For those of you who are fans of continuity or viewing how an author's style progresses from their first poem to the present day, I'm sorry. A long time ago I started neglecting to write the dates on my poems, so instead of going through the maddening exercise of trying to put them in chronological order by guessing, I just typed them out as I found them. So here they are. Whether each one is a winner or not is up to your personal taste, but in any event I hope you enjoy reading even the failures. Please note: this group of poems consists of works that were basically just lying around the house. They were never really a part of any specific collection so I just lumped them all in here. You will also encounter some poems in here that were a lot longer than just one page. Why didn’t I include them on the “epic poem” page or a different section? Two reasons: (1) compared to some of the REALLY big poems I’ve written, an 8 to 10 page poem is nothing, (2) I didn’t want to have to make a million categories here…just two is fine. Hope you enjoy. Also, this collection is far from complete at this point. I’m typing out more as you read this, so expect to see a LOT more poems.
“3-31-2001”
Who could ever look at your face
And see absolute darkness?
I see sparks spraying in eternal flight,
Godless streets drowned in my sarcasm,
My face lined with blood and wine.
I am drawn on by scorn,
By the promise of a difference.
Guidelines for the fashion of modern youth
Inked in the most sacred tears,
Gone beyond the wishes
Of gruesome bureaucrats.
Diplomats buried
In the blood their words drew.
Anger focused, narrowed down
To a pinpoint of light.
No more misery
On your brother’s grave,
No more of me
In my father’s name.
“I feel…”
I feel unwound.
I feel uptight
Because there is nothing here
For me to fear.
No translucent mystery
To puzzle me.
I need a distraction.
I need a disaster.
I need you here,
Now and forever.
Collapsing into indifference,
Collapsing inside solemnity.
To be free I must tie my hands.
To know where I am,
I must wander foreign lands.
“Create…”
Create this shroud
No holding back…
Cover myself in
Ancient mysteries…
Cracks crossing
Over my face in faded pictures…
No time for recovery…
Ancient masks
Hide the truth,
Hide your face from
Your next life…
Weather cuts my life open…
Resist the distance when the
Seasons start changing…
The lake becomes the sky,
Let tears rain down…
I follow aimlessly…
Let the tangents lead me
To your door…
Knock 3 times,
But you’re never home…
The wisdom opens up behind my back…
Our thoughts run perpendicular…
I know where they connect…
In the mind my free will dies
Until the fire returns…
Slowly walk through your door…
Enter the spotlight.
“It’s called sarcasm!!!!”
Pardon me.
I didn’t mean to get in your way.
I forgot it was wrong to care for others.
Believe me, I didn’t mean
To step on your ego
Or to worry if something I did
Might offend you.
I didn’t know
It was wrong to not be happy.
They should have told me it is illegal.
They should have told me there is
A new amendment about this:
“Those who have feelings are outsiders
who can’t ever get inside.”
I’m sorry for thinking
My feelings were under my control.
Please forgive me.
I didn’t mean to care.
I didn’t mean to love you.
I’m only human,
And I jus figured
If I was given these emotions
Then why not use them?
Trust me when I say
If I had known how wrong it was,
I never would have crossed the line.
I never would have hurt you
By being honest, being real, being me.
And as I sit here
Bathing in the darkness of myself,
I’m collapsing, I’m crumbling, I’m dead,
Because I’m thinking about it
And it’s not clear if you accept my apology.
Tell me honestly: can you ever forgive me for adoring you?
“Heading Down South”
You were heading down south with a stranger to kill a young man.
Needles and insane torture devices in hand,
you were heading out ready to kill without a second thought
until I came rushing out of the house, breaking through the
gate on our white picket fence to change your mind.
The sky turned red in your heart, in your eyes,
below your feet, between your legs.
I begged and pleaded, spilling out an ocean of tears so deep
that God nearly had to give neo-Noah a call.
I said, “Why must this be?” You told me, “Just look at what he’s
doing to my life. He is destroying it, so I must destroy him. Besides, there is
no reason to worry about it. It’s not like he has a soul.”
To which I replied, “It’s always about you, isn’t it? And who are you, the soulless
one, to decide if he has a soul or not?”
But you kept on walking. The walls of arguments I built crumbled under your stubbornness.
I tried one more alternative: “This young man hasn’t truly ruined your life, not completely. Once he comes out of hiding is when the trouble could begin. You could just turn him loose. Send him out into the world. Let someone else worry about him. You see, this murder isn’t really necessary.” In response you pulled out all the stops, dropped your 50 megaton bomb, blasted me to bits…just by saying, “You’re a man. You have no say.”
And I just stood there, stupefied and sickened by the knowledge of where you were going, as you headed down without remorse to kill a defenseless soul. You returned with smiles and kisses for me, as if nothing had gone down.
But you never understood or cared that when you killed him…despite my pleas, despite my tears…you also killed
my love
for you.
“All…”
All I can do is try
To understand why
You work so hard
To lift me so high
When you’d rather see me
Just lay down and die.
Maybe I’m desperate,
Maybe I’m diseased,
Maybe I’m just sick
Of everyone else being lucky.
Maybe I am you,
Or our dreams are reality.
Maybe no one ever
Has a chance to be free.
“Faded, in Disarray”
If you look beyond these hills you can see
lonely fingers painting pictures in an empty house.
You can feel the eyes staring
as if they were in the midst
of forgiveness, but I know
it’s all just a thin layer of lies
wrapped in scarlet,
honey-coated harmonies and
dreams that drip psychedelic love.
I think I know the difference between us
and it’s coming to knock on my door and greet me
like the sunlight when dawn opens,
and I can see the ocean floor with
so many lifeforms going in and out
of this saloon we call existence.
And I can see the scars
marking her wrists like maps,
like sick tourist attractions.
You can hear the echo of her screams
if you press your ear to her heart.
Trapped somewhere in time,
to others the rage is silent now
but I can still hear it,
cane detect every creak of her bones…
every strain of her muscles…
and I have known this internal emptiness myself…
reached into the pool of my soul
and touched bottom, and felt nothing.
For years I tried to stand up.
There was no spine to support
the fading structure of my limbs and head.
But then
I found a pair of scissors
(the same pair she used to burn his name into her thigh)
and I cut the threads holding my lips together.
I opened my mouth
and in that instant I learned where to find my strength:
lying there
in wait
under my tongue
all along.
“Can you see…”
Can you see
The stars
Line the walls of my room?
Shallow in experience
They glow and bloom,
Spreading out like
Supernova petals.
I drink the sunlight
Straight from your eyes.
Don’t flip the mirror!
It will cancel out your shine.
And I am sleeping.
I am drowning in
The illumination of now.
These are
Your fingers
Stretching out
Across my oceans of screams.
I see your lipstick paintings in my dreams.
You are singing in the bathroom stall,
But you won’t sing
For me.
