| Admit it |
[23 Sep 2007|10:34am] |
Corn-rowed rebel, how you rail
against the world so lethargically,
striking blows against the man
by strutting slow across the road,
challenging authority by ignoring
the etiquette of when you should
or shouldn’t use your cell phone.
Man, you’re really bringing the system to its knees.
White, Anglo soccer-mom, annoyed at all that
behind the wheel of her Mercedes mini-van,
never having worked a day in her life
because her husband brings home a couple hundred grand,
ignoring the inequities of the world while hiding
behind the walls of her semi-private community.
She’s disdained by the gay man
who wants his lifestyle taken seriously
and shows it by going to parades
in assless pants and waving a dildo baton
while his state representative
gives a speech on acceptance in gaudy drag.
Gun owning redneck who has to spit
as he watches a clip of this on MSNBC,
hates women almost as much as fags
but tolerates them because he knows god
put them here because of their reproductive capability.
He’s secretly building a bomb to deal with all that.
Fat-cat devout Jewish businessman,
attends synagogue every Saturday
but only feels safe going
because he’s contributed his part
to the private security company
that guards the parking lot with Uzis.
He hates everyone afore mentioned
but thinks he’s a liberal
because his hate is justified by prior persecution.
Then there’s me, having had my fill of intolerance,
I sit back and commit poetic hypocrisy,
pointing out the flaws of the annoying masses
like a bully picking on a crippled retard.
Obviously I find it hard to practice what I preach.
None of us are absolutely right
in our highly personalized convictions.
We’ve all been idiotized to one degree or another
by our snapshot experiences
that force us to categorize and file away faces
into a bigoted rolodex that we generally pretend
does not really exist, but we’ve all got one.
We are all human before anything else.
Doesn't that make us all racists?
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| Odin and Americana |
[06 Sep 2007|05:28pm] |
A blood orange sunset
has just finished its descent
upon the late summer city,
the last die-hard cicadas
wearily plunge into the coda
of their swan song
and the smell of fresh basil
still lingers about you
from our dinner of Chianti and pesto.
“It seems the seasons
go by so quickly anymore”, you say
and I imagine the way
you will wear your hair
after our children have grown.
If I had my druthers
It would be wind blown and wild
like a harpy diving through
a cerulean sky
or flaxen and long
like a Valkyrie
so that it may shroud me
as I am lifted to Valhalla
upon the beat of your wings.
I ash my cigarette and reply
“the seasons are mostly consistent,
it’s we that change”
|
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| The Decider |
[12 Aug 2007|01:14pm] |
When he was asked the latest, pressing question
he paused, waiting for his brain to catch up
with the advanced state of his fat ego,
a farce inflated by corrupt yes-men.
You see, he had been grown for this moment,
cultivated like a clipped turd-blossom
and raised among the roses and ivy
so that he’d be ready for anything-
war, famine, acts of god, hurricanes,
yet here he was, stuck, with nothing to say,
no adage, jingle, or quote to mangle,
no way to blame it on liberals or gays.
How did it all go so out of order?
He’d done everything just as they had said,
and they had made him the great decider.
So instead he gave them his best wry smirk,
said something about imminent danger,
waved the sacred flag and hoped that would work
|
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| Jackboots meet the dress code |
[11 Aug 2007|02:19pm] |
The upstanding citizens booed and hissed
the crowd they’d wrangled onto the fringe.
The embers of the moral mob’s red- hot brands
cast a hellish glow, contrasting sharply
with the starched and pressed business casuals
they wore like storm trooper uniforms.
They were determined once and for all
to mark their rag-tag quarry
as the wasteful, burden to society that they were:
dedicated artistic types, proud parents
who’d rather raise their children poor
than have someone else do it at a price,
altruistic Samaritans, environmental activists,
protestors of every sort and poets of course.
One eclectic tribe,
usually beleaguered with bills
or victimized by things that seem
to generally pass the inside traders
and interest elevators right on by-
but it’s all in the why-
for some it’s because they
would rather spring for a round of drinks
than contribute another pittance
towards the standing of their already
fucked up credit rating.
Others who didn’t think
about the odds of a debilitating illness
ambushing them in the midst
of their masterpiece in progress;
a boss that offers no health insurance.
