My Porch has Caved In

poetry

And that’s gotta mean something,
perhaps symbolizing the constant march of time
or the impermanence of what we rely upon.

Or it could be more personal,
so that my house’s projection
is no longer erect.
The shelter from the storm,
no longer sheltering;
impotent protection.

Or, it is just that a tree had to fall,
when hit by winds of 90 mph,
and the direction of the gust,
combined with the untrimmed foliage,
and the comparative strength of some
branches as opposed to others
led to the half of the tree that
crushed my porch, caving it in.
But what’s poetic about that?

how to have an opinion in 2015

poetry

what race are you?
how dark is your skin?

what genitals do you have?
which ones were you born with?
which ones do you wish you had?
who do you want to fuck?

how much does your father make?
and your mother?
and yourself?

what part of town are you from?
what part of town do you look like you’re from?
what color clothes are you wearing?
what style?

what is your dialect or accent?

do you have any children?
how many?

ok,
fill out the form below
and remember
racism, sexism, classism
and all other forms of phobias and isms
are strictly
prohibited.

Hanna, Or the terrifying and uncanny methods available to the Modern human for uses in communication and documentation, and how even those can not protect a person from developing a rather slanted world-view (and perhaps may even encourage it)

poetry

I would call your phone sometimes
hoping the voice-mail message
at least meant you had been alive
recently enough to pay this month’s bill

When it started to ring
to one of those robots –
an IVR they call them
in the telephone industry – my
sure-shot measurement method
went bust

Text-Messaging wouldn’t do, either;
There isn’t even a robot to give
the common courtesy of a senseless
fleeting hope in the first place

but every now and then I’d get a word
or two, and so at least I knew that
someone was still using your
number

Then it was 2015

and somehow, the telephone slash camera
that I carry in my left-front pocket
started swapping stories with yours

Then, not just spare characters or
a pre-recorded speech, but real
actual photos would appear to me,
for only a moment, as if in a dream

Rather often, you are very nearly smiling

So now I am glad that, so far as my
millesimal view of your days can show,
you are well

but I wonder
if I had dreamt you,
actually,
all along

I wish I was a fighter like you

poetry

With burns and scars
to prove it

Then I’d have my own stories
and wouldn’t have to borrow
so many of yours

the problem with fighters
though, is they have to
keep fighting,
even when they’re burned

or scarred

or scared

or tired

even when it’s hard to think straight,
let alone to keep fighting,
because that’s just what a fighter does

so even though some of those stories
start off rough,
and even though some of them really
end badly,
and even though the best ones
are still tragic in their way

I wish I was a fighter like you

Questioned Idealism

poetry

What makes you happy?
What makes you you?
Follow your dreams
and you’ll be happy too!

And here I sit
at age thirty and three,
living my dream as a teen,
while often wanting to scream.

Is this what I wanted,
back as a teen?
Why did I not
dream bigger dreams?

Or why were my dreams
not made up of dollar signs,
carshousestvsboatsplanestrains,
things that are well worth my times?

Behind all these questions,
I know the answer quite well.
I do what I do because
I want to give a hell.

shitless

poetry

I was the only one there without a suit on
without a shit
to give

and the topic was great
and the food should have been better
but I was in jeans and a short sleeve shirt

the only one
without a shit
in the world
to give

Whisky

poetry
Fill me up a cup,
Cause it’s been a long day.
And I’d love to say
That I’ve been out on the range.
Ropin’ the cattle,
And cuttin’ off their balls,
Brandin’ my mark,
Coverin’ it all.
But, I think you know me,
Know me enough to say
That all I’ve been doin’,
Doin’ the live-long day,
Is playin’ some video games
And watchin’ some TV.
But even so, I feel the need,
The need to get some whisky in me.

The Lecture Hall

poetry

Tans abound, bathed in
reflecting, radiating, vibrating
softly, glowing fluorescent light.

Worn carpet rests under;
never-in-style patterns surround
as ideas are tossed lazily about.

Some have merit,
some do not.
Some are young and vibrant,
most are not.

Reflected, radiated, vibrated
in lifeless fluorescent light,
surrounded by worn tans,
trying not to stand out.

a poem for today

poetry

ignorance is meaningless bliss and
the self-aware piece of the larger machine
lives in agony
as it sucks in death and pumps out life
like the ticking of an ageless clock
ceaseless and maddening

the precisely timed moments of
silence have been defined as freedom

in this time the self-aware piece of the
larger machine tends to its surroundings
and reflects and
tries to make a smile and
clasps its hands together and with all the
hope of a hopeless world prays and wishes
for there to be some other place

a place not made out of a machine
a place where self-aware pieces can be a part
of a larger nothing
and can identify as such
and can give freedom a new meaning

where there would be no product or good
no machination and
no life and
no death and

that hope is so fucking strong
it makes the loathing of ticks and the tocks
and the siren that calls you back to work
just palatable enough to stomach

this poem is for you, today
the same as ever yet infinitely unique
just like everything else

Trampoline

poetry

I used to be better at this,

but no matter, for still I go

up and down, down and up.