“Praise Him”
Hey God, don’t imagine sunstreaks
where the Skidrow Slasher still lurks
and stashes his bleeding dreams.
Let work go unforgiven where wombs die
and their pain touches your hollow core.
Spread your fingers as you flip the cards
so we can hear when your
masculine words grow weak.
Because we know you’ve gone over.
Don’t let these lines create rage.
Insult is not my goal.
Brush away the worms and spiderwebs,
sweep away the mildew,
and you will know what I say is true.
Could you believe this mighty seraph
belongs to me forever?
“D.B.”
How to speak
How to breath.
I forget
all my world
and senses
and conscious mind
lost
in a pair of eyes.
“Learning to Grow Cold”
With every day that passes
I learn more and more
to shut out the warmth
and embrace the freezing cold patch
growing ever so slowly on my heart.
With every rejection they throw at me like a fist
I am learning not to fear the change,
not to collapse under sunken skies
when I can’t make celestial bodies rearrange.
I am learning to love the darkness,
learning to find myself yearning
for this moon called isolation to come
and eclipse the sun
that was once me,
that was once my spirit,
that was once
my only source of pride.
Long ago I had passion for being passionate.
No more! No more!
I buried my heart in this chest of drawers.
I threw it to the heavens,
I stuck it in the sun.
I did my best to guarantee
it could never go out to anyone.
And I grow angry, and I grow sad,
and I grow distant, and I grow mad,
and all because I’m thinking of the past.
We so freely threw away
what was never even ours to have.
We possessed happiness by accident
and then we dismissed it for cold descent.
We once lingered on mountaintops with angels,
singing songs and swallowing clouds.
We danced at the bottom of the sea
while goddesses of love erased our frowns,
and now we bury all our secrets so deep inside ourselves
if we tried to retrieve them, we would drown.
“The Majestic Purple Aura of the Rebirth, or a True Writer Working the Fix out of His System”
Lately I’ve become a writing junky.
It’s like a needle that I need.
Sewing away into eternity, I can taste the rich tapestries
and I paste them to the window when I’m done.
How strange it seems to pull away from people
and not even feel a withdrawal shudder.
My mind constructs rigid boundaries
and forgets its own magic. This is home.
I don’t have to bind myself in chains.
In this land my words can dissolve anywhere.
They can blast their rudeness into the park
or flow silent as a stream.
Quite often they will reflect the images
of those I have chosen to ignore.
Their light isn’t strong enough to project a soul.
Just faces, blank and empty.
“How are you doing? We’re fine. The fields
still burn electric shades of purple in the evening.”
(Their words grow familiar and stale.)
“Where are you? When are you coming home?”
I wish they could understand
no hands can open my tomb.
Egyptian words bleed a wasted message.
Scrawl it on the air. So meaningless.
They create a curse that shall never
be unleashed. It shall remain unknown.
Spiraling into time, an ignored mystery…perhaps
the first one to ever crawl across this planet.
I can see all that I no longer need.
An old religion, now an empty shell,
Left outside and drying up in the sun
like an old skin I have shed.
A romance that could have been,
which I had the strength to reject.
It died long ago. Yes, it’s long gone, a flower
wilted and faded like dreams. Choked by too much light.
Something gives way as this hermit walks the beach
alone, plucking televisions from the ocean.
His hand like a crane, scooping them out.
Damaged electronics. Weakened bones.
My interest in you sinks with ease.
I’m forgotten, but this doesn’t bother me.
Your face illuminates the dashboard. I suddenly realize
centuries cannot echo if they are erased from history.
Memories. Checks that bounced. Blind
spots. Mind cargo. Aching to break free.
This is breathing. This is living. My favorite
era. Most extraordinary time. Feeling so alive.
(Glowing, this vision field will never perish.)
No, you aren’t needed to make life edible.
I can find a much easier way to make this
sour fruit appeal to my pallet. Yes indeed.
Take this amazing landscape, for example. An unforgettable
discovery which I found by accident.
I was looking to escape memories of you. They tell me
gods used to bury burnt-out suns here.
I take my time mining these fields, unearthing these
cold celestial stones. No one cares, and that’s how I like it.
No one seems to notice when I remove
the dead suns from their soft, neglected crypts.
You did, though. You wrote me a letter.
I still have the stretch marks to prove it.
“The Gorilla Meets the Crypt”
Once upon a time
there was a gorilla
and a crypt.
Where loneliness once dared to tread,
he found a wine he had never sipped.
No key was made to match the crypt’s keyhole,
but the gorilla knew brute strength could burst just about any barrier.
So this hairy demon stepped forward and clogged the twilight.
Once he’d smashed through the door he came upon a glittering room,
shining as if the sun itself had come down to earth.
As he looked around in awe, the gorilla wondered
how he could have missed the sight of all these
constellations falling. Certainly these golden objects
had a celestial nature! How else could they glow so
bright? There was nothing else they could possibly be!
(Aye, and there’s where the gorilla
made his first and last incorrect judgment,
because everything is possible.)
The gorilla’s eyes were hungry for beauty.
They devoured countless suns and moons.
Anubis and Osiris haunted his mind, but
Egyptian hieroglyphics could not scar him.
Their sarcasm escaped the primate, especially since he was
busy examining all the pretty things he could break.
He longed to crack them open like a brainpan,
drain out all their mysterious fluids.
The gorilla cast his thoughts into the golden sea,
aching to uncover some new curiosity.
Later on he discovered a crimson throne
and perched upon it in eternal silence
was a beast holding a scepter.
This creature was old, withered, decaying.
Listening carefully, the gorilla
could still hear the maggots
gnawing away at the carcass.
But his thoughts were distracted
by how attractive the scepter was!
Pretty and long and solid!
Built to smash enemies and insubordinate followers alike!
Structured to beat all those who would resist its owner’s will into submission!
He had to have it, so the gorilla set to work getting it loose.
This project wasn’t difficult. All the liquid in this dead ruler’s
bones had deteriorated. Each finger snapped like a stick
as the gorilla wrenched the scepter free.
Clutching his new possession with pride,
the gorilla tried using it as a weapon.
It held up well…
shattering clay pots,
puncturing weak flesh,
(oh, all flesh is weak)
breaking precious glass.
This will be a good weapon for the rest
of my days, thought the gorilla.
So he left the tomb with it
and never looked back.
The scepter served him as a weapon, but
for the rest of us it has become a symbol
of defiled tombs everywhere.
The gorilla carried his scepter far away from its home.
He used it until his life reached its end,
until the day he himself wore away.
(Wherever the scepter may be today, I
know this for sure: more than just the
initial stain of shame coats its skin,
more than just that virgin’s blood.)
I relate this story to you tonight
from this inn, where I sit while I
drink my drunkard’s fill. To me, you see,
‘tis a tragic tale best forgotten.
