Author: David X. Hugo

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?

this is a long drive

poetry

ohio,
dramamine,
this is a long drive
for someone with
nothing
to think about

i might
show the custom concern
and head south
into the tundra/
desert
because she
ionizes
and
atomizes
while i’m
talking shit
about a pretty sunset

and we go down to
her beachside property,
dog paddle,
and it’s all about
making everyone happy/
mechanical birds
so she goes to sleep
while i’m at the lounge
where
space travel is boring…
wait, breakthrough,
exit does not exist.

fragmented

poetry

i remember 16 as loud as
a gunshot, yet as
boring as cornfeilds in the
summer

it was permanent, then
the insanity
that is
that comes along with
knowing just how long
your
arms
are
exactly
and
not being precisely
sure
not being exactly
perfectly
fucking
sure
of how to use them

i remember 16 as dead as
a cemetary yet as frantic
as hanging to the side of
the earth
(with your nails)

it was all so fragmented, then
love
that is
and now looking back i seem
to miss
every
single
breath
i
took
of
every
day
and the rain that dripped outside
my windows on some stolen night
with the fruition of my higschool
fantasies and the bane of my
young-adult
ones

i remember 16 as well as i remember
anything else these days:
most often when i’d like not to.

the teeth in the smile of the corporation

poetry

when you need them they make sure
that you fit into the square
whether your a circle or a triangle
and that you never have stolen
or curse
or lied
and that you love to listen to people
talk about themselves
and you’ve never lost your temper
and you think about others before yourself
they make sure that you are
a perfect
square
with
all
your
sides
the
same
length
so when the customer walks in
your smile is as shiny and warm
and deft and dead as
the red colored vest you wear

the zoo

poetry

all those mirrors
i’ve left them for dead
my eyesight’s improving
despite what they said
and the fireworks were just
flares we shot before we drowned
that july fourth that
i can’t remember much of now
all the smoke i inhaled
we followed the trail
it lead back to home
or somewhere close i suppose
all our idols strum guitars
and we headbang again and again
running from
the places we’ve been

if a man with multiple personality disorder kills themselves is it suicide or murder?

poetry

they sat in this room and thought up
the worst things that could happen,
and he followed him everywhere
like some stray cat with no tail
but with lots of tales
and question marks
so many it could block out the sun
some days
and he would distract him so much
it was hard to finish his sentences
there were just so many questions
and so many things that could happen
and of all the things that could happen
one of them would surely not be
his disappearance.

i want to wake up and break up this lake of hell

poetry

i keep talking
and reorganizing my words
waiting for an echo to sound
just the way i dreamed it would,
waiting for the words to come
back and for the crowd to
applause, to clamor, waiting
for the worms to hit the
streets after my words bounce
off the earth like rain.

he is the next poe, they would say
he is the next bukowski
hemingway
and i would be claimed philosopher king
the only philosopher king to run
through wal-mart like a downhill slalom,
laughing at capitalism,
dodging in and out of clothing racks.

this desk is lying to me (you are not you, you are a she)

poetry

i think my desk is secretly on fire
and it doesn’t want to tell me because
it knows i don’t want to know
whether or not it burns when she slips
into my mind

maybe my desk is secretly on fire because
i secretly am setting it on fire
with the heat of my fists on it’s
fake woodgrain exterior

or it’s on fire because i just
lit it on fire and am blocking out
the memories because i’m losing
my mind, and
it’s keeping that secret from me too

either way, this desk is lying to me.

god bless

poetry

you grow your legs, and it’s sink or swim
you throw your eggs at the presidents chin
you eat your grass if your one of the cattle
and bicker and babble over who won the battle
but their building a fence, blocking the sun
and the biggest of the bulls wouldn’t dare run
and the box in the room that keeps talking to you
grows bigger and bigger the more of you it consumes
every single day it’s Obama Mccain
every single day it’s Osama Hussein
every single day it continues to rain
every single day threatens to drive me insane
and back in high school when you gave up your brain
and you put on a mask so you could all look the same
now you spend your days grazing with black and white spots
regurgitating what you eat to see your cholesterol drop.

(Disclaimer: In no way am I comparing Osama Bin Laden to Barack Obama.)