 |
| Graffiti Art |
Monday, March 28, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
"Just a man trying to hold it together while falling apart"
Midnight. Drunk. Weary from a day of not working, watching the sun rise and crest and set and make its way around again.
Should be writing my thesis.
Should be working on a rough draft of Dorothy closing arguments in the murder of Miss Gulch.
Should be asleep.
Should be sober.
Life stretches behind and in front of me as a series of should's:
Should have gone for a run,
Should have bought more cigarettes.
Should have drank enough that I'd be hovering face first over some toilet, my own or another's, praying for death or the oblivion of sleep.
Should have gotten high.
Should have filed for unemployment a week ago.
Should be looking for a job.
Should stop sleeping around.
Should leave the country.
Should have worn a condom.
Parallel, but equal in both length and girth, are the penetrating shouldn'ts:
Shouldn't have finished off half a liter of scotch.
Shouldn't have smoked a pack of cigarettes.
Shouldn't have gotten high.
Shouldn't have spent a weekend running with no sunscreen.
Shouldn't have spent that extra day away from home after a week of not seeing the inside of my apartment.
Shouldn't have spent an entire day watching tv shows and streaming movies.
Shouldn't have lied on government paperwork.
Shouldn't see a friends ex.
Shouldn't of unloaded the last of the Vicodin.
Shouldn't feel sorry for myself.
Should and shouldn't; I am a series of ties between these steel girders. On a bullet train called the present as these tracks race ahead and behind me across the west's wild cityscape of SoCal.
Another unemployed writer whittling away his time with a bottle and a blog; the stuff dreams are made of. A slice of humble, a la mode, from this fucked up american pie. If it wasn't for narcissism, then I would truly be lost.
But another day dicking around, wrapping myself in the warm post-coital blanket of self infatuation while vainly avoiding the inevitable encounter with the wet spot of reality. Hiding under the covers of any mind-bending mood-altering substance I can get my hands on to keep the monsters of feeling that hide in every dark nook, corner and cranny of the English muffin that is my unconscious waiting for the sheets to slip.
Monsters, wet spots; should, shouldn't. Flying down the line at 180 miles-per-hour each moment and decision and action and in-action a blur recognized in its glimmer on the horizon or in reminiscing about how I got on this god-damned train in the first place. A series of cherished regrets, all those experienced and all those still anticipated.
Should have finished my Master's.
Shouldn't have cheated.
Shouldn't have gone to jail.
Should have finished my cover letter.
Should have brushed my teeth.
Shouldn't have more coffee.
Should have washed off the shame.
Should use spell check.
Shouldn't write.
But you smile like a happy ass or cry till you die of dehydration. Fucking and punching or getting beaten and fucked. Wet spots and monsters. Scotch and cigarettes. Should and shouldn't. Story of my life.
"If you remember nothing else about me remember that I smiled"
Midnight. Drunk. Weary from a day of not working, watching the sun rise and crest and set and make its way around again.
Should be writing my thesis.
Should be working on a rough draft of Dorothy closing arguments in the murder of Miss Gulch.
Should be asleep.
Should be sober.
Life stretches behind and in front of me as a series of should's:
Should have gone for a run,
Should have bought more cigarettes.
Should have drank enough that I'd be hovering face first over some toilet, my own or another's, praying for death or the oblivion of sleep.
Should have gotten high.
Should have filed for unemployment a week ago.
Should be looking for a job.
Should stop sleeping around.
Should leave the country.
Should have worn a condom.
Parallel, but equal in both length and girth, are the penetrating shouldn'ts:
Shouldn't have finished off half a liter of scotch.
Shouldn't have smoked a pack of cigarettes.
Shouldn't have gotten high.
Shouldn't have spent a weekend running with no sunscreen.
Shouldn't have spent that extra day away from home after a week of not seeing the inside of my apartment.
Shouldn't have spent an entire day watching tv shows and streaming movies.
Shouldn't have lied on government paperwork.
Shouldn't see a friends ex.
Shouldn't of unloaded the last of the Vicodin.