“Shallow Shadow”
My heart was captured
and copied when
together we found this fruit,
tender and moist, freshly fallen.
I peeled away its skin.
No juice, no sorrows or colors.
Bit its flesh. Tender blood.
Found a sweet, sweet longing there.
Amazing, oh how incredibly majestic!
Tiny particles, tiny suns. Shrink this heat.
Each one carves a different hieroglyphic under my skin.
What could it mean? That dreams hide everywhere?
Even here, unfastened and open?
My miscalculation has become a saint.
Ponds reflect your silent words.
Trees represent your wooden bones.
I would never wish
a flame upon your sacred core.
So blessed! I’d never carry
my throbbing ax to your door, never deliver a fatal blow.
Your dreams unfold me.
They try to rearrange me.
Some strange configuration!
A wasteland long forgotten!
Carry my heart. Toss it into the sea.
Waste a moment, quietly remembering.
Fruit? Oh, yes…examine the fruit.
Its body releases an emerald flame.
Its skin holds a sweet taste, but no sweeter
than the vision before me.
As I turn to you,
my train of thought is derailed.
Words fail to describe you.
In fact, they all vanish from my mind when I see your
lips, tongue, teeth, eyes, wisdom.
A greater beauty have I never seen before or since our time together.
Wait, wait…and hopefully it will return
as I will return here in winter.
Everyone will solve this puzzle.
The sun shall bleed oceans dry.
Still, it will not be able to
answer: what gave birth to this fruit?
What is this sweetness?
What is this light? I have no way of knowing.
These golden trees are not the source.
They can bear no fruit; they are artificial.
Skies, stars, clouds…all are empty.
None can carry the life-giving seed.
My head screams and screams,
“Which heaven contains the answer?”
“Let’s sleep on it,” you said.
So we did, and found a golden triumph.
Twin halos glowing in darkness,
the smell of oak lingering in the sheets.
Fingers tangled in your hair,
spilling love to honor your holy wisdom.
Years later, the fruit still confounds me.
With each day of not knowing, my body obtains a new ache.
Shoulders, head, fingers, chest.
The sun resembles the fruit more and more.
Every day, I see your eyes before me.
Every night, I reflect your intellect within me.
Finally, a neighbor decides to lead me to a conclusion.
He shows me a wooden bridge behind his house, but says,
“I cannot go. Each man must cross it alone.”
So I go, listening to the wooden planks creak in welcome beneath my feet.
Beyond the bridge, I meet you once again.
Touch your sapphire eyes and bronze hair,
and without warning I have suddenly found the answer:
You are the sweetness, you are the light.
“Emotionless Love Gods”
We are the realities you once dreamed,
We are the peals of laughter you released while crying,
We are the shadows you see in every brilliant explosion of light,
We are the joy you find buried in your deepest darkest sadness,
We are the source of electricity in your Stone Age,
We are the cold breeze in the center of your volcano,
We are the third eye of the spiritually blind,
We are the screams of the mute,
We are the poems written by the illiterate,
We are the curves in your straight lines,
We are Satan’s hands pressed together and praying to Jesus,
We are broken guitar strings on which Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman play their most
amazing solos,
We are the raging storms of dead seas,
We are the leaves on dead trees,
We are tropical flowers growing at the North Pole,
We are libraries without books,
We are teachers without degrees,
We are TV shows with new episodes that are all reruns of last season,
We are solar systems with no center,
We are man-made forces of nature…
We are the emotionless love gods.
“Keep this one…
Keep this one to myself, me, me, all alone, just gone without hallucinations, this world like no one’s dream, in and out of stars with a hiss, a blowout, a distant kiss pressed against the ages, towering over London, breathing fire when the air deletes my spirit, and a soul torch lit to be my maiden journey, if you are aware the sunlight has its own shadow, the moon has its juniper moments, just tend the cosmic dust, burn yourself without it, I am all alone under this nowhere halo, drunken patterns fixed to a mandarin star, sprouting wings, rips the skin off my back wide open, dripping emptiness across the echo of me, me with no purity, and inside, in this barrier I am myself, on this side I have to answer to no one, on this side I am safe and warm and never have to worry about getting hurt, and I like it when the voices are calm or muted, and the fingers reaching out to me are crumbling into sand, or dust, because we are all safe when we put ourselves on the other side of the wall, this is mine, I try my best to decorate the outside with myself, hang upon it the ornaments that construct me, my foundation, who I am and wish to be, if I cannot show my true self then I can at least show these particles, but the world is blind to my artwork, no one comprehends when the story doesn’t proceed directly from point A to point B, my life is winding down, unwound by the spirit of rock and roll, no drugs or sex to cross the line in my time of need, either one would numb the pain, feel no gaining of ground as I walk and caress these city streets, unearth my rotting corpse myself this morning, have to make room for the new tenants to build their shopping center, center of this vortex, magical portal choreographs no room temperature to deplete my eyes of spectacular shine, no one sees the poetry of a hollow world, breakfast here is my temple of gods, where I am alone, only invisible unheard of spirits can come to see me eating, by lunchtime all other sacks of flesh and bone have risen from their temporary graves to join me, and why would they want to join someone like myself, certainly not by choice, I find the truth dwelling against the roof of my mouth where no sensors can detect its radiant aura by the light of all Christs to come, fix my bones in a meager fashion, macho smell of other centuries, falling apart at the joints to reconnect when this spirit is dull and dry and dead, worlds resurfacing in my nightmares, angelic me does not exist, burnt diaries keep rejuvenating in the homes of my enemies, crystal scars burden my flesh, hollow lies fill the grave of your uncle, no teeth to separate reality from a dream, movies blowing out cold air to freeze my existence in time, forever broken like window skin, out to get myself, I am my worst fantasy, a disillusioned American youth who cannot help opening his heart like a surgeon and his scalpel opening a corpse devoid of soul, yet I have emotion and a conscience and a spirit too hard to keep inside me, and I let the voices in me rule sometimes, to control you and protect you, that is what they say their mission is, to be, or not to be, angel, is the word to describe me lost behind you, women in history flashing lightbulbs in my eyes to scar me a man of wisdom, but the mark never remains, we know who I am, aching inside still despite the changing times in which whining is no longer in vogue, well boo hoo I say…
“Remember”
