There is no final destination
on this itinerary
but if the
choice is
be tween
marking an X on the map
and riding someone else’s bus
why friend,
I think I’ll joyride
for the rest of my long life

or perhaps the other day,
what does it matter anymore,

and you looked my way
only to then look away
shaking your head in disgust;

but what did i care
i’d made my choice,
already moving to the door;

so turning away
there was one thing to say:
what does it matter anymore.

beach reading
sun shining
tsunamied

I watched you fall
from the top of the world
to the bottom of the barrel

I heard the wet thud
as you struck the wooden floor
your body splayed out
and there you lay

Then blood started pooling
at the bass of your haired cranium
your fingers curled forevermore
and there you lay

I watched you fall
from the top of the world
to the bottom of the barrel
and I didn’t try to catch you

completely full,
but not coming out,
clogged by the very substance
that gives it meaning;

and every now and then,
i hear it rumble within
as another tray is broken,
falling into the bin.

and all there is to do
is go to the source,
opening the cover,
forcefully taking my desire.

Your mother would be proud, you know?
I told her all about it
and she’s written back a letter
said she’s on a train this weekend
gonna see you on a Sunday
with a bonnet and a bible
and she’ll take you out to dinner
while her gaze grabs you like fingers
and she’ll ask you all about her
when you’ll bring her ’round to meet
and you’ll say all the pretty things
you know she wants to hear
but all the while she’s just staring
her eyes grabbing you like fingers
and you’ll swear you think you’re finished
as she’ll catch another train
and just as soon as she came in
she’s out of town and life again
and she’s really very proud, you know?

grey grass
mere nuclear wasteland
they call it a holiday
and go outside
bundled

roaming the streets in their pajamas
as though sleep walking
stepping over trash
feces
everything but others
as the dead are swiftly swept
from the streets

they call it a holiday

beneath the skull of a cop is stone.
he sits, staring, waiting for you to
move: to have the wrong facial exp
ression, to be sea
ted in the wrong position (weight
on the wrong ass
cheek)
and then he stands up, slowly, noticing
your criminality.
casually, he walks at any speed
he pleases, and begins the triviailty
of conversation which ends always
in the same way:
cement box.
he laughs about the game last night
with his friends while you sit in
the back of his car, which is always on,
losing your wits and your “savings”
and your life.
he shines his flashlights in your eyes,
inquiring into your soul with his long
stone gaze,
slowly paging through your mind and
your posessions, taking interest in
what he pleases,
fining you for what displeases
the fools on capitol hill,
laughing indescriminately at your
last free breaths.

yes,
beneath the skull of a cop is stone.
his pupils work tirelessly on the
unsuspecting public,
just trying to get where they’re going
to do what they want
often times hurting no-one but them
selves,
maybe the futures of their future
children,
and he wants to steal your vitality
to fill his quota. as long as he is here,
he figures,
he might as well get you if he can.
he might as well get the ones that no
one wants to see gotten and not get
the ones everyone would like to see
gotten due to lack of evidence/effort.

beneath the skull of a cop is stone,
and in the place where his heart
should be there is a fucking piggy-bank.
oink
oink.

the tank parked in the driveway
tells a story that we know too well
but parties on a Friday night
just seem to swing and swell until
the house’s beams burst through the seams
and timmy’s lost but there’s no well
and we can’t hear the shouts and screams
so turn the tables up a bit
the tank’s been idling all night long:
I guess we’ll never call it quits

the sieve and the sand hit 2000 posts today (just now thanks to my help), which on my recollection is about 1998 poems. Thats a buttload of poetry (please don’t get hung up on the semantics of the word, the truth is a boat probably can hold substantially more than a butt – that, however is why this is a poetry blog, because words are inherently more awesome than just words and a buttload IS more than a boatload even though physically cramming a whole boatload into a butt is probably nothing more than fodder for a sieve poem).

the point is, the group of gentleman(women) who have been writing for the sieve have each grown substantially more talented over the nearly two years since the blog began. and its about time we get some recognition. my plan for this recognition is two fold.