Shouldn't feel sorry for myself.
Should and shouldn't; I am a series of ties between these steel girders. On a bullet train called the present as these tracks race ahead and behind me across the west's wild cityscape of SoCal.
Another unemployed writer whittling away his time with a bottle and a blog; the stuff dreams are made of. A slice of humble, a la mode, from this fucked up american pie. If it wasn't for narcissism, then I would truly be lost.
But another day dicking around, wrapping myself in the warm post-coital blanket of self infatuation while vainly avoiding the inevitable encounter with the wet spot of reality. Hiding under the covers of any mind-bending mood-altering substance I can get my hands on to keep the monsters of feeling that hide in every dark nook, corner and cranny of the English muffin that is my unconscious waiting for the sheets to slip.
Monsters, wet spots; should, shouldn't. Flying down the line at 180 miles-per-hour each moment and decision and action and in-action a blur recognized in its glimmer on the horizon or in reminiscing about how I got on this god-damned train in the first place. A series of cherished regrets, all those experienced and all those still anticipated.
Should have finished my Master's.
Shouldn't have cheated.
Shouldn't have gone to jail.
Should have finished my cover letter.
Should have brushed my teeth.
Shouldn't have more coffee.
Should have washed off the shame.
Should use spell check.
Shouldn't write.
But you smile like a happy ass or cry till you die of dehydration. Fucking and punching or getting beaten and fucked. Wet spots and monsters. Scotch and cigarettes. Should and shouldn't. Story of my life.
"If you remember nothing else about me remember that I smiled"
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
I wait.
For what, what slouching beast towards Bethlehem slinks?
The burning blue sky of winter on a hot empty day on the coast,
Its oppressive expansiveness pushes down on the homes, hearths, and houses.
Alternating from coffee, to beer, to scotch, to cigarettes, and back to coffee...
Recognition, connection, false hopes;
we don't believe in soulmates, and we wait for them, like Santa.
Just as real.
Dream jobs, lottery tickets, death;
and endless list of future pursuits: travel, money, love...
Always in the tomorrow that will come once the sky has been burnt and blackened by the day;
tomorrow will be better.
Different.
But there are no differences in days or months or people.
No tomorrow; no soulmate; no Santa.
Just seconds and minutes marching in an endless line;
carried for the first nine months in a darkened train
we arrive, stripped, assigned, pretending that Belzec is the Balkans.
An easy metaphor; in an apartment, the air a sultry sink, it would be shame if there was any to be had. If you could still feel shame.
But we are born into shame. The rank mix of sweat and drugs and depression and desperation and dreams. Dreams like so many empty condom wrappers scattered on the floor; multitudes, hidden in wastebaskets, under beds, tucked away at the last minute... the unborn future sitting next to us, rotting in a haze of spermicidal gel in a garbage can under that selfsame sun as us. Whose condom are we in? We, the slowly coagulating present?
Our only freedom comes in desolation of our dreams, in our sacrifice of ourselves beneath that empty sky. No trumpet's blow will pull the scales off your eyes. We are blinded by birth. We are Abraham and Issac on that hillside, and there is no god. Just the same empty dead blue sky, the color of a corpses lips, above.
It won't care.
Scream, cry, rage; it will remain. The sacrifice is one of perception, just like the jailhouse, the stoic argument of virtue; easy on the agropolis steps, different in the lion's den.
Because there is no virtue.
But there are lions.
Creation and destruction are fantasies. Action; political, social, economic... movement is no more an anwser than stillness as the slightest blink, like a butterflies wing; your truck breaks down two weeks later. Unrelated?
We surround ourselves with each our own fog, hoping that cruel light of the world outside will not penetrate. Substances, hopes, dreams, plans, a future. Tomorrow.
A haze we hide ourselves in, hiding ourselves from the world, the world from us...
but the day burns on.
