Sunday, August 30, 2009

Running

I'm tired.
there's a fan in the other room buzzing.
crickets outside
and trash cans
sitting next to driveways.

under a desk light
with the night surrounding him
a man can be forgiven of all
his wrongs,

in the light of day
with the desk lamp cold
and trash cans empty
he's just tired.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Dream Storm Approaching

In my darkened room,
I sit,
legs reclined,
feet resting on top of one another

a cricket plays a lonely concerto
for the
night
steadily marching
towards the
day,

In the distance
lightening flashes
my cat,
his long black
tail
hanging from
his window perch,
pays no notice

I think sometimes
maybe we are all
just dreams
of one small sleeping cat
overlooked,
unloved

eyes closed
body rising in rhythm
up and down
up and down,
paws curled under its chin
ears
twitching
absently,

A light,
silent
reaches out across
an unknowing distance
insurmountable
and more deafening
than the
lives we have lost
or have failed to lead,

cats know this
very well,
or
atleast
they should,
they
sure
sleep through
alot.

Promise

i
promised
you
a
poem
by
the
time
you
woke
up

so
here
it
is.

Beetles, a Screen Door; Summer

Radiating black masses
over black, purple bleak
skies,
the moon on their backs
undefined

they danced,
oddly shaped
seemingly uncontrolled
I watched ignored,

Raised a bottle to my lips
sipping,
I squinted at them
hard,

What did they want?
what wisdom? Grief? Praise?

the moon
compassionate
a solemn face,
failing to comprehend,

and the dancing shapes
and the hapless man,

are
no
better
for
it.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Cream Soda

the body wash in my shower
smells exactly like cream soda,

the scent
is
unmistakable,

it reminds me
of warm summer nights
and Dum Dum
lollipops,

of jailbreak and lighted porches,

our laughter shattering
the
night, a curious
reflection marching through the dusk
as old ghosts slept

she never held my hand,
and I never asked,
the screen door
swung lazily behind us
back and forth,

the condensation on my glass
dampening my fingers,
the bottle on my lips
calming, cool,

into, out of the abyss
figures running toward us
in the
darkness,
we readied ourselves,
for,
in an instant
we
were
all
of
us
about
to
be
free

untitled

I figure the most
important thing to do
is to sit here
and continually write
shitty poetry,

because, as I see it,
eventually you'll
be forced to
shit gold.

Mosquitos

small
red
upraised,
tortuously
inflamed
I think about them,
scattered over
my arms
legs,

as we drink ourselves
to death, laughing
as the embers die,
as the sun rises,
as the tombstones 
are carved,
and the morning flies descend

A Magical Mistake

A peach pit half buried in sand
discarded
lazy
Sundays at the beach,
A wrinkled brain
bursting out of
desert sands,
waves crashing
a newspaper
fighting
winds,

I ask my father,
"How'd the phils do?"

"same as always,"
He replies
looking up
through misty
sunglasses,
I'm watching women
walking
by
flesh burning
in
the
high sun,
Brilliant colors,
distorted figures
the
failed act of becoming something
unattainable,
something
lasting,
is lost
on damp towels and aluminum chairs.

Visiting New York

New York always cries
when i go to see her,

tears fall from the sky,
cold and hard,
covering the streets and sidewalks
drowning out the city smells,

leaping from awning to awning,
or hiding under an umbrella,
the tallest buildings
are lost to me,

The Empire State Building
rises silent
obscured by
a thick cool fog,
a white Aegis blending
with forlorn skies
glowing white,

rain taps incessantly
at my face
filling my glasses
with coutless
tiny orbs,
buzzing
like one million
frenzied gnats,

tirelessly she cries,
people walking,
jumping
huddled
shielding their heads
and faces with damp arms,

animals creep silently
in alleyways,
trash soaked through
mildews in ignored
metal bins,

I carry my head low
staring at pavement
one square at a time,
beginning to end,

New York cries and cries,
continues to cry,
weeping heavy tears.

when I visit her,
New York,
she cries.