And then there are those who simply
get no satisfaction from being savvy
in the ways of saving, get no pride
in watching pennies doubling
or deliberating over which day
coupons will gain twice their worth.
It has nothing to do with being willing to work.
You can see it again and again,
those that pour every ounce of that kind of ethic
into stiff fingers, worn down from the pen,
the brush and the bottle, if you look.
Voices hoarse from petitions that fall on dead ears,
faces reddened by the pelt of leers
lashed upon them by the general consensus
and still they maintain the drive to follow
their convictions-
no, they’re no strangers to work.
It’s sad these heroes are forced to lurk on the fringe
like lepers who solely possess the heart and soul
of the very society who drives them away.
So they drag the true culture along with inadequate limbs
while the so-called responsible masses
wear grooves into the foundation with their hauled asses,
counting their fortunes(but not the cost) yet again.
When the branding was finished
the stench of burnt flesh and fresh intolerance hung in the air
like the pollen of grotesque flowers.
Then the intellectuals, artists and even idiot savants
were cast off into the darkened streets
of the existential ghetto-
scarred, yet still empowered to create,
like poverty ridden demigods,
to whom their so-called functional brethren
choose not to relate
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| The burden of a drunken ego |
[30 Jul 2007|05:33pm] |
He slurred his words and wobbled a bit
while expounding upon the grave duty
placed upon the head of every artist-
"We must incite the world to revolution"
he blurted with a near convulsion
of spastic, drunken, self-importance.
The shadows cast across his face
made him seem a madman
or perhaps just accented the fact that he was.
When he fell face down
upon the storied, wine-stained rug
the crowd amplified his silence.
Then like a maudlin marionette
he hopped back up and danced
a frenzied jig as if someone
had lit an inferno in his pants
or perhaps he had just discovered
his ass was moonlighting
as a hive for apoplectic bees.
"One of these days you'll see I'm right"
he chided while somehow
holding onto a brimming shot of Bush Mills
and siphoning the last amber drops
from a pilfered box of Franzia wine-
"The time will come when I'll be
remembered for being the best
at everything I've ever endeavored to accomplish."
Then he disappeared like a prestidigitator
pulling off his last grand finale,
until the thump, bump and stumble
that came in a muffled burst
from the outside stairs gave him away.
For a brief moment a tangible air of concern
hung amid the mingled smoke of more than one
genus of plant species,
the party then resumed with little need of prodding
|
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| Summer's long shadow |
[26 Jul 2007|05:47pm] |
The summer slunk in like a feral, city dog-
pest ridden with it's panting tongue slick with froth.
We didn't notice it at first then its damp fur stench
sunk in like it had been there all along,
skulking ominously
and always on the peripheral.
The dog days come that way
here in Midwestern Missouri,
where spring is like the silent serenade
of a firefly's brief existence.
It seems merely a crisp fanfare,
a staccato flourish,
that whistles in this stinking cur
sinisterly disguised as a season.
The ways we have to hold its heat at bay
are as flaccid as the sun scorched flowers
it wilts with its oppressive rancidity.
Blistering days that start early and end late
followed by diminutive, humid nights
that only recharge the sun's potency.
So we lock ourselves up
inside air-conditioned nightmares,
cling to artificial climates
or immerse ourselves in the murky waters
of an indoor oasis,
forced into overly close quarters
with unnatural, orange-skinned plasticity-
or what, wish for winter then frigidly bitch,
bemoaning its depths as well?
The fact is weather is what it is-
surly, old, sultry, close
and capable of being a cold and torrid cunt.
So we are left to deal with it-
become one with the refugees and migratory birds
or perhaps sweat over crafted words
that curse futility and weather on
like wizened, sweating monks
|
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| Mother's Fine |
[16 Jul 2007|07:55pm] |
Man-animal; strutting, murderous ape,
how we think we shall shake the earth and sky
with our pompous machinations of pride.
We crook hubristic fingers at our dearth.
In the failing light of our gloating feast
we choke on the gall we’ve slathered like sauce
upon the rarest, delicate species,
served heaping on platters, garnished with gold.
In the gilded halls the echoing voice
of our drunken vice roars like a river
brimming with the blue corpses of our past.
