I want a song to sing
to snapping fingers, but
the sensation of sinking's
Sipping at my soul, yes,
sucking down my spirit,
leaving me dry and dying.
The self-absorption of
loneliness alone can consume
this consciousness of
drowning in dry air, oh,
God, Abba, Father, please
spit me out where you will,
I feel caught like phlegm
in your lungs, coming undone,
and while I want brokenness
I also want hopefulness.
and while I want holiness,
I don't know how long I can take this loneliness.
Monday, September 29, 2008
An Exercise in Excuses
watch the excuses worm the wormy way out of your mouth
and wriggle on the floor, worthless little things,
and what do you think? were they impressed with you?
did you represent what you wanted to with the words
floating like kayaks on your breath, sodden with
excuses.
and wriggle on the floor, worthless little things,
and what do you think? were they impressed with you?
did you represent what you wanted to with the words
floating like kayaks on your breath, sodden with
excuses.
War and Weathermen
my stuttering steps tell less and less
and accomplishment seems distant yet
and oh, i, oh, am so, oh, totally tired
this breast plate, squad automatic, helmet
desert temperatures, can't we just end this?
instead i trudge left right left right
meanwhile in a air conditioned office,
officials offer their opinions on the operation,
no longer surgical but surreal and everlasting,
explosions just statistics and blips on maps
and maps on walls with no faces, just
lines and suspected lines and empty spaces.
like the meteorologist who guesses on weather
from an office covered with maps and degrees,
talking about hope for the end of this storm
just sipping coffee while a homeless man
sleeps hopelessly soaking in the spring storm
his hope in only that his things won't float away,
and that this too, will end someday.
and accomplishment seems distant yet
and oh, i, oh, am so, oh, totally tired
this breast plate, squad automatic, helmet
desert temperatures, can't we just end this?
instead i trudge left right left right
meanwhile in a air conditioned office,
officials offer their opinions on the operation,
no longer surgical but surreal and everlasting,
explosions just statistics and blips on maps
and maps on walls with no faces, just
lines and suspected lines and empty spaces.
like the meteorologist who guesses on weather
from an office covered with maps and degrees,
talking about hope for the end of this storm
just sipping coffee while a homeless man
sleeps hopelessly soaking in the spring storm
his hope in only that his things won't float away,
and that this too, will end someday.
Summer
burn away the pallets
piled sky-high like some shrine
to all things fire
a pillar
a revolution
d.d.dance away the evening
or lie piled to the side -
corpses of insecurity-
and let the soak
sweat out the flame,
then fall fast asleep.
piled sky-high like some shrine
to all things fire
a pillar
a revolution
d.d.dance away the evening
or lie piled to the side -
corpses of insecurity-
and let the soak
sweat out the flame,
then fall fast asleep.
This is NOT a Poem.
This is not a poem. Its a collection of thoughts.
How many times can I check my e-mail in one day?
Nervous habit.
Turn my palms up and look at my forearms, looking for veins
Popping out through muscle strain that won't go away.
I'm bored.
I'm waiting for life to pull back its hand and just slap me
Right in the face, just please leave a mark that won't go away.
Lets do anything other than nothing.
Something.
How many times can I check my e-mail in one day?
Well, I'm nine hours in and twenty two hash marks already
Scored on a lazy notebook, a tally of my boredom;
And dissatisfaction.
I think about skulls, and if I could draw them I would;
Wrap them in flame and picture them crawling up my arm
To twist painfully but so sweetly around my shoulder.
I day dream too much.
How many times can I check my e-mail in one day?
Nervous habit.
Turn my palms up and look at my forearms, looking for veins
Popping out through muscle strain that won't go away.
I'm bored.
I'm waiting for life to pull back its hand and just slap me
Right in the face, just please leave a mark that won't go away.
Lets do anything other than nothing.
Something.
How many times can I check my e-mail in one day?
Well, I'm nine hours in and twenty two hash marks already
Scored on a lazy notebook, a tally of my boredom;
And dissatisfaction.