Born into Borges lottery. A complexity we can't understand, an absurdity that extends beyond laughter. Fatalism, nihilism... we march in step, aware or not. Each pace bringing us closer and farther from the cataclysm of the duel of the present. Turn, and you find, through the fog, that you face yourself. Look closer, and you see the fog is you; you are nothing; you face nothing; there is nothing. Gasping and bleeding, a shot rings out; your gun, your life, cold and flaccid against your hip.
A woman dies in the throes of passion, her safe word left unspoken or unheard. A senator assassinated. A person explodes. 10,000 people a year die from earthquakes. Markets bull and boar and collapse and stagnate in loose 10 and 20 year cycles. A DUI checkpoint. A bottle of scotch. Organic salad covered in the later runoff of bacteria from a neighboring factory farm. Hospital bills piling up from falling down with no one around to sue. Bounced checks from work; accounting errors that your bank and bills don't understand or care about. Cancer. Heart disease. Stroke. High blood pressure; high BAC's; just being high; to drunk, to sober, to alive, too filled with words to take action. Too many actions taken without words. Too many empty words used to justify actions, too many words used for inaction.
Too many words.
Too many tomorrows.
Listen close enough, and through the fog, you can hear the unsteady march of multitudes...
empty echoes beneath the winter sun.
For what, what slouching beast towards Bethlehem slinks?
The burning blue sky of winter on a hot empty day on the coast,
Its oppressive expansiveness pushes down on the homes, hearths, and houses.
Alternating from coffee, to beer, to scotch, to cigarettes, and back to coffee...
Recognition, connection, false hopes;
we don't believe in soulmates, and we wait for them, like Santa.
Just as real.
Dream jobs, lottery tickets, death;
and endless list of future pursuits: travel, money, love...
Always in the tomorrow that will come once the sky has been burnt and blackened by the day;
tomorrow will be better.
Different.
But there are no differences in days or months or people.
No tomorrow; no soulmate; no Santa.
Just seconds and minutes marching in an endless line;
carried for the first nine months in a darkened train
we arrive, stripped, assigned, pretending that Belzec is the Balkans.
An easy metaphor; in an apartment, the air a sultry sink, it would be shame if there was any to be had. If you could still feel shame.
But we are born into shame. The rank mix of sweat and drugs and depression and desperation and dreams. Dreams like so many empty condom wrappers scattered on the floor; multitudes, hidden in wastebaskets, under beds, tucked away at the last minute... the unborn future sitting next to us, rotting in a haze of spermicidal gel in a garbage can under that selfsame sun as us. Whose condom are we in? We, the slowly coagulating present?
Our only freedom comes in desolation of our dreams, in our sacrifice of ourselves beneath that empty sky. No trumpet's blow will pull the scales off your eyes. We are blinded by birth. We are Abraham and Issac on that hillside, and there is no god. Just the same empty dead blue sky, the color of a corpses lips, above.
It won't care.
Scream, cry, rage; it will remain. The sacrifice is one of perception, just like the jailhouse, the stoic argument of virtue; easy on the agropolis steps, different in the lion's den.
Because there is no virtue.
But there are lions.
Creation and destruction are fantasies. Action; political, social, economic... movement is no more an anwser than stillness as the slightest blink, like a butterflies wing; your truck breaks down two weeks later. Unrelated?
We surround ourselves with each our own fog, hoping that cruel light of the world outside will not penetrate. Substances, hopes, dreams, plans, a future. Tomorrow.
A haze we hide ourselves in, hiding ourselves from the world, the world from us...
but the day burns on.
Born into Borges lottery. A complexity we can't understand, an absurdity that extends beyond laughter. Fatalism, nihilism... we march in step, aware or not. Each pace bringing us closer and farther from the cataclysm of the duel of the present. Turn, and you find, through the fog, that you face yourself. Look closer, and you see the fog is you; you are nothing; you face nothing; there is nothing. Gasping and bleeding, a shot rings out; your gun, your life, cold and flaccid against your hip.
