poetry

A Year Ago

poetry

I was alone, standing at a crossroads
Examining with an unknown urgency
A wooden post with interdigitated directions.
My hand brimmed over a red horizon:
“Desire,” the tattered caption said.
With resiliently gritted teeth I turned away.
“Now,” another bold carving proclaimed.
“Happiness,” a third pleaded.
“Lust,” “Power,” “This,” they shrieked.

The ax swung in panicked disregard.
The wood moaned in splintering cracks.
The blade slid wrathfully through.
The slanting bough pulling apart from itself
Finally collapsing to the ashen earth
A writhing then suddenly still corpse.

A hissing match pirouetted to the remains.
Expanding and dancing an orange ballet.
Wind cycloned arid hurricanes then ceased.
Dust settled and the small voice spoke:
“Follow,” it said, “I know the way.”
Lifting the flame blackened vestige
To rest like a yoke on my shoulders
I turned away from myself and followed.
The signposts to my past have been burned.
There is no turning back.

Healing

poetry

Whisper me those fighting words
I’ll tell you what I think of them
and you can never say I never
did nothing for nobody

Speak me clean your inner truth
I’ll weigh your thoughts against my own
and then perhaps we’ll find out
just exactly what’s inside of me

but don’t dare speak a cutting word
or lash your tongue against the thing
We’ve barely got all of our own
how could we ever pay that fee?

Picture Of A Medium-Sized Town’s Park At Night

poetry

There was a gentleman

He was sitting on a park bench
not too far from the edge of the
busiest road in the whole city.

The sun was low in the evening
sky and there were vagrants near,
if I recall correctly, scratching for change
and drinking out of little brown bags.

There was a wind that picked up
and it pushed on everybody, tugging
on hair and clothes and bags and
everything, even if it was just a little bit.

Suddenly, that man’s hat was plucked
right from his crown, and in the flash of
an instant, the wind had carried it under
the uncaring tread of a passing car,
flattening it to the brim.

There was a sigh
and the man stood from his park bench,
ignoring the vagrants and turning away
from the red-orange bulb hovering just
above the buildingtops.

He started walking then, perhaps
towards his home, or perhaps to purchase
a new cap.
At least it didn’t rain that night.

Seize the day, they say; why is it the day seized me?

poetry

What time collects may be a trivial dissection of my erratic life- but there is no coincidence to the second or to the leaching misery it disburses- stingy and slow- that I may not even scream a havoc or claim outlandish horror. 
Sum up the hours and bear the loathsome sight- the big picture is a crash scene. Count and check if we can assess and gather our lives under a same disheartening label; a human experience ?
Heaven or hell who cares? The worm is a coming, yet all I can do is eat my boots and the laces too. I should have just latched onto the void of inexistence, but nobody said it was going to be this way…
 

loveless (or call the dogs off, jesus)

poetry

nothing can be more appealing
to me than the beauty of a woman;
i see in her figure, and in her form,
(or what she shows me of it)
the chesapeake, the rockies,
the sky.

however, much unlike a good book,
or an album,
the insides of a human are
much less appealing than the
outside. i venture to say:
this anomaly is not found
outside of our personal
shared condition.
the slow and painful stuttering
dive of disinterest that forms
once cracking open the spine
of one of these most
appealing vixens.

i hear the retorts of a million
dead poets in my ears, the
sheepish cry of billions
of single-celled
omnivorous,
monogamous,
thoughtless populi screaming:
but for love!
oh, i hear you all,
all of you shape-shifting spineless
oafs,
willing to subject yourself to
untold ignorances under the
name of some vague emotional
and societal ploy.

i say,
we have multiplied
many times over,
jesus,
now call the dogs off.
i am loveless.

Upon realizing the lies will continue

poetry

The thought hit me like a
Fist to the neck
So I rolled over, gently
And let the sheet fall
From off one shoulder
A small wave, lapping at my side

Your lips met my back like
Little sea babies, drenched
And salty, pressing their
Bodies into the sand
To dry off
To cover something up

There are only so many words
Available to us now
And I’ve used them all up
They’re washed up on the
Twilight shore
Rotting away like whales.

memory

poetry

it might have happened
or it might not have,
it’s so hard to be sure
of anything these days.
and if it did,
and i’m not sure it did,
what was it like?
i just can’t seem to see it anymore,

because one minute it’s tall
and the next it’s so small,
one minute i’m afraid
and then i’m filled with rage,
and the truth is so hard to decipher,
when i’m purposefully fooling myself
each and every day,
going entirely off of a memory,
held together only in an imperfect mind,
not holding the truth,
but only interpretations
that may or may not be
factually and empirically true.

Snap Crackle Pop

poetry

There was a shift:
The transmission, that is.
Reverse.
Despite warm weather
The windows were still up
Blaring that infernal hip-hop beat.
Frantic banging on the glass commenced.
Followed by screams.
Followed by writhing.
At the wrong place at the wrong time:
My bare foot.
With toes that now look like Rice Krispies.
And this little piggy squealed
All the way to the ER.

Sun

poetry

I can see the sun pressing through
the branches of the trees, coming
down from somewhere too high to
reach with a ladder, or a long pole,
or a shotgun.

Well out of the way of foolish and
meddling hands, where things, un
maintained, just work the way
they’re supposed to.

And that’s where the boys are,
and that’s where they’ll stay,
and I know if I could see them
next to that untouched sun,
I’d see that they were smiling.

Overnight loan only

poetry

If i got locked in the library
overnight
i don’t think I’d try to get
as much reading in as possible.

I wouldn’t attempt to erase the
fines I’ve accumulated and i
certainly wouldn’t exploit the
opportunity to do some photocopying.

I’d find that one elusive book
the one that is always on loan
and hide it safely away under a
big, lofty oil painting on the fifth floor.

i’ve got these friends,

poetry

good, good friends;
who i know everything about;
who know nothing about me;
and with these friends,
i’m always happy to be,
just sitting back
watching their every move,
listening to their every word,
slightly detached,
as if they’re far away,
separated by a pane of glass,
the windows that i watch them through.

and sometimes i talk;
or at times i shout;
i’ve even whispered,
but they never seem to hear,
never seem to change;
just keep going their own way,
doing their own thing,
doing what they do,
oblivious of me,
oblivious of my presence,
oblivious of my love.
but still i watch;
but still i will watch,
until they learn to love me.

circus

poetry

i buy tickets to the circus sometimes
with spare
hidden
paychecks.
and i am enamored, i suppose,
by the beauty and the tact of the
horses with the long black mains
(although i am not sure of
what breed).
i think for a moment about
another life
where i am a horse trainer
and i bask in their majesty.
for these moments
rapt in contradiction
never last.

i am sure if i trained horses
i would hate them too.

so i get up before the lights
have raised
(with the idea of anonymity)
walk out to the parking lot
and commute back to my
home
which will never be just right

as long as it’s mine.