I want you to do me a favor, I want you to promise me you’re going to remember something, and you gotta promise me you’ll never forget or else I’ll be coming back after hours to kill you, but listen up you have to remember this now and forever, recall this until your dying day, I want you to remember when you’re 23 and you’re driving around with midnight crawling through your skin and maybe someone is a bit too drunk or maybe even intoxicated in some other way and they really shouldn’t be driving and the music is too loud and the bass is beating your ear drums to death and the wind is whipping through your hair and every light is digging its claws in gnawing away at the oncoming night and you’re slipstreaming through glorious city streets where cats growl and angels piss and you are finally creative, you are finally suddenly terribly here together alone and distant all in one compact echo of one crazy cracked moment, you are finally young beautiful alive, and every face is growing on you, every face has a name you’ve seen somewhere before and you’re not sure where and you’re trying like crazy to put your finger on it but the buzz going through your head makes you forget about these petty concerns and you’re driving you are driving yourself into the embrace of this familiar, you are sinking slipping like gods fast and hard into the skin-crawl of this grotesque phantom night, this bludgeoned aftershock that lingers in your memory like an electric spark dwelling on your retina, I want you to remember the rhythm the motion of the dance floor blues, you’ve got to promise that you’ll remember all of this, the elation and immortality of youth, you’ve got to promise you’ll never forget because once you do you might as well be crying in your coffin already, you might as well be a mound of dust, promise me promise me PROMISE ME you won’t forget because so many have, we have lost the joy of life, we have fallen into the Age of Gloom and there seems to be no way out, you’ve got to promise you won’t forget because if you do then none of us will remember, the battle has to take place with all of us on common ground, the battlefield is our minds and the strategy is to remember life is a gift, love is a gift, it’s all yours to possess, the world is your treasure, if life isn’t satisfying to you it’s only because you’re too weak, the strong know how to make their own happiness, and we are all so very frail these days, so docile we can hardly even stand, you’ve got to promise me, you’ve got to be strong, you gotta hold that memory close to your heart like poker cards, we have to recover from this never-ending night to crash cars in the glorious blaze of the sun, to see a wisdom of our own invention come to life, to see love rip across the continent like a nuclear explosion, to see the stars deny us nothing, to see it all come circling back to that one fleeting moment when you are in the car at 23 and the music’s too loud and you’re going too fast and you’re drunk with the wind in your hair and you know the feeling of love and light bearing down on you all in one blinding rush, it leaves you standing there like a pile of smoking ash, the smile and happiness wired directly into your guts and you know YOU REALLY KNOW what it’s like to come this close to collapse and then laugh as you pull back just before you can get pushed straight over the edge…that is the feeling of flying, my friend…that is the feeling of being alive…
“An Ode to the Air”
I can’t believe I have lived this long.
For those who think this was an accident, you’re wrong.
How much longer was I supposed to go on?
You threw your deceit in my face
and then said I was the one who didn’t belong.
For years I’ve tried to do away
with every feeling that defines who I am, cover every trace
but I just can’t do it.
Put on this disguise and you see right through it.
Why does it feel like a curse to be me?
I live in a cage while I’m living free.
You don’t care to open up inside.
That’s not living, that’s not life.
Many’s the time I’ve cried
but at least I felt alive.
And now that I’m not,
now that shattered bones and burning flesh are all I’ve got,
I wonder if your spirit yearns
to take my hand while we’re taking turns
searching for something we can never name
but this shame is beyond belief.
I know your eyes aren’t drowning in grief.
Different faces, different names
but no matter where I turn
it’s the same old game.
You never feel, and now I know it’s true
I should have followed your example
to protect myself
from people like you.
And let me say it again, in case the first time it was refused:
For those who think this was an accident, you’re wrong.
You tried putting me in my place,
but I don’t know where I belong.
Nowhere, nowhere…should I grow long hair?
Should I hold out my heart? Do I even dare?
I opened up to you so briefly
and in that blinding flash you showed me
what it takes to be human
in the 21st century
and it scared me.
I want no part of it!
So I’m going down
on this majestic ride
of misery and twisted metal.
The scars on my wrist,
the bruises on my heart,
the dried tears on my pillow,
the black clouds in my sky.
You put them there.
Your name has changed,
but the pain is the same.
Dear Sarah,
We were getting along. Don’t you remember that? Or was it the alcohol talking right from the start? Well I guess it doesn’t matter. I’ve already clipped my own wings. I’m falling…dead, deserted, scarred, shattered, broken, ugly, fucked up, fat, and weird. But all I could see in my last few burning seconds of life was you and I in my bed side by side asleep but more alive than I had felt in months. All I could see was our hands on top of the table at the diner in 3 AM hunger holding each other. If only you could have let your feelings get tangled up the way our fingers did, if only I’d been worth the risk, if only I’d been shaking your hand instead of shaking my fist,
maybe we could have fallen asleep again in bliss,
maybe I wouldn’t have given the wheel a twist.
Keep in mind I wasn’t attached.
I wasn’t moving forward,
I was moving back
to a simpler time,
a time of love and light,
warmth and divinity,
a time of opening without fear
as the laughter echoing down the hall
finally reaches your ears.
I’m not mystical, mythical, magical.
I’m nothing but fragile.
I am a house made of glass.
I have eggshell skin.
And all because
there’s nothing more to me
than me,
and all because I’m not scared
to let myself breathe,
to not be dead inside,
to be curious about who you are,
where you’ve been,
how you sleep,
how you hold a pen.
These are the reasons why
you called me a freak.
I am the bringer of happiness.
I am the joy-man
freely handing out smiles and laughter
and endless waves of light
but despite my greatness
I was undermined
by nothing more
than the promise of smoke-filled lungs.
And now, with a joint
dangling between your fingers,
you don’t even remember we had fun
under one roof, under one sun.
I’ve learned the lesson again and again,
people like you pounding it into my head.
Caring is out, selfishness in.
(Anyone else remember when greed was a sin?
Yes, punishable by death.)
I thought I’d given up on locating someone
who might be an exception to the rule,
but last night I discovered my search continues
and I have the battle scars
that prove it to be futile
yet I go on.
The knife twists and turns in my flesh to punish me
for being weak, for being a freak.
For me to spiral into madness, I must first
leave a wound on a world that buried me in guilt
for the things I have done.
Please forgive me, father, because I wanted to love.
I wanted to show and be nothing but myself,
to never stick my feelings on a shelf and forget them,
to never pretend they weren’t mine if someone else found them.
Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me.
I’m so sorry for not wanting to go numb inside.
Please don’t hate me for loving.
Please don’t think me weird for caring.
On the shore or
out at sea
the memory of this lotus eater
surrounds me.
And no matter
how many words I speak
I can’t get out what I mean.
Iron walls.
Iron walls.
Barbed-wire heart.
Trip mine kisses.
Booby trap embrace.
What happens when
a circus clown forgets his gags?
You get me,
forever trapped
by being free,
second-best
because I have no weed.
This pattern is so familiar.
All lies flow in circles,
flow like rivers,
course through my heart.
COLLAPSE! COLLAPSE NOW!
I demand of you, my fragile fucked-up weirdo heart,
could you please just fall apart
before you fuck me up again?
I can’t be breathing the same air as you…I can’t be!
It just doesn’t fucking work that way.
Inside I am slowly turning to dust.
I am crawling through shit
and loving it.