Under a Few Articles of Clothing; Seduction

Under a few articles of clothing (all mine)
I found it,

A single pair of white panties
(outlined in pink with scattered pink stenciled dogs)

She's trying to seduce me,
It's becoming obvious now
I am
sure of
it

Trying to plague my dreams
and conquer my daily wanderings
with images of her,
her,
in those white panties
with the irresistibly cute pink trim,

I would have believed
it a mistake,
if --
the incident,
you see,
had been isolated.

But rest assured
it certainly was not,

Just
two weeks
before,

one single
white
knee high sock,

She knew how
I liked them,
had asked weakly, shyly
to see them on her,
how she coyly
acquiesced,

not only that!
No!
Also a white bra,
soft and feeling of her,
intoxicating

Yes,
shes trying
to seduce me
I'm sure of it now,

I take all the evidence,
filling my evidence room,
a drawer of their
very own,

the pieces,
building up my intimate evidence room.

* * * *

My door shuts
*clack*
Her figure gone,

A kiss and hug good bye
still stings my lips,
only the ghost of her
remains
through smell and imprint alone
an image of embers
dying on a dying fire,

And then I
start looking,
leaping from the bed,
when I am sure you are gone,

under couches

behind doors left ajar

in the kitchen
bedroom
bathroom

next to hampers

near the computer

beneath clothes
piled high,

She's trying to seduce me,
she left those white panties,
with the iresistibly cute soft pink trim
She's absolutely
without a doubt
trying to seduce me
the evidence is all here,

my Lilith
my Aphrodite
swirling maenad

she plays her game,
her ammunition
carefully chosen
a clandestine war,
attrition and bondage,
and socks and panties (with pink trim)

I collect all this evidence
from the war
she's winning.

We...?

Did we...?
no, really...?
I thought I...?
You...what...?

Ahh...Fuck...

Hipstery This, Hipstery That

Camus or Hammet,
Roth or Virginia Wolffe,
Quote them all
from their Wikipedia page,

Is that a dog-eared copy
of Thomas Pynchon?
I've never read that...though,
thats not what I say

I'd appreciate your tweed jacket
and bowler cap
If you hadn't danced like Williams
or cried like Yeats.
or, you know, spent $300 dollars on them
at Urban Outfitters.

A metaphor from the 1920s
can't explain everything,
well fed kings starve on social capital,
I just wanted you to know...

(while you drink your acid kool-aid
rocking chairs in a house covered snow)

I'd rather you read Stephen King.

Internet Dating

I post fake missed connections ads
on craigslist everyday,
I hope someone reads them and laughs,
or truly believes it refers to them and responds.

In the remote, bleak world
of internet classifieds,
I guess I am either
angel or jester.

A Good Morning

motionless,
slender arm
stretched toward
the window,
slightly ajar;

a cool morning breeze eases its
way across your body,
legs tangled in covers
caressed by the gentle
current, whispering;

the hint of movement
like thunder over the
quiet rise and fall of your breath,
the sun barely awake,
focuses its light
in a single stream
across your unclothed belly,
tan and shimmering
between tangled shirt and pants,
groggy, aloof;

heavy eyelashes rest,
mouth serene,
barely discernible
lips quiver and stop,
several strands of jet black, glistening hair
lay across your cheek,

Bed, metal and wood and foam and mattress,
floating,
it holds you, still cool
remembering the chill of the night air,
the warmth of your sleeping body,
the day not yet begun,
paint its picture,

you, the model,
sleeping soundly,
safely, beautifully silent,
fingers relaxed
pointing outward,
the sun rising,
dew resting on spring flowers,
a wish,
a dream,
a moment,
a memory,
a good morning kiss.

