a day in the life by the beatles

poetry

as i walk in the clerk behind the counter debates with his associate when they think i will kill myself. i tell him that i was raised on the american dream. and i drove down here with my windows down. and i’m never happy for very long. we traded currency and i went back my hole. it was dark and dry just like i like it. i’d like to have a much bigger hole, however. and maybe one with an adjustable darkness knob. i never let my mother visit. she thinks i live up high, with the star-fuckers. drinking that currency in a bitter drink that is awfully bad for you. i’ve come to understand that for as much as i do, there is more that i don’t. my nights are very dark and dry, i only go out to be insulted by clerks, usually. they live in my neighborhood though so it’s not that big of a deal.

i just wish i could invite my mother over.

this is not my land

poetry

this is not my land
it is not your land
we were just born here
orphans to an island
you may build a fortress
but time moves like water
existence is arbitrary

i go walking
i don’t claim it’s my way
all ahead of me
lie omnipresent highways
and below me
there are metal bi-ways
this land was made
for you and me

i move and trample
with the fall of my footsteps
my will imposing
destruction begetting
and all around me
no horns were playing
this land was made
by you and me

the sun is rising
i am unknowing
of who got it going
now the clock is rolling
each tock is tolling
and my pride is growing
this land is for me
and only me

this land is my land
this land is your land
from california
to new york island
rom redwood forest
to the gulf-stream waters
this land was made
for you and me.

poetry

There is a place not far from here
where the wind whips fiercely and
the sand and dust flies in your faces
so that you can not even think to go
further

The water is cold on this ill-tempered
beach and the ships have all come in just
to stay alive amidst a red-flag warning
and water was boiling and everyone was
cold and alone and etc etc etc

so we walked streets that offered nothing
and we saw ships that we fancied all the same
for different reasons. We watched the ducks.
You shivered.

We came back, then, from that treacherous place
feeling glad to be alive even if we hadn’t got
our toes wet like we wanted to, and as far as
I could care those waters are still boiling
and everyone is cold and alone and etc etc etc

except for some of us

Titanium Justice

poetry

I remember a thunderstorm
in a field one summer and
the lighting was better than
every firework I’ve ever seen

Then four years went by
and you packed up to go
from one place to another
though you stopped here
for a moment,
at least

Then four years were
purely inconsequential
and everything was just
as it always was and
if the sky cracks any differently
in Texas I know at least
you’ll see it the same

And thank you, for it.

the giant

poetry

depressed
modern
eating disease
today-america
apathetically excretes
missiles
and
inference

in god-like
proportions

equal in appetite
necessarily naive
an organism
kept ignorant
by the very structure
of her foundation

this cell,
laughs!
and whistles while he
labors!
for where else are
we to go?
where there is only
servitude, or exile?

no direction for the aimless

poetry

you feed your self dog food
you’re soaking up rain water
they call this progress
you write to pass the hours off
on to someone else
hoping for validation
from like-minded beings and
publish them, anonymously
you are afraid of your own thoughts
you hear yourself say garbage words
you just walk along the hard ground
finding solace in it’s curvature
there is no direction for the aimless.

poem

poetry

here he sits reading
the cliff notes in a
history book
listening to far out
jazz

the main character
in a book he’s
currently working on

is he the writer?
is he the protagonist?
is he both?

every day he wakes
with old eyes and
a young heart
and the pages fill
and disappear

all with the same
fiction
the same drivel
different titles

he finds familiar
dialogue in his stories
he sees his own words
in the history book

he thinks “man,
i must be the
only one alive
out here”

Debt from an Asylum

poetry

Get me a pill a sadness kill 
an acre of kaleidoscopic hope
a jolt for my shadow child, and
vivid crayons to seal him on an
immaculate page, and I  
I will be your eldorado 
your rumbling mut 
your lucky charm
your warm coat for the winter
I will be a sunshine touch on your  
acoustic heart strings.  
  

trying to find the center

poetry

alone is different than lonely
but god I tell you I am both
and am walking ’round in circles, here
trying to find the center

and this is a true account of my days
written here for you to see
as usual, and of course
I can’t let go of the words, oh

what’s more is you can have all my stuff
i don’t care about much anymore
but i miss your dog, i miss your dog
yeah yeah, yeah yeah, etc

but if you wanted me (and you don’t)
I would’ve saved you yes I would
but your love is such a weighty lie
your love is just a sucker game.

partial lyrics on a sunday

poetry

the ghosts of rocks tap your window
your friends are all dust in the air
you feel like some low-budget horror movie
trashed on a god-given sunday

and i’ve not got any pain left
and i might die but that’s okay
and this old movie called “youth”
well it gets old in it’s own way

the monkeys turn tricks on the boulevard
the leaves flap around in the sunlight
well painkillers make me feel alright
i guess that’s how i lie to get by sometimes
i guess that’s how i lie to get by alright.

technology, entertainment, design

poetry

i posit that all of this gas
and carbon nonsense is
the molecules within a falling
raindrop, electrons and
other scientific things popping
and fizzing as supernovas in
a black abyss. that chances are
we will be crushed on an umbrella,
that man will have spent all
of his time sitting in front of computer
screens, watching geniuses blabber,
positing about carbon and raindrops,
and plop,
right on some 9 year old’s hannah
montana umbrella. she’ll be livin’ like
us, ears closed, just like one big
epic irony. for feelings,
i guess.

my tombstone should include “wide-eyed” on it somewhere

poetry

i am wide eyed and high floating
above rivers of happy
philistines and i find that
everything is funny because
it’s all so very grave.
waves of irony end their journey
from: our massive sun-god
to: my face and
amplify my smile;
coloring all things in their
deep, deep comedy.

i smile and graze over the
earth with my eyes lightly
so as to not break a thing.

“humans are bad balloons”
i think and
look down
as i deflate
the crumbly breaky surface
giving way at the thought of
my come-down. sunshine
turning into heat
bird chirps
turning into traffic
smog
all things blackening and
crumbling as i come down.
i grab at the comedy but
cannot hold anything,
not even the air.

Firsts

poetry

Too often I lament the ideas
That have eluded my pen
But in mourning even one second
I miss what now is.
Take as much as I can.
Begin the very first chapter
Of my very first book.
The first is always the hardest, they say.
The first step,
The first day,
The first word,
The first sentence.