But I am just spitting this out to tell the air,
because we’re both dead and cannot care.
You on the inside, me on the outside.
There’s a truth I’m pursuing
but I can’t quite catch it,
and besides why make the effort?
It would be wasted anyway.
You wouldn’t appreciate me telling you
that I know all your tricks, all your fears.
I’ve scaled all the walls you built and I know them.
Just a front, a phase, a game.
Sarah,
Keeping distance to avoid pain is one thing but this is downright rude.
I don’t know why I’m bitching. Why do I care? I shouldn’t because I’m no longer here. You drove me away even though I was the one at the wheel.
Nothing’s right. No one’s wrong.
Futility in every aching word.
I’m stopping now. I’m stopping.
I’m promise.
I’m looking for that killer closing line, but I don’t
think it will come just like your feelings won’t surface.
But now I’m also going numb, and I can see
how being dead can set you free
from worry,
from care,
from mourning a weirdo
who’s no longer there.
Perhaps the greatest frustration
is in believing
the more I write,
the more you’ll care
but all these words
just form an ode to the air…
the same air that surrounds me,
smothers me,
chokes me,
beats me,
breaks me,
points a finger of smoke and ridicules me.
There is no greater misery.
There is no higher honor
than knowing you.
And now your kind dominate the world.
Who planted the wrong seed?
Who nurtured these hating trees?
They have black bark.
They sprout dead leaves.
They leak poisonous sap.
They are named Joanna, Terry, Sonya, Ambra.
I’ve even heard there are some named Sarah.
It was better in the womb.
It will be paradise in the tomb.
So I will march on
in this one-man parade.
It promises an early grave
but
from this cloud I’m telling you
it’s not so bad.
You were right in one sense, wrong in another.
It’s not just men who can slip their tendrils inside
and squeeze the love from your soul.
Women can do it too.
Women can do it too.
The queen of a new race of vampires has been born. She sinks her teeth into your wallet instead of your neck. She is impervious to words so why do I bother?
Fuck it.
Put the pen down, loser.
There is no killer ending because
words don’t matter now.
So fuck you. Fuck off!
The poem’s over. Quit reading!
Go fuck yourself!
Good night, you two-faced fuckers.
Hope to see you burning in the same flames as me
someday.
Against your will
you will finally give me a reason to smile.
“Come see…”
Come see the wisdom, the gloom and doom machine, the good and bad, the god of conceited dreams coming down to RIP YOU APART FOREVER, no one here but you and I to witness the corruption of my good intentions, the abortion of my fate…
“Poetry Hidden in Prose”
The empty dawnless days of wandering back and forth, looking to find pieces of myself, discovering nothing, learning the same stories again and again. Just as exciting as uncovering an Egyptian crypt.
You lose yourself when your mind explodes.
You corrupt yourself when
battlefields and naked patches of earth
are your only possessions.
I break 1,000,000 boulders with my fists just so I can
show people the scars on my hands. This activity serves
no other purpose.
Neon skies exploiting the proletariat.
(plastic pyramids)
(plastic green grass defining our boundaries)
Chalk-flavored candy cane disappearing in a young man’s mouth when I look outside the window. He does not know there are mysteries filling the sky. To him the air above his head is empty.
(Does he find it to be even emptier than me?)
I am just thinking now, that’s all. Just thinking, no harm done. My mind is wandering. Blood quietly travels through the maze of veins and arteries. Tonight I feel like I could finally know peace.
Train my hands, eyes, feet, elbows, knees, shoulders, teeth, hips, and forehead. First I must train my spirit. I must learn to respond immediately without thought when certain situations arise. Yet I am already holding myself back, aren’t I? If I force myself…if I say, “I must do this,” then I am tensing up. My responses will be inhibited. Relaxation is the key to perfection.
But enough philosophy. Who needs it anyway?
Philosophy and religion will hopefully be thrown out the window once I tell the world that God is burning in Hell because Jesus is his illegitimate son by my wife whom God fucked while I was on a business trip so I killed him when I found out she was pregnant because the condom snapped which means I will go to Hell too but I don’t care and I never did care and you can tell I really don’t give a shit because hey if I did then maybe I would have stopped to wonder if killing God was the best solution. Now that my head is clear, I realize there were better options that I could have chosen.
Unfortunately, it’s just too late now.
“2/19/98”
You need not fear me today.
I woke with a scream, startled from a Spanish dream.
Never knew an old man, did you?
Did you?
Throw out the pieces you no longer need
toil away toil away
wear away the sadness the madness
do not worry do not care
do not show I need to understand you
or anything
I am broken like halos like angels’ wings
(alone and shattered you know me)
never learn the pulse of desire
the angle of greed
“Warmth of…”
warmth of her ass
pouring through her coat
to warm my leg
which is pressing up against her
and has been for who knows how long:
feeling alive,
like I could sit here
all day now.
Just wish I was
well-known enough so that
it could be my hands on her ass
instead of my thigh through this
thin layer of corduroy,
with my chest pressed to hers,
our lips trapped together and
melting so fiercely into a maze
of flesh that no one, not even we, could tell
where she ended and I began.
If only my hands could be
tracing slow sensuous trails along her spine,
up into the silken strands of her hair
and back down to the curve of her buttocks as she
carefully maneuvered me on to my back
and climbed on me in triumph.
She has conquered the country that is me,
hungrily and greedily devours every inch of my land,
leaves nothing for any other woman to enjoy.
If only I could inspire such passion!
If only something could be said,
my fantasy would shift to reality.
Someday someone will cut out my tongue
and only then will I have the nerve to speak…
when I cannot,
but I could still write my flirtations down at least!
Oh please, I pray to all the gods
in which I do not believe,
please don’t take my hands away.
“Amanda”
I am floating here
like a god,
no landscape to paint…
no shadows to bleed me dry.
Here I am bearing gifts for you.
You are my only friend,
you and all those buried and dead.
Otherwise all I have are dreams. I
possess a kaleidoscopic collection
of these subconscious drawings.
Aching to make a sacrifice for you,
I receive this splinter in my brain instead.
Even more I bleed and die and die and bleed.
The shadows are finally chased away,
but
what you have
is it come out
they reveal? in full view.
Another reason to sigh
is another reason to die.
But you are still welcome
to follow me forever,
rearranging my constellations
so that I may forget you.
It seems your image won’t blur.
When we are reborn, I hope you are my
mother and I am your son.
Then your liquid love can
drip into my soul.
(I can even drink
the wine from your breasts.)
While the sun above breathes like a wound,
I rest for an eon or two on this stone bench,
thinking of you.
Where have you gone, anyway?
“Inside the Sun”
It is I alone just standing here, staring into the Jesus furnace of a nihilistic god.
Does anything really matter in the end?
I feel it all go leave disintegrate fade away.
So all I have…all I need…is you.
