Monday, May 24, 2004
the mouth i shoulda saw
i been blinded to
teeth, jagged spears and warrior tones
from the gullet,
the glottis underneath
enflamed infected,
germs warring: gangs
covered by the lips.
if i'd just seen the tongue,
alligator at the zoo
wrapped in snakes and taste buds
swarming around, flies on those
tears as he waggles his tail
tempting children for a dip.
but i never saw it.
i imagine
the throat down that mouth,
the wellhole where i draw
buckets of words and drink
the brackish mud full
of holey rope, broken fibers
and spinning trees unblossomed.
sure, now i know what's beneath the
yellow climbing east,
behind purple ridges lit by the
blue suns that burned me,
turned me blind.
back then, though, i never saw that mouth.
but even with the sun setting,
showing all that tooth, tongue, and throat,
i'd still let myself get
speared, chewed, and tossed.
i probably wouldn't even cry.
but not with these caverns.
not without my eyes.
i been blinded to
teeth, jagged spears and warrior tones
from the gullet,
the glottis underneath
enflamed infected,
germs warring: gangs
covered by the lips.
if i'd just seen the tongue,
alligator at the zoo
wrapped in snakes and taste buds
swarming around, flies on those
tears as he waggles his tail
tempting children for a dip.
but i never saw it.
i imagine
the throat down that mouth,
the wellhole where i draw
buckets of words and drink
the brackish mud full
of holey rope, broken fibers
and spinning trees unblossomed.
sure, now i know what's beneath the
yellow climbing east,
behind purple ridges lit by the
blue suns that burned me,
turned me blind.
back then, though, i never saw that mouth.
but even with the sun setting,
showing all that tooth, tongue, and throat,
i'd still let myself get
speared, chewed, and tossed.
i probably wouldn't even cry.
but not with these caverns.
not without my eyes.
Sunday, May 23, 2004
pretty convincing proof that i have no poetic standards
if you got the book, you might as well read it.
if you got the candybar, you might as well eat it.
and if you got the meat, well, you know...
if you got the book, you might as well read it.
if you got the candybar, you might as well eat it.
and if you got the meat, well, you know...
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
the nevers
i may be conflicted,
but at least i know no security.
you might know what love is,
but you'll never know it with me.
i may be conflicted,
but at least i know no security.
you might know what love is,
but you'll never know it with me.
Saturday, May 08, 2004
" "
i just want to be like janis joplin
in every imaginable way
and if i ever get tuberculosis
i'm just gonna smoke all day
i just want to be like janis joplin
in every imaginable way
and if i ever get tuberculosis
i'm just gonna smoke all day
new hampshire
the white mountains rose from the ocean
to shelter me.
the land of five seasons beckoned
when i was young.
my body has now grown older,
and westward i have gone,
to the cold
midwestern plains.
still, my soul rests
in the five-colored land,
where i could build a sugar house
or ride the frozen lakes.
but i am not to age there,
i must live out this flattened life
before i quit the plains
for the child's world of vines and mud.
the white mountains rose from the ocean
to shelter me.
the land of five seasons beckoned
when i was young.
my body has now grown older,
and westward i have gone,
to the cold
midwestern plains.
still, my soul rests
in the five-colored land,
where i could build a sugar house
or ride the frozen lakes.
but i am not to age there,
i must live out this flattened life
before i quit the plains
for the child's world of vines and mud.
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
starting at the beginning is the only way to bet back to it all, so we're back at the beginning here.
I'm better off as a rotten wretch, a man without a soul. From now on, I will be a terrible drunk, have a reprehensible temper, will shout horrendous obscenities and will eliminate the safety of poetry. I will be exactly what you feared in me. I will break everyone in half and leave them quivering and cold, their torsoes upright on the curb, drunk and crying in the middle of the night.
I'm better off making gutteral noises than trying to communicate. I am as we speak cutting the folksy, heavy strings that bind my guitar and tying them back together so they break and squeal electronic tears in the middle of the noise. People will be afraid to come near me for fear for their eardrums.