And as I climb, I see you there,

over the fence, laying in the sun.

Then all I see is wood, on the descent,

until yet again, there you are,

smiling as you see me.

And too late, I return an awkward smile,

only to have it blocked by the downward fall.

But just as gravity sucks me down,

so also will it spit me up again,

and perhaps you’ll see me smile back.

a scathing critique of himself from a 3rd person perspective

poetry

On his way to Taco Bell he smoked a bowl that he had hidden his glove compartment that morning. He wanted to say “I’d like some dog food wrapped in a tortilla” at the drive-thru but instead he just ordered a #6. On his way back to work he plotted and schemed at ways to make more money. “That is what growing up is about,” he thought. He liked to get really high and think about great things to do and then not do them.

His car was a mess. He pulled up to the office where he works, which is an elementary school converted into an office building. You could tell that his mid-adult sedentary lifestyle had caught up with him when he got out of his car. After having put on a substantial amount of weight relatively recently, his wardrobe suffered immensely. His wrinkled beige dress-pants barely covered his ankles. He was wearing a winter coat covered in cat hair on a 50 degree day in March whose sleeves would pull back passed his wrists at certain angles.

He waddled into his office and put his Taco Bell down on his desk. A large pepsi, two tacos, and a “mexican pizza.” Although no worthwhile food critic would call this a mexican lunch, that’s what it was marketed to him as. He sat down and opened a text editor and began to write a scathing critique of himself from a 3rd person perspective.

He felt that anyone looking at him could understand the jist of it.

Spring Break

poetry

If holidays were ranked,

first of course would be

the holiday of holidays,

the everythingakidcouldwantallrolledintoone extravaganza!

Of course I’m talking about Christmas.

And I can see the argument, of course,

to rank Thanksgiving next,

with the food and the leaves,

and the food and the family,

and, of course, the food and the, did I say food?

But up there somewhere is the break of spring,

which trades presents for getaways

and trades family for lazy days.

And, yes, the food may not be as nice,

but I’d trade it for sleeping late twice.

my eyes see only inside

poetry

i’ve grown appropriately concerned
with the way my head has turned inward
on itself,
my eyes see only inside.
i’m entirely incapable of looking at others,
neither noticing nor acknowledging their existence.
my eyes see only inside.
my ears hear the world
around me. the very one my vision ignores
and the signals in my brain are confused.
at once aware of the world, and blind to it at the very same time.
inward facing, while certainly more familiar,
only gives me front row seats to watch
my heart harden.

hey dude

poetry

(to the tune of Hey Jude)
Hey dude, don’t get that backpack
Take a side bag, and add a strap to it
Remember, to save a sport for your fart
Then you can try, to save it for later

Nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey dude
Nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey dude

A Heart of Flesh

poetry

A heart of flesh

is a dangerous thing

because it causes so much pain.

How much easier I always find it to be

to live with a heart of stone

inside of me.

Because a stone does not feel.

Because a stone has no need to heal.

Instead, it just chips away,

weathered and ripped apart

by the wind and the rain.

And flesh is just so weak,

able to be stabbedtornbroken

by the hands of man.

And it hurts so much to feel,

because every piece that breaks

causes so much ache.

So the temptation is so strong

to be a stone that rolls along

without feeling,

without touching,

without purpose.

But that life is not for me,

not since I looked at that tree.

And that life is not for me,

because even through the pain

a heart of flesh can find joy in the rain.

cannot get over this cloud

poetry

there is no clarity in this cloud
where schizophrenic whispers argue
semtantics and extort logical
fallacies and emotional pleas
until you cannot even remember your name

in the solvent mist of the cloud
that slowly turns you into it

with my head up this high i have learned
many things but also nothing at all

as what i think i know blurs at the edges
and dissolves down until each of it’s
individual particles is separate and alone

the cloud is insanity
and every moment of life is viewed
through the prism of a raindrop
and the only
discernable
edges are the ones of each atom

and these edges are the stiffest to be known

these particles bounce around endlessly
with nothing to hold onto

within the cloud

melting and assimilating all that come near
and reality is an infinite multitude of entirely
different viewpoints on the same
visage

the nothing and everything will
exist there, simultaneous

yet vehemently apposed