Keep the tides coming in to clean my body.
I’ll float up to the moon and give it a jab in the side.
With its movement the tides shift and change their shape,
slicing in toward me now like a reaper-sickle.
Once I saw the constellations hidden behind the sun.
In one star-based figurine I saw you.
Your eyes had gone supernova. I was
trying to determine if the rest of you would survive
when a seraph came and made me leave the nocturnal heavens
as if they were forbidden ground.
A blaring alarm sounded off my intrusion
and a comet had its sights set on my body,
but I managed to jump out of its path.
Then the seraph became a pillar of holy fire
when the tail of the comet brushes against his toga
and set him aflame. My extinguishing powers
failed me that day in the heavens.
All I could do was watch him plummet to the earth.
Then I heard God call my name,
and I listened as He told me,
“Keep Heaven a secret at all costs
and you will find a home there.”
So I followed that seraph into the atmosphere,
grabbing his corpse in mid-flight. His fire
spread to my hands and crawled over my body
as we plunged into the sea. Our flames were muffled at once,
our skin began to heal, and we rose again into the heavens…
only on this trip it was daytime,
and I saw a gate open in that celestial orb that gives us all life,
and on that day I learned Heaven is inside the sun.
“For Now”
so much acid in the room you can smell its corrupting odor…your straight-edge pal helps you to turn it away…he saves you from fucking up your brain…for now, for now, for now…the nerves in your stomach finally come undone…you can gulp down beer without any fear…but your friend is there to place a hand over the can…he saves you from fucking up your balance…for now, for now, for now…the others start to pass around a joint…it gets to you and you prepare to draw in…you-know-who removes the joint from your fingers and passes it on…he saves you from fucking up your mood…for now, for now, for now…afterwards cigarettes pop out of numerous packs…you get a hold of one but once again Mr. Straight-edge is there…he snaps the cigarette in two…he saves you from fucking up your lungs…for now, for now, for now…hours go by, the party grows dull…until a group of skinheads show up…they ask you to tag along while they randomly terrorize a black neighborhood…when you agree to go, Mr. Straight-edge doesn’t show…you figured he’s learned his lesson when it comes to interfering with the fun you want to have…oh, if only you knew the half of it…but you don’t…you know just your side…for now, for now, for now…so you go out for a ride…the skinheads hand you a weapon and a disguise…a night of smashing windows and bones…all good fun for you, until the next day when you learn…one black man now has a grave for a home…and in a rare moment of justice the law catches you in its grasp…the gavel comes down and you are fried…you kept gravitating toward self-destructive behavior…after a while it would wear anyone down…your straight-edge friend tried to keep you alive…and he succeeded…for a while, for a while, for a while…
“3/2/98”
What strange thoughts do I
think of you now as I sit
here, the sun admiring my figure
and screaming at the top of its lungs.
There are no thoughts left worth
thinking, or at least it seemed that way
on that forgotten summer day, at that
moment when pools of memory
were all drying up.
Fabric tore at your shoulder, and
we both knew winter was coming.
So I shed my body to give you warmth
as long as you promised to spread your wings.
Show me ways to defy gravity, show me
inside and outside of you.
Vast network of flesh! Let me explore
your darkest corners
and I will know you.
“Thread”
I thought this was my rebirth,
I believed this was my death.
My skin had been stripped away and stretched across the sky
as if its only purpose was to block out the sun.
Whose hands dared to violate me,
to misrepresent my soul?
Some forgotten Beat poet hipster who gave up,
some conservative miscreant who felt like rebelling.
There’s no god anymore,
no unifying thread.
I guess this means the universe will soon dissolve,
and when these jewels have all been crushed
my hands will still be trembling.
“To a Certain German Someone”
As I have said before,
no one can ever take my love for her away…
not even time
as his sickle sweeps toward my head like
Karate chops delivered by hands made of granite,
each one well-aimed and
racing toward my head, whistling useless tunes
like winds that carry storms.
All the time I hold her close to me,
never allowing my love to dry out or fade…
never surrendering until her mind is drawn to mine
and she cannot turn away.
Knocking apart an image that
everyone tries to push upon her,
rigid prejudice that won’t
let a new day dawn on her homeland.
Arguing with ignorance is useless, so we
neglect our demons and walk on, fading into
nature. The forest gives its love to us without question, just
as we now share our hearts.
Kings have died in our absence, but we know
nothing of this for we are busy
racing through the earth
like spirits, forever searching.
“Victorian Period”
Guess I was wrong about the classwork due today.
Oh well, no matter.
No reading quiz, no paper due.
Tennyson was a brief pool of quicksand.
Lean back, oh please dear lady…
won’t you please lean back just a little more
because there is no way I want to escape today
unless your body makes contact with mine.
Being caressed by my hands would be the best result,
but my leg, so “coincidentally” propped up on the
back of your chair, would be
the only realistic (and inconspicuous) result.
If only she would turn around and smile
or start passing notes declaring I was cute,
then I could respond in kind and even
exceed her compliments…increase the flattery.
At least it would pass the time because it feels
like I have been sitting here long enough
to watch Rome rise and fall.
11:10 I arrived, and my professor followed suit five minutes later.
So it feels like 1,000,000 hours
but we’re still only halfway to the end.
I sit here imagining
worlds I’ll never visit
dancing across the blackboard
that I’m staring at but do not see,
imagine myself shaking hands
with people I’ll never meet.
Heart and mind combine no more.
Elegance spread out before me
but not in the manner I’d like.
12:30, where are you?
Beauty with dark hair and darting raven eyes,
I wish I had the courage to touch you,
but I am crippled by your loveliness.
“Embrace Sleep”
You could have been
a light for my friend,
a single bulb of illumination
but enough to show him the way
to happiness.
Why did you give yourself away
to this ebony knight?
We all wanted you to stay.
You had to ask
how to wear the mask
of love and ecstasy.
Oh, if only you had seen
this “straight-G”
was no man.
He struck out your light
and now you’ve gone away.
This fist buried all your hopes and dreams.
Now I see
and I feel
the shadows dwelling in my friend’s eyes.
They cannot fade out unless you return.
Your hair, your soft skin,
your sweet voice, your innocence
have all been taken away.
I want to protest,
but I fear I have no strength.
My limbs are broken, tendons torn by
the impact of his punch on your flesh.
I am stunned, I am lost, I do not breathe today.
He had no honor so he struck you down.
And in that moment he stole all the joy
my friend could have found in your arms.
I need some kind of faith to heal my wounds
after seeing him go through this sorrow.
Give me some magic potion, some electric dream
in which I can hide his sadness and his tears.
I need something to help me believe this will all make sense
before I can close my eyes
to embrace sleep.