I'm better off living my nightmares than my dreams. My nightmares are made of my indifference and weakness in the face of evil and temptation. My dreams are made of unattainable love and honesty, family and security. I will no longer look away when I feel like looking at a beautiful woman changing her clothes, a car wreck, or someone vomiting their insides into an uncleaned basement toilet and then onto an uncleaned basement floor. And I will no longer put my hand out in friendship when you are screaming with unbearable pain.
I'm better off hiding my beliefs. I will be like Jesus but only in the sense that I will not shave or cut my hair or protect my body from the world or clean myself. That and the fact that I will be drinking wine and wrecking all the tables in my father's house.
No one will want to come near me, because I will be a whirling battery-powered circular saw that bounces off and cuts brutally through any and every object, be it friendly or ill-willed, that approaches.
I will be so noisy and indifferent everyone will go deaf.
You will not be able to make me sleep.
And I can even fill up pages with hateful arrangements of pixels because even the meanest of words are nothing more than the hateful arrangement of pixels on my screen. They are not me any more than my forgotten dreams, or my forgotten achievements, or my forgotten mistakes are me. I will heap out so many words, lies, points and pixels that no one will ever dig me up from under all these dead bodies, finding me laughing underneath.
I want you to see all these evil heiroglyphs and hate them all day long. Hate all the scribblings, reports, stamps, vibrations hitting your ear. Hate even the knuckles landing on the bridge of your nose. Hate it all, and you still will never hate me. Because I'm not even my actions. I'm not even really here.
And maybe you'll just laugh now because all this means is that I really do have a soul after all. But at least for now THIS soul is on its way down, eating first its own fingers, then toes, starving and stuffing itself until it's completely inside out and turned into the most symmetrical, obnoxious, and burning slaughterhouse of sounds. Sounds that will eventually only fade out of other people's false memories.
I'm better off as a rotten wretch, a man without a soul. From now on, I will be a terrible drunk, have a reprehensible temper, will shout horrendous obscenities and will eliminate the safety of poetry. I will be exactly what you feared in me. I will break everyone in half and leave them quivering and cold, their torsoes upright on the curb, drunk and crying in the middle of the night.
I'm better off making gutteral noises than trying to communicate. I am as we speak cutting the folksy, heavy strings that bind my guitar and tying them back together so they break and squeal electronic tears in the middle of the noise. People will be afraid to come near me for fear for their eardrums.
I'm better off living my nightmares than my dreams. My nightmares are made of my indifference and weakness in the face of evil and temptation. My dreams are made of unattainable love and honesty, family and security. I will no longer look away when I feel like looking at a beautiful woman changing her clothes, a car wreck, or someone vomiting their insides into an uncleaned basement toilet and then onto an uncleaned basement floor. And I will no longer put my hand out in friendship when you are screaming with unbearable pain.
I'm better off hiding my beliefs. I will be like Jesus but only in the sense that I will not shave or cut my hair or protect my body from the world or clean myself. That and the fact that I will be drinking wine and wrecking all the tables in my father's house.
No one will want to come near me, because I will be a whirling battery-powered circular saw that bounces off and cuts brutally through any and every object, be it friendly or ill-willed, that approaches.
I will be so noisy and indifferent everyone will go deaf.
You will not be able to make me sleep.
And I can even fill up pages with hateful arrangements of pixels because even the meanest of words are nothing more than the hateful arrangement of pixels on my screen. They are not me any more than my forgotten dreams, or my forgotten achievements, or my forgotten mistakes are me. I will heap out so many words, lies, points and pixels that no one will ever dig me up from under all these dead bodies, finding me laughing underneath.
I want you to see all these evil heiroglyphs and hate them all day long. Hate all the scribblings, reports, stamps, vibrations hitting your ear. Hate even the knuckles landing on the bridge of your nose. Hate it all, and you still will never hate me. Because I'm not even my actions. I'm not even really here.
And maybe you'll just laugh now because all this means is that I really do have a soul after all. But at least for now THIS soul is on its way down, eating first its own fingers, then toes, starving and stuffing itself until it's completely inside out and turned into the most symmetrical, obnoxious, and burning slaughterhouse of sounds. Sounds that will eventually only fade out of other people's false memories.