Eternity Diner

Braun Rodman is in the funny business!
yes, yes he is!

she looked at me, pulling words from my throat, from my heart. I turned; her piercing eyes torture me. The menu is so very large, I just cannot decide what to order. She turns away, destinies untied.
A sigh of relief, I have a few more minutes.

Egypt and Prophets; Speak Future

The sun is setting,
with its dying light
it illuminates the valley below,
the prophets can no longer see
what lies beyond, all is cold now
and dark, a churning swamp
from clearest pond,

Stand on the edge, do they see you?
drop your offering,
there is no teller for you,
no seer to speak kind words,

The river polluted, dying;
We search for words
trying, it was once,
but is no longer,

A rush of cool air,
stain blue, a chilling breeze
cools the wax
on knowing candles, blind;

We walk on,
future contaminated,
destinies set,
a wanderer,
a princess,
a love;

in separate directions,
looking back,
holding hands,

alone.

(Film)

(A blur)

we move our lens, focusing;
drawing in slowly, steady

(coming into view a tiny window, a small house)

panning to the right,
we move around to the side of the house;
all is still, only the slight murmur of grass
blowing in the wind,

(the shudders on two windows on the now recognizable
one story house are beaten and weathered, it is difficult
to tell if they were once blue or purple)

There seems to be something moving inside,
the viewer peering intently into the house,
this normal house,
the camera deliberately holding back, playing
on the curiosity of unknowing the unknown,

(the blackness emanating from deep within the house
renders the thin metal bars of the screen window nearly invisible,
perceived only due to the herculean efforts of a small insect  
assigned with the task of breaking into this residential prison)

(The [obstinate] insect offers us a way in,
a means to enter this suburban sepulchre
we become the surveyor unable to be seen
transparent ourselves we risk no moral judgment,
no repercussions, in other words: we are free)

We pass the insect, still struggling to enter,
his wings deafening, a moment of pure vertigo
and he is no longer a part of our memory,
the camera is independent now, we on the other hand,
are only along for the ride, we pan out to take in the room;
all is darkness,

(there was something moving though,
it is written into our memory, our discourse,
a collective memory or conscious,
either will grasp the concept, classified into existence
we have now birthed the experience into reality with text)

looking back over what is written, the camera recalls;
something was moving while we were outside,
when we were surveyed not surveyor,
powerless, powerful, powerless;
the camera understands the limits, knows the limits.
[Of course IT does, IT creates them]

(Opening: When we started EXT. or INT)

The camera, a red light, its batteries, our eyes;
in text, in language, in writing;
participating, watching, becoming;
The lens slowly turns toward us,
we are looking, we are inside, we are being watched.

(A blur)

A Speck

A speck of dust can see, floating above and below us, touching us; invisible it drifts, a voice so small we are unable to hear, like a whisper bridging the gap from an immemorial past, somewhere in a vestigial memory we recall how it once was a mountain a great rolling green hill a breathtaking cavern, but now it is nothing to us (yet everything to it), its only memory is of itself: keeping alive with thoughts of its past, no longer remembered by the base thoughts of forgetful man; and so its history murmurs painlessly, (painfully, elegiacally); wandering in the twilight of day of year of era of aeon, harsh solid abrasive; soft malleable permeable; a closet memory, an epic foreclosure of existence mingling furtively with the dying embers of primordial memory, playing tricks on us in the darkness; there, naming without objects, objects without names.
A single speck of dust can see all these things invisible to man.

What I See When I Look at a Can of Watermelon Juice...

There are Hearts;
Breaking,
Broken,
gone; a list of
loved ones?
Curious,
reaching
obsequiously,

out to no one;

a gray sky ubiquitous,
the entire world trapped
under its heavy gaze, 
are we placid? O, without serenity...

if we put these hearts together
the pieces left all over the ground,
a didactic lesson of lost and love,
of here and there,
of dear and found,
would our sorrow make the slightest sound?