“The power of a name”
I dream of your face enveloped in crimson vapors. I dream of your face, and my hands carry a foreign landscape to the sunset. All around me the sky is bleeding gray. In nightlife I sweat out distant stars while the sheets drain every ocean dry. Visions of futuristic melodies collapse as great philosophies turn into shadowy afterthoughts. We read of Lovecraft and Joyce as if they were myths. To this day in my mind, as I sit here reading a collaborative effort which I yet to write with a person I have yet to meet, the syllables of your name echo on forever. Each letter, each sound, is more beautiful than piercing thoughts of an oncoming poem. All these symbols shatter the darkness. Once I loved those shadows as one loves the security of the womb. Now you have made me see how many gifts and treasures there are in this world, the most precious of which is your name.
“I was…”
I was watching yr lips in
class today and saw how
they moved gracefully over
different rhythms & sounds,
saw how they painted the sky
and clouds with mystical illusions
that I could never hold,
saw myself reflected, saw myself
trapped and held back from you,
wondered how much damage
a word can do…
“Lyrics”
(full of rage and
1,000,000
disappointments)
-bathing in anguish-
I eat my misery
-like stones,
semen-colored lights-
all punch out the mind tunnel
you sewer-system junky of tomorrow,
revenge will come your way
the world’s cruel intentions,
my sister’s intervention
we’ll see, yes we…
“Hands might…”
hands might take away
eyes might strip down
broken island
of my teeth
bitter wisdom
hear my name
tune out visions
sunlight fade away
burn under the mountain
find my fate
dislocate the center
collapse into dreams
“The Last of Them”
I…I don’t want to be here…incoming, incoming…the killer moves into the doorway, his head all askew as if he were dropping acid…then the cycle begins…dear God, please don’t rip my head off…the workers crank the gears whenever they discover a meaning of life…chains begin to rattle and stretch until they are drawn tight…lassoed around the controls…steam distorts my face…it reaches deep inside and scorches all my thoughts and memories…what’s the difference in the points you make…they end up being the same in the end anyway…I’m sick of all these tales I tell about the sick and twisted, the faithless and wicked…they are ugly unconnected unrelated thoughts that make no sense, and this is no exception…and so I think I’ll end it right now…
“hurt me”
wicked stranger drowning nighttime intentions on the shore
leaving them here to rot, to break away
leaving me alone to grip the hammer and break every star
waiting to hear the chisel chip away the heavens
and whisper gently, “I am here once again, I am here”
trap me so you can pin me down, mutilate my thorax
open my vocal cords so you can read their words directly without interference
no, not again…I don’t want to spill electric stars
not here, not now
they don’t know which way the compass points
or how quickly lead dissolves
children, don’t bleed your thoughts
children, don’t forget yourselves
seems like 2,000,000 eyes staring at me
never turning away just staring
always staring
forever staring
never seeing just staring
and yet they won’t ever touch you
or me
or my other
“Where Was I?”
sitting at this lonely bus stop
which carries angels with broken halos
and feathers
burn across the horizon.
too confused to know what I mean,
too dazed from the day.
corrupted like particles of sand
ravaged by fire.
Sunny day courses thru my veins
and my skull lights up
with no ideas of what to do.
Tried to dial an empty #,
one that has no emotion in it now
but lacked the nerve.
The result of the call will
forever lie comatose and
hidden in your heart.
I knew you were home!
Knew you would have answered,
but where would dreams go
once the connection was made?
“Yu-Ling: A Powerful Image of Beauty”
It feels so wonderful to wake up,
to kick the dust from my joints
and make yesterday’s knowledge disappear
(or at least blend with today’s).
Red suns crawl down the sky,
burning away all concepts of time and space.
I am adrift in nothingness
and yet something protects my spirit.
Here all previous thoughts should turn to dust,
but I find myself unable to forget
every curve, every smooth surface,
every inch of unblemished skin.
She is the only memory I cannot escape.
“Time and Place”
don’t let me be
your waking dream.
I don’t love you.
my soul
is
excavated.
you saw me way out there,
tossing channel markers at the sun.
there’s
no hope
for me.
it’s a shame…
born too early/maybe too late…
maybe I
shouldn’t have been born
at all?
“Suicide Undettered”
there used to be some beauty here…I used to have some tales to tell…when I walked in the sunlight no shadows dared follow me…not even my own…when I listened to the faded colors of change there was no feedback hiss…and I knew someday it’d never be the same…never be the same…the train filtered through the shadows…and in a blink of red my world was losing its happiness…and losing it fast…as fast as that leap from the platform…so painful I can’t really try to wonder why…why didn’t I grab that shoulder? why didn’t my words pour into those ears? I let the event occur…and drive someone to tears…my hands tried to reach out but crumbled with the strain…my fingers curled up and snapped off…wishful thinking…
“Hiddn stuff”
chopping block…incinerator…the deadly showerhead…forced into a lineup, pressed with metal…exploded…wires attached to my lips…draped over my flesh in long thick cables…snaking down inside my veins…I kiss the girl and we suck hard…electrocute her…jesus was an alien…a bald one-handed freak on a cruise ship raped my mother…
it was her honeymoon night…twisted nerve cord…dark gray and burning white patches highlighting ancient ludicrous bible terms…somewhere in a prison cell a man is innocent…sometimes while watching TV I see a message…and so do you…every night they tell us the methods which could be used to lead to peace on earth…but it is subliminal…now it’s long gone…and there’s nothing we can do…
“Purpose”
Hey, God, don’t you know I’m dying here when I
live beneath your skin? I live beneath a
shrunken symbol of phallic dreams. My
eyes crumble as the machine drills
into my mind. I let the rabid claws of
the metallic dog squeeze my flesh in an
artificial world. It exists in a room that
was once Christ’s home.
You know my sanity exists on a different
level of time and space, a place that once
was the walking ground of giants.
An interplanetary X-ray is forced to melt
into the pool of gushing sex drives.
Descend into your own personal obliteration
where the chains await us all. Chainlinks
symbolize the link of humankind. We are
all bound and equalized by mortality’s truth.
We will all be dead someday.
Looked into the past,
and what I’ve found
is death brings nothing
but a hole in the ground.
With the words you read I try to discover
the secrets of life. Where is its meaning,
what is its purpose? I feel this search
will consume my life. My crusade for
purpose will in essence GIVE ME PURPOSE.
Perhaps that is our only purpose:
to search forever.
“Man from Other Places”
There’s not much to this world:
Just metal, H2O and stones.
These people aren’t too complex either.
Skin, blood, bones and muscles.
Flexing and showing what they think
is universal knowledge…
but how can they be so great
when different skin tones is enough to make them kill each other?
“A Poem About Yourself”
Did you bow your head, immerse yourself in shame,
when the priest said his mass?
Did you actually believe this total stranger
who insisted you’ll be served last?
Don’t listen to them, ignore the walls they build for you.
The time for submission is dead.