I think about skulls, and if I could draw them I would;
Wrap them in flame and picture them crawling up my arm
To twist painfully but so sweetly around my shoulder.
I day dream too much.
Relationship Jan. 06
He says he likes his girls like he likes his handwriting
And she asks if he means unintelligible,
But he states he means thin and angular,
Pointy at every corner, and lacking arcs.
Quick and to the point with no time for elaboration
Sometimes just giving abbreviations for stories
Instead of bubble-letter spirals around the point.
She says he'd be better off alone
Than hope for a girl that's both to the point
And skin and bone.
Anyway, She likes her man to be a scene from a movie,
Always moving, muscles, and like prince charming
Ready to rescue her from slumber with a smile so disarming;
So inviting that she'd have to struggle not to kiss
On the first date.
"In the first place, that man does not exist beyond scripts,"
He whispers, she laughs and says "he does somewhere."
Somewhere, he's preparing to listen as she circles around the climax
Always patient through a never-ending story
Regardless of how boring.
She says he could be like that if only he tried,
And he responds, "Look at me, doll, I'm a guy
I want quickness and immediate satisfaction from everything in life."
She, having had a physical relationship in the past,
turns from his eyes, and laughs, and just says "yeah."
There's something about being male that seems to lack compassion.
He can't respond.
He's sure about this list of characteristics
And he's checking them off, and checking to see if she's on it
And she does the same.
They both ask each other if 5 out of 10 is okay.
He says, "I don't like your taste in music,
and I prefer movies that are more abusive. I like debate,
And when I argue I like to win, but you don't even like to play.
Lady, I think you're pretty, sure,
But I've never been attracted to girls with
the same looks as you before."
And she says, "You think I've looked at guys like you?
Musicians and poets and artists and no-future, just past,
Full of jazz, but not much else, guys like you.
Well, until now, it's not something I ever thought I'd do.
And look at your shoes and hair unkempt. Speakers so loud
I can't hear myself think, and you're careless
You write before you think, you smoke cigarettes. It stinks"
"Yeah, but I've been trying to quit."
He asks if they can just see how it goes,
And she says so long as they bar no holds,
Let the worst of conversation and doubt spill out
Like a bullet passing through a cup of water.
Rapid. Like Niagra Falls.
He asks if they can read together, and she says
only if sometimes they read to each other.
Sometimes from the Bible, sometimes Pablo Naruda
Sometimes slam poetry written by a real brother.
(And, like Derek Z, I mean that like the way black people do.)
He reports back that like life, it ebbs and flows
Builds upon itself, though hardship comes and goes
And she's pretty sure five of ten was okay
Because she thinks she can get a few more by making him change.
He winks and says no way.
And she asks if he means unintelligible,
But he states he means thin and angular,
Pointy at every corner, and lacking arcs.
Quick and to the point with no time for elaboration
Sometimes just giving abbreviations for stories
Instead of bubble-letter spirals around the point.
She says he'd be better off alone
Than hope for a girl that's both to the point
And skin and bone.
Anyway, She likes her man to be a scene from a movie,
Always moving, muscles, and like prince charming
Ready to rescue her from slumber with a smile so disarming;
So inviting that she'd have to struggle not to kiss
On the first date.
"In the first place, that man does not exist beyond scripts,"
He whispers, she laughs and says "he does somewhere."
Somewhere, he's preparing to listen as she circles around the climax
Always patient through a never-ending story
Regardless of how boring.
She says he could be like that if only he tried,
And he responds, "Look at me, doll, I'm a guy
I want quickness and immediate satisfaction from everything in life."
She, having had a physical relationship in the past,
turns from his eyes, and laughs, and just says "yeah."
There's something about being male that seems to lack compassion.
He can't respond.
He's sure about this list of characteristics
And he's checking them off, and checking to see if she's on it
And she does the same.
They both ask each other if 5 out of 10 is okay.
He says, "I don't like your taste in music,
and I prefer movies that are more abusive. I like debate,
And when I argue I like to win, but you don't even like to play.