Shadows

For Felicia<3

Shadows falter
minds erased,
a hurdle, breathless
I barely escape; your

image rushing,
in the fore,
a darkness unwavering,
crumbles before,

A building cold, unyielding still,
A fire warm, a glass never chilled,
I'm waiting forever,
It seems alright, your beauty
never fades as does the night,

In blackness unmoving,
out in the cold, a snowflake a lonesome,
a dove once bold, its
breath drifting silently toward your piercing eyes,
One touch,
one breath,
one beautiful disguise.

Pavement

an engine,
churning water under its feet,
an unexpected storm, laid heavy
upon us, the silence of night
unnatural,

Uneasy memories,
linger in this place
a cavern, simplicity rejuvenated
a heartfelt hello,

the air inside stagnant,
and out...something new,
street shining, glistening
slick, coated with languid mirrors,
the crows once voluble, now
silent forgetful, forgetfully mute,

a night a day
a teeming metropolis
a lonely stretch of unused rural land,
a solitary figure waving beside a country road,
the banks growing shorter, the waters
taller, reflective alive

an engine unto itself
explains itself, denies itself
unsettled, rumbling a metallic angel
flashing overhead, to far to be reflected
in our misplaced hungry riverbed.

Two Worlds

Thin rays of Light
Pass through my translucent prison,
Lying,
False,
I pretend to believe them,
That they are warm
And outside is not the cold
dead of winters chill,

Closing my eyes
I coat the world in blackness,
In truth, without the
light to lead me astray;

And He stood there
smiling, holding his hand
out to me, knowingly
frozen, I stand between two worlds;

An Angelic chorus,
A Demon's kiss?
A solid globe of blue opens
up to me, Our Existence
is our vanity,
The waves of sunlight dried up long ago,

I stare into staring skies,
on my last day of sanity

Ode to Balthazar

To a squirrel of the Belltower

The wind swept fog, life swaying in the breeze. It picked up over the fields in the direction of a long neglected meadow, Primordial being, first come, the land was new its race old. Yet new. Crawling and evolving, evolving and walking. I watched the distorted visage, the black specter as it caught my eye. Bridging time letting space shift by.

So absurd an incident. So little did we once think of it. the gods were there to protect us. Weren't they there to protect us? We bring nothing. Say we bring nothing. i bring nothing. It was inches from my face. I watched it float like a balloon in the corner of my eye, as if time could not pass by.

Was it mans knowledge thrown through the wind, no intent of malice but friendly play? Alas, I looked at it, unmoved. Could it be something else? Athletic? It would fall the other way. No sickening thud. That’s what I had heard. Shattering that thin layer of peace, a separate peace, forgotten peace. Something had snapped, something was lost.

More difficult to destroy, to warp, than to make. It seems so. It looked so. As I peered in disbelief. i mouthed, and words formed, quickly in my mind, reacted to before I had forced them to the surface. Writhing in its bile, demons hawked the beast.

Gentle creature, so lately loved, posthumously. Forsaken by its god, sacrificed in a wicked mass. The rising structure stood, cold. Colder than it has ever been. Not hate; but disillusion? Not anger. But melodic sorrow. Gentle creature, twitching, watching, perceiving its immutable doom.

In that moment were all one. We died as you. You died as us. We felt your presence. You had to leave. Gentle creature who pleases none, who is alone, with us we were one. taken quickly, we were taken aback. ventured slowly, to the realm; you had lived your short life in lament.

Gentle creature, who pleases none, who is alone, with us we were one, for a fleeting second you reached - we reached. We were one, walking in the blackness of the dying spring sun. It changed forever, colors bleating, image cleaving upon the phallic rock. Looming thoughts, dreams, gods protect; no more. You drifted into peace, from momentary pain.

Gentle Creature. Your forest of concrete betrayed you in your final breaths, it siphoned your life, and a part of us all. Quiet, brooding we looked at you, who please none, who is no longer alone, for we are one.