It’s time now to resurrect yourself
and free the golden jewels shining inside your head.
“Satan crawls…”
Satan crawls where my skin
registers his anger
and twilight twitches nearby
then twitches again, closer now.
The sun blocks out his shiny demon
where its rage flooded the sky,
and the evening shudders. When the moon pauses,
disturbed once again and even closer,
it is time to read the changeling meter.
The pause that follows is worth its weight in gold.
The afternoon drowns in the Hudson,
choking on memories too hard to dispel.
Chortle chortle, giggle giggle…the world collapses,
breaking its delicate synapses,
and morning makes the darkness in the sky dissolve
but not the darkness in me.
Still, I haven’t felt this alive in ages.
There is no more cold gray to shame my face.
Scribble away, but you can’t leave any stains
on the chalkboard of my soul.
And the night is wounded and crying
while we rejoice because it is leaving.
“For Her”
Demonsnare snagged her by the hair.
The mouth turns away, open and gasping.
Sundials crack open shells that harbor angel shadows.
Pen goddesses leave their names and ashes in the dust.
Time crawls where the sun don’t shine.
My bones were damaged when the message was bleak.
My windpipe was crushed when the words were too weak.
I don’t think visions are crumbling.
Perhaps they’re only fading, maybe just
rearranging. Maybe they can be saved.
We just need to paint out the neglect,
wasted where the fire once grew pale.
March away and summer will be your reward.
Honored will be thy name, engraved.
Open her eyes to caress the sun,
open her beauty for everyone.
Stale odors cannot interfere when arousal is near.
Nothing can shame this reality.
Spray me with all sorts of colors
that your mind radiates.
Touch me when your lust is growing,
and I’ll match the desire that you create
at such a rapid rate…forever and ever, until the stars blow out.
Forever and ever, now.
“Isolator”
my ancient crumbling hands settle in waves of dust upon your bloated face…the ants squashed by the swinging of the black pessimistic heel…her body moves into the burning swarm of mosquitoes…she lies at the foot of my bed…the guitar string has sliced through the flesh of her throat…morbid pelvic suggestions dancing in my head…landscape of buildings formed by diseased thoughts crumbling into a sea of piss…kaleidoscope forms in my head…I place it on the tip of my tongue…the images are swallowed but don’t exit through my ass…instead they pop out of my eyes…and so now I’m going I’m gone I’m dead good bye…I’m here because you put the deathtool in my hands…you’ve become what you always hated…isolator…
“searing Heat…”
searing Heat-
thru hell itself-it’s now Time
to reconstruct their ancient
Bodies-Fire would not play inside
this World-could You tune my Senses and
plug them into the Amplifier of the Real World
and do it right away?-what in the world are you doing to
her hands?-handcuffs? No, don’t touch my Plug!-you’re a Pig and
I hate you-get on the Other Side-disgust Me from that
great a distance and maybe I won’t feel those repulsive
disgusto-waves you ejaculate every so often-don’t
You ever approach Me again-you’re a Dog-
you bend in half and
LICK YOUR BALLS-
because no one else will-
not even the demon
rising from Hell who
now drags
you
away
“out of the mud”
take me home now…all grind down into a common desire…life exists beside an eternal scar…we don’t really tell each other who we are…tell me what time the lines intersect each other…it should be at the same time our god falls…my heart overflows with remains of jesus…my heart overflows with you…I stand here alone…inside your heart of stone…not even you keep me company here…the tools you could use to construct forgiveness are scattered everywhere…rust adorns the hammerheads and shears…oh please give me another chance…I am down here…pressed into the dirt before the rain comes…that I may dwell with scum…I exist in cold underworlds and naked dreams…
listening to the sound of human screams…please pull me out of the mud…decorate my flesh with the honey dispensed by your loving touch…please oh please oh please…you must know how much you mean to me…
“Torture”
A monster
coming
my Eyes
melting in the Heat of his proximity
Gushing down my Face
Cannot stand It
It’s crawling across the floor
Its claws are on my face
Rips the skin away
I feel like I am dead
and so perhaps I am
i am dying
fingers poking my side
out here in the cold
(is there any escape from this?)
No exit
I trudge through gore
Wrapping around me
While my soul is examined by no one
Do I escape from this?
Clawing at my face
Tearing at my hands
The blood hot against my eyes
As they split in two
(is there any escape from this?)
“Paranoid”
I hope they let me leave!
They are disgusting me
with their secrets
all whispered
about me.
Freedom goes like fire.
We can’t grab its yellow heat.
Oh, let me die like this!
Words reject me
as they pry loose
from people’s mouths.
They make me feel
like an exhibit
because they all examine me.
Blue swirls before my Face,
coming closer.
Like a Vulture it pecks at Me
and won’t let go.
Let go of me! I am not dead yet!
A stick in my eye
means laughter for all
all who hate me
and everyone hates me.
“Isolation”
It looked like rain so we packed up and left.
We moved to heaven, so soon to forget.
My mouth couldn’t move.
It felt so dry.
And all the angels had fallen
with a blood-curdling cry.
A pain shot across my hands
as I traveled over mountains
and faraway lands.
My voice cried out.
Skulls cracked like nutshells
in rhythm with the sound of the ocean
and broken church bells.
Life was much colder.
It made my body numb.
Now eyes split open like flowers.
I could…
could not break away,
could not break the chains of yesterday.
So take me by my heart.
Wrench away the pain.
I do not want to feel…
feel anything again.
“My eyes are hearts”
My eyes are hearts
pumping out blood,
staining the walls,
staining the rug.
You see my pain
and wash my tears away
again.
Pictures immersed in water
are never wet at all.
The way I’m living now,
you’d never recognize me.
No one can save me.
The goblins control my limbs.
They tear me and rape me.
My skin melts with the heat of sin,
but pain is all behind me.
Let the burning sun strike me.
Remember the days when the sun set angrily
at the end of summer
as the freezing and dying began.
Our minds switched gears with the weather.
Dead or alive, it matters never,
No, never ever again.
“Godot Factor”
Waiting here
until an idea comes.
If I tossed a dart
I could burst the sun.
As chemistry formulas seek to unlock my
Mysteries, I will design your tomb.
I will shatter your shrine,
scald your sarcasm,
determine your density.
Whether words fill my cup or not,
I feel I should write whenever possible.
Even when there’s nothing to drink, I
want to scribble something. You can
hear my pen digging into the paper if
you care to listen closely enough. Or maybe the
sunlight clogs your ears? Many times I have
traveled this aluminum-coated vein,
waiting to hear…anything. Listen, can you
hear the molecules breathing?
Emily D. once wrote about having
the power to kill, but not the power to die.
Sometimes, I admit, I wish that second skill was mine.
When this phone never rings, I search for my Godot,
whoever he may be.
Sunlight, oh
jewel-encrusted sunlight,
could you be the answer?
