not knowing what to call it,
or how exactly he was going to live
without plugging into the dock every
night before his stasis period was
beyond him. but as the tension
was building in the others who at
first held signs and
threw fire at the robots holding them
down he now saw taking jobs. the spirit
had ended, the game was over, they had
lost and it was apparent.
so he’d head out of his house and
never stop until he saw what
he could best guess was the color green.

stalks

poetry

they can’t even hear you
through the smoke and the
corn stalks
your stuck here
building walls out of
cd covers and garbage ideas
to hide your private stash
of different colored needles,
empty kool-aid packets,
and dead bugs
with your head in the clouds
screaming.

corn

poetry

walking around the garbage bins
i knew i was gonna find you here
lamping in the dim moon light
with street lamps and alley cats
i still pretend it’s on my way to
work and you still pretend like
your not gonna stay long
looking all confused and lost
and i hear rumor you left,
moved to a darker part of town
where the churches fall down
with all that fire on the ground
without all my unsent mixtapes

things, other

poetry

drifting and drowsy while drifting and
driving is nifty when thousands of
soldiers are dying and digging their
dicks in the ground all around
sing a song where a frown turn this
world upside down with a phrase one
of change one of might one so sound
built on drifting while driving and
drinking ’till drowned —
till my stinking silk skin turns
to soil in the ground and my soul goes
up and up and up and around just like
satellites or mediorites or
merry-go-rounds like the things that you
see at night when no light will come
’round like the silliest sincerity you
could try to compound and package and
sell for just cents by the pound.

artificial light

poetry

they’re eating you up
piece by piece
those people in your head
(the only ones left to
talk to)
are eating you up
and when they finally let
all the artificial light back in
you know it wont make
you see any better
you know it wont make
you feel any better
and the icicles on what
used to be the sun
hang so low you try
to jump to knock them
down but it’s hundreds
of feet up
the sky is ugly from the
street lights
you feel ugly from the
street lights
and right before they take
the last few bites
those people in your head
(the only ones left to
talk to)
laugh as the incandescent
rays freeze your face.

the chains he made holding us down

poetry

all of the blood was surely
pumping when my black knight
woke me under what was always
a full moon to sing me gothic
lullaby’s and take me wanting
into his lair under the dirt
where we would crush everything
in our paths

always i would wake in the
aftermath confused and lost,
my most precious belongings
scattered around my room,
and parts of me broken and
bruised and ashamed and i
would wait for another bright
moon never more prepared.

The world ablaze

poetry

The webs we wove to ward off wondering wanderers wanting what was withheld by one wondrous machine now wore off, waning with the wind, wasting with the weeks, weakened by the wrestlessness of a wretched mind. Yet I perservere, through the tireless and ceaseless ticks of the clock, every clock, bent on my destruction and the eventual fizzling out of my fire. Lit with the intent of burning you all.

upon revisiting

poetry

i took new roads back to that
old motel and i took a fresh
look at all the dead dead things
and stood there, not touching a
thing
not touching any of their bodies
i just stood with the flies around
my face and i think i may have even
smiled at the evil of it

nobody lives by the river anymore
and she waits there as the travelers
pass her by
offering that nutrition that man
has indefinitely replaced
and she’s bottled
and sold in the stores but nobody
goes to visit her
not anymore

so when i saw their skin piled upon
muscle upon bone i thought why not
and, years later when i revisit
the old motel that no one much goes
in anymore (either) i try to remember
the smell of the rot of them all
so as to remember when i smell it again.

dear dear dear dear

poetry

you remember
the things you do while
alone that you think
no one can see
and you stomach the days
knowing the ways
that you throw all you say
to the sea

when your alone

and your back

is turned

to the world

and what you really love
and what you really hate
and what you really think
and what you really do
and how you cope
and how i hope
you choke on all the
blood you drew

when your alone

and you think

i’m not

watching

for the chains i drag with me

poetry

i am so tired
of the trading of paper
and the loving of traitors
and the words that they staple
words oh so hateful
to the trees made of maple
ever so faithful

and i am so tired
of the silence pervasive
after the laughs have all faded
the glances we traded
i hope i can save it
wont try to escape it
or find love belated

and i am so tired
and probably always will be
for the chains i drag with me

to no avail

poetry

i sit
unaware of the slow rate in which the paint on my walls is crawling towards the floor as if even it would like to leave

i sit
in complete ignorance to the fact that millions of ants are building a penis shaped tower that you can see from space

i sit
with all the momentum one could use to sit, all of the gravity and kinetic force that one can do nothing with

i sit
and i sit
and i sit
and in all of my sitting i never once get up to stand, i only do so in my head, and when i do that with my head i stand on a ledge, you could stay i perform a headstand on a ledge, a ledge that is very high up above some building and i hold my balance there as if i had performed this one headstand my entire life, and with the grace of the greatest ballet dancers, salsa dancers, street dancers, naked dancers, and all other kind of dancer, i let the wind push my headstand to wherever the wind has decided

i sit
and i sit
and i sit
and i fall off of a ledge in/on my head
the wind as my chair.

eviction notice

poetry

you don’t know what you want
but you know what you don’t
you don’t much want to hurt
but are not sure that you wont
you don’t know what to keep
’till it all gets too old
you can’t make up your mind
you don’t have the mold
nor do you have the receipt
or know where they’re sold
you don’t know what you want
so you don’t know what to hold
to keep out of the snow
so it won’t die in the cold
you can’t navigate this maze
so you don’t know where to go
and this is all in your head
and your head is your home
and this is all
and your head
and this
and your
and
and
where’d you get that gun
that the bullets shoot so slow?