Lady, I think you're pretty, sure,
But I've never been attracted to girls with
the same looks as you before."
And she says, "You think I've looked at guys like you?
Musicians and poets and artists and no-future, just past,
Full of jazz, but not much else, guys like you.
Well, until now, it's not something I ever thought I'd do.
And look at your shoes and hair unkempt. Speakers so loud
I can't hear myself think, and you're careless
You write before you think, you smoke cigarettes. It stinks"
"Yeah, but I've been trying to quit."
He asks if they can just see how it goes,
And she says so long as they bar no holds,
Let the worst of conversation and doubt spill out
Like a bullet passing through a cup of water.
Rapid. Like Niagra Falls.
He asks if they can read together, and she says
only if sometimes they read to each other.
Sometimes from the Bible, sometimes Pablo Naruda
Sometimes slam poetry written by a real brother.
(And, like Derek Z, I mean that like the way black people do.)
He reports back that like life, it ebbs and flows
Builds upon itself, though hardship comes and goes
And she's pretty sure five of ten was okay
Because she thinks she can get a few more by making him change.
He winks and says no way.
The city looks so dirty...
The city looks so dirty in the daylight, and the ocean like a dream tonight
The last lights of the city fade in the side view mirror,
the dizzy feeling of skyscrapers getting smaller disappears
and is replaced by the tiny feeling of vast open spaces;
distances your eye can't measure, and at night, can't even see,
can't even begin to dream.
The engine hums as gasoline pumps through its veins like elixir,
a couple thousand little explosions every minute,
kind of like war with less casualties:
Kind of like the Fourth of July with fewer lawn chairs,
and more purpose:
Kind of like tonight, we drive, and we have no destination.
The Pacific Ocean may turn us, or maybe the gulf or the ol' miss.
Maybe the icy north Atlantic will whisper good morning,
the sunrise on the east coast only rivaled by its setting on the west.
You'll wear flip flops, and I'll wear tennis shoes,
gym shorts and the first shirt from the drawer
(the road offers no fashion awards).
Our friends will sit in the back, leaning forward to converse.
Moonlight will spill across the hood and make shadows on your face,
your curling hair holding the night at bay.
We just go.
We just escape the routines, faintly scribed on our eyelids,
and write new chapters to an ever-expanding memoir.
We just go.
We just hit the road running, leaving behind the weight of sadness,
the parachute-like pull of stress, and frantic speech of unrest.
If we reach the ocean, we'll undress and break waves in our underwear,
wishing we never had to go anywhere or be anything.
The city looks so dirty in the daylight, and the ocean like a dream tonight.
The last lights of the city fade in the side view mirror,
the dizzy feeling of skyscrapers getting smaller disappears
and is replaced by the tiny feeling of vast open spaces;
distances your eye can't measure, and at night, can't even see,
can't even begin to dream.
The engine hums as gasoline pumps through its veins like elixir,
a couple thousand little explosions every minute,
kind of like war with less casualties:
Kind of like the Fourth of July with fewer lawn chairs,
and more purpose:
Kind of like tonight, we drive, and we have no destination.
The Pacific Ocean may turn us, or maybe the gulf or the ol' miss.
Maybe the icy north Atlantic will whisper good morning,
the sunrise on the east coast only rivaled by its setting on the west.
You'll wear flip flops, and I'll wear tennis shoes,
gym shorts and the first shirt from the drawer
(the road offers no fashion awards).
Our friends will sit in the back, leaning forward to converse.
Moonlight will spill across the hood and make shadows on your face,
your curling hair holding the night at bay.
We just go.
We just escape the routines, faintly scribed on our eyelids,
and write new chapters to an ever-expanding memoir.
We just go.
We just hit the road running, leaving behind the weight of sadness,
the parachute-like pull of stress, and frantic speech of unrest.
If we reach the ocean, we'll undress and break waves in our underwear,
wishing we never had to go anywhere or be anything.
The city looks so dirty in the daylight, and the ocean like a dream tonight.
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