A woman dies in the throes of passion, her safe word left unspoken or unheard. A senator assassinated. A person explodes. 10,000 people a year die from earthquakes. Markets bull and boar and collapse and stagnate in loose 10 and 20 year cycles. A DUI checkpoint. A bottle of scotch. Organic salad covered in the later runoff of bacteria from a neighboring factory farm. Hospital bills piling up from falling down with no one around to sue. Bounced checks from work; accounting errors that your bank and bills don't understand or care about. Cancer. Heart disease. Stroke. High blood pressure; high BAC's; just being high; to drunk, to sober, to alive, too filled with words to take action. Too many actions taken without words. Too many empty words used to justify actions, too many words used for inaction.
Too many words.
Too many tomorrows.
Listen close enough, and through the fog, you can hear the unsteady march of multitudes...
empty echoes beneath the winter sun.
Sunday, December 05, 2010
Expression depression;
Writing empty blind words
like lonely thoughts and feelings.
Like waiting inside a car with
no gas and a broken heater
on the side of a busy highway.
Like a full bowl from your favorite
box of cereal on a Sunday morning
and an empty bottle of milk.
Like singing your heart out
to an empty room on a sinking
ship with no life-raft.
Like a log sitting in a fireplace
with no kindling and a
busted chimney flue.
Like a fresh blank canvas
sitting next to a bottle of wine,
and no brushes.
Like holding a much needed
cigarette outside a bar
with no matches.
Like a perfectly brewed pot
of premium roasted coffee
and an empty box of sugar.
Like a long walk on a
cold windy night to the store
while your wallet sits at home.
Like two candles burning over
a freshly made five-course dinner when
your partner calls working late.
Like a poem sitting on a
forgotten page, waiting words,
unseen. Unsung. Unknown.
Like a person;
like a poem-
like me.
Writing empty blind words
like lonely thoughts and feelings.
Like waiting inside a car with
no gas and a broken heater
on the side of a busy highway.
Like a full bowl from your favorite
box of cereal on a Sunday morning
and an empty bottle of milk.
Like singing your heart out
to an empty room on a sinking
ship with no life-raft.
Like a log sitting in a fireplace
with no kindling and a
busted chimney flue.
Like a fresh blank canvas
sitting next to a bottle of wine,
and no brushes.
Like holding a much needed
cigarette outside a bar
with no matches.
Like a perfectly brewed pot
of premium roasted coffee
and an empty box of sugar.
Like a long walk on a
cold windy night to the store
while your wallet sits at home.
Like two candles burning over
a freshly made five-course dinner when
your partner calls working late.
Like a poem sitting on a
forgotten page, waiting words,
unseen. Unsung. Unknown.
Like a person;
like a poem-
like me.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
'Water, Water'
Unsatiated; squatting on a raft at sea,
squinted eyes searching the horizon
while the soft sound of the shifting sands
far below
echoes through the salt to surface.
Perforated thoughts torn and thrashing;
jerked from the dark cool depths;
lured by the frantic frenzy
of wriggling emotions; gorging on
the hook of desperation; choking
gasping grabbed by the filthy hands
of madness and stuffed bleeding-
beating-screaming
down the raw toothed maw of insanity.
Staring at myself muddled by
lapping waves; gently rocking
the unseen stillborn beast
that I catch in the depths
looking up
trapped, all one can do is wait.
Siren's discord, sweet and slow,
unceasing, unyielding, unrelenting-
a slip...
bubbles rise; looking up,
a figure, on a raft, a fading
silhouette against the twilit
surface...
...laughing...
Unsatiated; squatting on a raft at sea,
squinted eyes searching the horizon
while the soft sound of the shifting sands
far below
echoes through the salt to surface.
Perforated thoughts torn and thrashing;
jerked from the dark cool depths;
lured by the frantic frenzy
of wriggling emotions; gorging on
the hook of desperation; choking
gasping grabbed by the filthy hands
of madness and stuffed bleeding-
beating-screaming
down the raw toothed maw of insanity.
Staring at myself muddled by
lapping waves; gently rocking
the unseen stillborn beast
that I catch in the depths
looking up
trapped, all one can do is wait.
Siren's discord, sweet and slow,
unceasing, unyielding, unrelenting-
a slip...
bubbles rise; looking up,
a figure, on a raft, a fading
silhouette against the twilit
surface...
