Typewriter heroes

a thing the typewriter had going for it
was that it was probably harder,
tho not impossible, for a cat
to sit on it while you were writing.

Remington 666

typewriter hasn't been opened
since we lugged that black box
3,500 miles to the coast and
then back
                and that was all some
time ago and still it sits there
ink drying on ribbon, keys silent
decaying imperceptibly,
                                   doesn't
have the weight or ability to call
out and end it's atrophy and mine,

something flickered like a victory as
it sat under kansas gray sky beside
that old green van, head gasket melted
night before on I-70 going west,
                                               scares
me now, it's seeming omnipotence, it's
visible and screaming existence as a
symbol in my mind, as a last tangible
link to that drive for the coast,
                                             a last
remaining symbol of our faded past.

Painting on my floor

I wish this could be a
picture,

in many ways
it is,

in the most important ones,
it isn't,

I am left with words and
nothing else,

stinging meaningless
flat words,

no subtext, no gentle strokes,
no shaded marks,

just lines and letters lined up
one after the other,

a string of thoughts, at best,
a rough outline,

causing pain and misunderstanding,
and you know,

just looking plain awful for the
most part,

times new roman lettering, lazy,
I just hit the keys,

I just type whatever the hell
I want,

because I tell myself this is me,
what I am thinking,

this isn't planned, I don't have an
artist's table,

I don't have an artist's
touch,

I have a desk, it's dusty and sits
by the window,

sometimes it sits there, alone,
all day,

I don't even look at it
sitting there,

I just go on dying and it goes on
waiting,

covering itself up in dust, looking all sad,
eventhough it's not alive,

it's like atlas, shouldering
my typewriter,

then when I have something to say, some ugly,
useless thing,

I type it out, and we both wait
for me to fail,

which happens from time to
time,

there are more crumpled papers,
than clean ones.

The Typed Walls (typing)

typed walls
are taped up around
this room with
blood & shit to hold it,
they paint without me
why?
when I leave them, when I ignore
their falling pathetic deaths
each minute drifting out
toward the past a
screen windowsilled memory
descending on abandoned cars
that rumble north
hopeful of crumbling watch word
building promises and facades
these cars with no driver
this blood with no body

typed walls decay about
this room
in the moonlight-sunlight-
incandescent light
of what could be done
what won't ever be done

these typed walls
are invisible
never to be read
just discarded
like all poets should hope to be
withering and dying aimlessly
saying nothing in the end
a life taken to discover death
now accepting silence

one final grasp
at failure--

No one will remember me.

Experiments

Keep right on
Give me up those jagged edges
Those even falls, I'm wasting
My spaces are hell alright
but you leave me no choice
two to one to god damn space
I'll make my bargain alone
UNREADABLE UNCORRECTED UNDONE
A poem should always bleed ink!
A Sign! A Son!
A quarter sorry word slapped on the edges
makes me all right all formless
all the god damn way WAY

Your mysteries will be mine

Great Ghosts!
I offer hellish nightmares for betting and stuffing
holy birthdays of ole PA
in afternoon moons wavering, full,
a great corpse slinking backward to time

tread how how howl howl people standing everywhere

I fade

LINES
       LINES
               LINES
                       TWO LINES
                                       HIT IT TWICE
                                                           WHICH WORKS
                                                                                 EVENTUALLY

What really matters is how slow you are
the most care wins
the X's miss, WHAT small creatures
weep for them wholly, biblically, fitfully,

the world is an idiot's poem

Typewriter

I have a typewriter at my feet
Remington 666
no ribbon
red, black, white
8.33 per roll
3 for 25 ain't bad
on websites dealing in antiquity
in something real, in ink
and paper and feeling
still

the wind howls at my window pane
a lost hurt surprisingly sad
gesture,

a careless motion toward the door
to no one
there's nobody here,
I'm waving at my own sunken eyes
I haven't seen

the same eyes I'm trying to forget