How embarrassing. This is a small sample of my first poem book from October of 1998. The poem book itself contained about thirty short poems so I am putting these seven here for now until I can get the rest up. Enjoy.
endeavor
it seemed so stable
yesterday
but ominously
electricity becomes uncontainable
all over the city
lines dance
transformers explode
i lie patiently in the dark
and wait for lightning
to surge
from the overloaded sockets
and strike me dead.
rip up july
four days to go
before i‘m issued
more adulthood
like a subpoena.
one month left
and the school zones
will begin flashing again:
bleak, bleaker, bleakest
with what little time
that is left i intend
to re-record for you
my volumes of therapeutic music.
leisure was sweating
oh summer
oh malignance
external temperature
at ninety-two degrees
it’s not this heat
or the humidity,
it’s all this change
i keep hearing so much about
america isn’t ready yet
she’s as stagnant as ever
and claiming she’s punk rock
it’s like the star cheerleader
piercing her tan little bellybutton
i know what year this is
but i can’t play modern
with the children right now
‘cause i’ve burned my feet
on the way to the mailbox
just to find it empty again.
box of polaroids
if my dreams would stop lying to me
about you and high school
i might respect them more.
my mind insists on exploring
dark and stupid territory
but not without cleaning up first.
what stimuli am i lacking?
am i so bored
i must rewire the past
while i sleep?
i remember how things went
and no matter how bad
i love it all.
i love how i wanted to die
when we ended.
that is how it happened
not the way i dreamed it
last night
i’m begging my dreams
to let you and high school
go.
my great aunt alice
i spit in running water
and the sink takes it
this might be
satisfaction from reproductions
of photographs i found
that depict happiness
on the schmidt homestead
at the turn of the century
i would give anything
to see it all in colour:
my great aunt alice
the homestead
my grandfather’s car
etc.
when i was a child
i believed the world was black & white
before the 1950’s
this belief came about
because of charley chaplin
the little rascals
and assorted newsreels from the 20’s
“thank god,” i used to say
staring at my kermit the frog doll
and my big wheel
“that they invented color
before i was born.”
b-day dream
for the love of good music
he waded forth and became a dog
with great effort
he swam to shore
i pulled him form the puddle
and held his little form
he ruined it all
just for me
so i felt obliged
to allow myself to get soaked
i woke up weeping on him
on no one
a pillow.
life, for beginners
i feel the approaching end
of my rent-free fantasy
in this exclusively technological world
this stage of acceptance
is marked by anxious sleeping visions:
overflowing toilets
lovemaking in gray water showers
and underage witches
magicwanding away the four horsemen
for my protection
yes
these days are packed with confusion
but my head is keeping me
and sometimes our scams work
to be caught would be glorious
although i’m making a killing
with this life on the lamb thing
the functions of the car next to mine
are fascinating and convincing
but i can’t related them to my own
in other words
i have no neighbors
in the exclusively modern world
further evidence shows
that as the old world ends
and my life begins
i have yet to reach a soul.
Well, that wasn't so bad was it? Oh, maybe it was. I will put some more of this book up. It the longest poem book I ever did, so I feel obligated to throw more of these on here. Thanks.
All of the written works presented on these pages are copyrighted by Richard Glenn Schmidt-2002.