...laughing...
Monday, October 25, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
I've known for some time that I have a problem.
Maybe it was the string of jobs, one after another, that you got me fired from...
That was my first clue. But I reveled in you still. I mean, I didn't think it was a problem
as my life began to spin out of control...
You were always easy to justify. You were the one thing making my life better.
Despite the failed relationships, piling up,
like a car crash on the freeway in rush hour...
Sure, sometimes people made comments. But to me they just seemed jealous
of what we had. With you came a sense of power. Prestige.
By the time I realized what I had become. What we had done.
It was too late...
But I held on. Maybe because I couldn't let you go.
You've been a part of me, the best part, for so long.
You were electricity. Fire. A thousand supernovas
exploding, and we would rise and fly in the waves of cosmic radiation...
But it can never last. The fire would fade. The waves would crash.
And I would begin to sink, looking for you, reaching out, searching,
letting you pull me up. Even as you dragged me down.
It began so slow. So gradually. I don't know when I lost control.
When I became more you than me. You've changed my sense of time,
now measured by the regular highs and lows
that have no relations to clocks or calendars.
Only the desire, which takes over, without me even knowing...
Somewhere along the way the line between you and I,
between the individual and the act, the action, disappeared.
And now I can't even save myself. Us. You.
Because if I do, if I try, if I succeeded,
we'd both be dead.
I clenched you in my fist. Squeezing. And I feel heat. Like a spoon,
held over a flame. Red hot searing pain. But I let you
convince me... I convinced myself... you whispered, I listened
till my fingers fused around you. But the hunger didn't care.
I didn't care...
I see you now. I see exactly what you are. In every mirror,
waiting. Watching. Looking back.
I can't celebrate you anymore. I can't love you anymore.
I can't love myself anymore.
And I
can't
stop.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Shit:
Desire, distance, hurt, loss, love and loneliness; the foundation of a poor poet's garden
She left, and I'll never know why
thought I can count the reasons
on one hand.
She left, and every clock stopped,
though shadows grew and the day
marched on.
She left, and now two thousand eight
hundred miles and three time zones
separate our every word.
She left, and I can not seem
to forgive myself, or her,
for letting go.
She left, and though together,
we have never
been more alone.
Noon
I wish we were laying,
the the dappled light of noon
blowing lazy curtains in and out.
Gentle bellows languishing as
the yellow rays turn gold
and sparkle with dust.
Curled together, comfort, peace,
while the slow sound of our breaths
call and answer each other
in time with the steady pulse
of the breeze.
Beyond the steady ticking of time,
the clock is stopped
and all the world is here
in this moment, together.
Looking, seeing, knowing
you in the silence. My fingertips
follow the dance of light
and dark across you.
The soft rasp of my dry touch
on your sleeping skin, hands
dancing gently to their own music.
Phantasms
Imperfect desire, one
eyes expressive with tight, down-turned lips,
mascara thick and dark against her fair hair,
a quiet, cautious raccoon.
Another
thin, tone, full lips, empty eyes,
the bored sound of her chewing.
A crane flustered and gawky.
Another
tan, brown, like a wild
impatient hoarse. Breathtaking
in this moment.
Another
dark hair, smokey voice,
a raven, mysteries hidden in
the promises of her smirk and smile
while somewhere, below,
in a Chinese restaurant,
sits my love
alone.
Open
I dream
beyond my reach, lives, worlds,
my small impotent hands
are unable to grasp.
Weary of waking, of walking,
of wishing and wanting... always
always wanting
what I cannot, or am unable,
to hold.
A bird is circling in the sky,
calling for its lost mate.
It is the only sound
echoing long after
the rifles crack.
A speck fading up
into the encroaching night.
I know that bird,
though not which one
I am.
Topography
The soft bulge, gentle lines
of taut tan skin
descending, the whisper
of secrets murmuring
from the hang
of her black blouse
before
plunging, my gaze
to the jeans beneath
and the silent silky
triangle of folds
suggested, imagined, desired,
within.