1) we do nothing and sit around like a good artist should, sucking our thumbs, rocking in fetal positions in the corner wondering when someone ‘important’ is going to report us to the Atlantic Monthly at which point one of us (obviously the most talented one – whom i shall leave unnamed as though it’s all obvious to each of us who that is) will receive a large book deal and probably a poet laureate for some second-class first-world nation and then invite the rest of us to lunch – inevitably leading to our fame and wealth etc etc….

and: (I know these seem mutually exclusive but again, don’t get hung up on the semantics)

2) somehow garner more fans for our lovely website on facebook and hope to spread the word that way or through twitter or something of the sort. we need to brag more. or at least just write more about how awesome we genuinely think the sieve is because it is awesome. not always. i’ll admit that i spit out more crap poems than most of you combined, but it leads to the occasional brilliance. and this blog has always been more about being prolific than be proficient. and then this brilliance grows with time and our crap to brilliance ratio has slowly but dramatically grown in favor of brilliance

this is a good thing.

now the sieve and the sand has risen to the top of awesomeness (there is a scale, we are at the top, directly above chuck norris and penut butter in a tube) and since there is no digg.com for poetry (please someone out there get on it) we have no way of being regularly recognized as invincibly awesome as we are except through the help of wordpress’ occasional promotion to the top of the poetry section via computer algorithm.

i’m rambling.

gentlemen. we are the giants. we bare the shoulders on which the greats have stood. and i for one am going to take this sitting down.

writing.

on my computer.

regularly.

because i effing love writing poetry.

thank you for joining me. lets bring the sieve to 3, 5, and 10 thousand in glory.

who’s with me?

minority enrolled
football injury
expelled

these cough drops hardly ease the pain
you put me through you put me through
I’ll never understand again
or talk to you or talk to you
I hear excuses day and night
it never seems quite worth the fight
I really only want to be
just a bit less confused
but really I just feel I need
to talk to you, to talk to you

you have no clue at the fire
that exists within these bones
as your eyes systematically
pan over the room, unfocused,
and you see me in the booth
by the window setting silver-
ware down for more ungrateful
customers to fill themselves
with, no.
you don’t have an incling.
i could, and would, run
a triathalon ten times the
speed of your rugged 6 foot
lumbering male counter-
part, the one who attracts
you so with his mind and his
faith;
if only, for a brief while,
i could heat the air
around your skin with
the truth smoldering within
my firey bones.

Ashamed you ought be! Asking any self respecting

Bard to fulfill an assignment such as this merits no other response! How may

Creativity be truly depicted when forced, shoved if you will, into a set of rules?

Do you lack the respect deserved of the authors of great arrangements of words into towering

Edifices of genius into the un-

Fathomable minds of dreaming mortal men living eternally through ageless legacy? Of

Grievances there are many for you, not your ten fingers, nor your toes may count them.

Heave your penitence on your bib, like a child, and ask to be cleaned of it!

If only you could see the true beauty of each jewel of anti-prose. No

Jello composition of assortments of letters can be

Known as creativity. If you want ingenuity, you need words of meaning, depth.

Laughter is my rage for such an insult, and how I laugh and scream and hoot and howl!

May creativity be inspired in your swirling pool of molded thoughts and birds fly from

Newly made nests of these twigs to create a fine idea, a diamond

Out of coal. I ask you this – Do you feel some

Pleasure in this deviously crafted injustice you bring upon me?

Quite some nerve you possess to inquire of belittling the powerful spirit I do possess.

Reveal a truly astonishing request for each student to compose a piece and

Suspect may be a position you could relieve yourself from, saving that no ambushes be

Tactfully planned by you in expectation of these “requests”.

Undulating waves of imagination may be conceived if you provide them with

Vitality to nurse them like suckled infants, and the aromas of the sweat on your brow

Will be sweet in the satisfaction that your toils are over. But for now you have studying to do!

Xylography is an art in which the blade must be honed, and poetry requires equal aptitude and un

Yielding attention if truly understood. The ultimate culmination of these truth is a

Zenith of absolution. May the zephyrs of inspiration fill your meddling mind…