Crushed Velvet

This is an older poem that I wrote for Felicia near the time when we first met so it's two years old and much more abstract then the way I tend to write now<3, I would venture to say its what caused her to fall in love with me...;)

Lost; found
Purple, light
Highlight; the moon
Walks in,
Spoke to much
Melody,
Lost speaking
Innocent, not
But innocent still;
Stones upon boulders
Walking toward an open door, used and discarded
No faith; in nothing, nothing; with faith. FROZEN. Elapsed time. In memory.
Took a chance.
Told her; heart lost on me.
Destroyed; reaching open faulty
Happy listless denied open to mourning
Heart is shut; NO. Heart is open
Pin up vindictive; love is real? Made me believe.
Saw without sight.
Who walks upon the steps of the other,
Who walks upon the lives of none.
In the corner alone, capable of much
Seen by none. Whatever.
Eaten the food
Nourished good, tasted nothing
So restless in the springs hearth,
Losing momentum. Unsure of; not to be; why?; broken; unsure
Why?
Do you think to? Do you want to?
Spoken, denied? I hear denial but see none
Seemed to be but not to see.

Walking to the foot of the bed i placed to wound. The companion, a friend? bring love, understanding; given love; lover?; given to none, wanted? Wanted. Abhorred. Failure. What I seek; what I receive.
SPIRAL. spiral. SPIRAL. spiral. SPIRAL.

Wonder? Wonderful? Graceful? Clumsy? Unknown. Only written only thought, though Said.
Beautiful? Intelligent? Think I can say for sure. Positive
Belated scorn; NOT; lives wasted
Blackness gone, mystery
No pretense; voice angelic
Blushing, feline piercing
Eyes cautious break,

Mind at ease; but restless. Eyes, wide awake should sleep, glancing across the sea.
Pulled down and drowned; spilled; Soul? Human soul? Defendants not involved. Open I opened, I released. Calm I gave in for
Broken heart or satiated soul.

Funny, humorous
Split, eaten. Gave my all. Not sure?
Spoken name. Black Cat. Open Not like before.
Oh Nightingale! Flown away when I closed my eyes...Forsaken?
No! Hapless? No!
Maybe.

Will not. What I asked. Undermined. Resplendent. Late after.
Apple? Orange? Rotten? Replace.
Mishap? Hero. Cat. Villain. Black. Inspired
Elated. Unknown. Everything.

Nothing.                                                Everything;

Everything.                                            Nothing;

Nothing.                                               Everything,

Coin/cOIN

A sickening thud,
Looking around, she
holds on to her jacket sleeve
tightly, wondrously
afraid and unmoving, there
in the corner, the noise
a rolling, rustling now;
uneven and distorted, like
the moaning of some mechanical animal,
injured and seeking a place to hide its frame,

She stares into the abyss, the
swelling darkness, exhaling
and realizing she had forgotten to breathe,
something was there, the sound
continued to mount, closer it tumbled
on and on,
moving yet unmoving,
trapped in the corner, yet
the sound was all over the room,

desolate and unknown, she
grabbed at her sleeve once more, harder
digging her fingers into the thin fabric,
cracking under the weight of her fear;

****************************************************

I sat hunched over
and my legs pressed together
in the swing too small and
the chain creaking as it swung almost
un-noticeably back and forth
and my feet dragging like a boy's
upon the mulch that had been ground to
dirt under years of playing children
thinking about that girl,

Her hair smelling sweetly in the summer breeze
too beautiful to tell her how I felt
and she laughed at the unspoken words
that sat in my stomach and made me sick
and she grabbed my hand pulling me forward
so that we ran into the field of flowers and
the field yellow and pink and green
and smelling almost as sweetly as her,

The sky blue and solid above us
the pollen blowing in the breeze
and her dress dancing around her as she laughed
pulling me behind her and saying something
I could not hear over the rustling of the wind,

And I sat there on the swing,
watching the children play, looking
once or twice over at the old man on the swing,
and I was happy for them.