Forgotten
I am helpless, undone,
tied up with all the
strings pulled out.
Soft cotton falling,
a shower, then
a trickle.
Like so many
rain-laden clouds.
Curse
I am in love
with love
and I am in love
with pain
because in
the long run
happiness and heartache
become the same.
Desire, distance, hurt, loss, love and loneliness; the foundation of a poor poet's garden
She left, and I'll never know why
thought I can count the reasons
on one hand.
She left, and every clock stopped,
though shadows grew and the day
marched on.
She left, and now two thousand eight
hundred miles and three time zones
separate our every word.
She left, and I can not seem
to forgive myself, or her,
for letting go.
She left, and though together,
we have never
been more alone.
Noon
I wish we were laying,
the the dappled light of noon
blowing lazy curtains in and out.
Gentle bellows languishing as
the yellow rays turn gold
and sparkle with dust.
Curled together, comfort, peace,
while the slow sound of our breaths
call and answer each other
in time with the steady pulse
of the breeze.
Beyond the steady ticking of time,
the clock is stopped
and all the world is here
in this moment, together.
Looking, seeing, knowing
you in the silence. My fingertips
follow the dance of light
and dark across you.
The soft rasp of my dry touch
on your sleeping skin, hands
dancing gently to their own music.
Phantasms
Imperfect desire, one
eyes expressive with tight, down-turned lips,
mascara thick and dark against her fair hair,
a quiet, cautious raccoon.
Another
thin, tone, full lips, empty eyes,
the bored sound of her chewing.
A crane flustered and gawky.
Another
tan, brown, like a wild
impatient hoarse. Breathtaking
in this moment.
Another
dark hair, smokey voice,
a raven, mysteries hidden in
the promises of her smirk and smile
while somewhere, below,
in a Chinese restaurant,
sits my love
alone.
Open
I dream
beyond my reach, lives, worlds,
my small impotent hands
are unable to grasp.
Weary of waking, of walking,
of wishing and wanting... always
always wanting
what I cannot, or am unable,
to hold.
A bird is circling in the sky,
calling for its lost mate.
It is the only sound
echoing long after
the rifles crack.
A speck fading up
into the encroaching night.
I know that bird,
though not which one
I am.
Topography
The soft bulge, gentle lines
of taut tan skin
descending, the whisper
of secrets murmuring
from the hang
of her black blouse
before
plunging, my gaze
to the jeans beneath
and the silent silky
triangle of folds
suggested, imagined, desired,
within.
Forgotten
I am helpless, undone,
tied up with all the
strings pulled out.
Soft cotton falling,
a shower, then
a trickle.
Like so many
rain-laden clouds.
Curse
I am in love
with love
and I am in love
with pain
because in
the long run
happiness and heartache
become the same.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
2 bad poems in an hour... yeah, class was that boring...
Withdrawal
Nicotine heroine withdrawals
with caffeine headaches
and grass induced
paranoia
while on an LSD flashback
from peaking on shrooms.
Empty, cracks of desire
racing in canyons of fire and ice
and sparks, across dehydrated skin.
Eye twitching finger
spasms head shakes shakes
shake angry electric ants
dancing with daggers down
every nerve.
Sweat and urine sick
soaked sheets in locked
boxed beaten broken bound
burning burning, oh
the burning pain
of minutes and
hours and
days and
nights and miles
and miles and miles
unchanging, an eternal
suffering
easier
than being
without you.
Help
( I need a little)
I feel the distance
building between us
a change,
in the wind and the clouds,
Unseen but felt,
we don't know,
when or how,
till its strikes
out and flashes,
a bolt.
Igniting, it sizzles,
exploding, my world fills
with an arch of brilliant light
hide from the pressure
it builds
hide from the friction
and yield
as the sky tears us apart
each nigh.
Took me for a ride, lied,
wounded all my pride,
without knowing or having a clue.
Now bleeding and broken
my heart is spoken for
by someone, I can't hold onto.
the pain and the distance,
love flows with resistance
now tell me what am I
to do?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)