We laugh while thinking we’ll outlast this world –
we’re merely an easily cured disease.
We should worry not for dear mother earth
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| White River |
[15 Jul 2007|10:55am] |
Ozark river, swift runner,
swells and snags, bluffs that hang
over time cut pools of utter still.
It’s only with your fickle will
that I take your essence
and ride upon its straining course.
Oak and maple shadow bends
and in age or storm’s felling straddle
thinning, vein-like strands.
Even stone relents to your patient force.
River: giver of life,
taker of all that wind
talon and fin send into your ageless grasp.
Through the forested hills
you dash like a racer
with eons upon your silvery back.
Awed by your primordial grace,
still I take you like so many that have come before.
I use you like glass uses sand,
like the diamond uses coal
to grow closer to my own compressed core-
the instinctual wanderer that is man.
Scale, fin, feather, claw – dexterous hands,
I imagine seeing you for the first time
with still developing eyes,
then shut them
to forever hold you in
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| Summer, sex and ice cold beer |
[15 Jul 2007|09:59am] |
Making lazy, slow-motion love
under the sweat of a Midwestern summer
is like being so wet you stop
giving a damn about a storm’s pelt of water
and just walk through the rain,
since running only makes you look dumb.
The heat has a stroke of its own,
makes effort and movement sublime.
It’s the kind of sex that makes you
want to keep an ice cold beer close,
the type of loving where your lover
won’t even mind if you take a few sips
as you let the cool condensation drip
from the bottle to her breasts.
The gestation of time
becomes a muggy concept,
sticks to synapses like midday humidity,
hangs like a cicada shell
from the sluggish greenery
of our sun-sapped minds
until we’re lost in the lust
of the red and wet skinned summer,
so absorbed by its sultry grind
we can almost convince ourselves
we’re content; mirage-like, feverish
amid an oasis of flesh
and swelter
|
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| She is the jewelry she does not wear |
[02 Jul 2007|08:03pm] |
She wears one lone braid
in her otherwise straight hair.
Naked she weaves it
while still shower wet,
in front of a full length mirror.
I watch the muscles in her back
ripple like a languorous brook
as she deftly twirls
and tucks each strand
while speaking to me
absently of the day ahead.
I hear only half of what she says,
reply to only half of that
as my mind walks the paths
of a past that brought us together.
I watch a single rivulet of water
in its descent over the curve of her hip
and in that instant I am overwhelmed
with what I imagine is akin
to a child taking its first step.
The simple ferocity
of the love I feel, the awe
of the intricate possibilities
we can forge together
wash over me as my breath
catches in my throat.
As she slips a dress over her head,
then playfully muses my hair
and says “let’s go”,
I freshly admire her lack of need
for hours worth of adornment,
marvel at how she makes
the single statement
of one complex braid
so appropriate
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| The time is ripe...... |
[16 Jun 2007|10:15am] |
Inconsolable, in the now,
the sad and angry cynic waits,
carefully hanging ornaments
on the blight like a tanenbaum,
sated on the glut of sorrow,
smirking as another prediction
of the morrow being met
with the blast of one more car bomb
rings true in the ears of innocents.
Oh, you’ve called it right yet again
as you point out the obvious
and dream of cliché slogans
ridiculing the plight of man-
the agents scurry to sign you
to their label, beg you bless
their galleries and stages
with your puss-oozing presence-
your art is so gritty and real.
Man kills man, get over it,
it’s no more interesting than
any other innate function
we are sadly saddled with.
You may as well expound upon
the evils of taking a shit-
oh woe the force within us
that makes us evacuate daily.
Then again I’m sure someone would
consider it original,
praise you for your moving vision
and plop down a pile of cash for it
|
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| To glory, in all days |
[08 Jun 2007|07:32pm] |
The incandescent breath
of encroaching years,
whispers white hot
across my neck and back
like a lover's exhalation
or perhaps whip cracks-
at times they are not
such different things,
for even pain can bring
beauty – phoenix like
from the fires of anguish.
I grow older and expect
more from every dwindling day.
In their own way,
inextinguishable love,
the birth of a daughter,
the perfect circle
completed by the ring
encircling my finger,
only act to stoke the fires
that burn in my ever
ravenous soul.
Why should I simply
be satisfied with growing old-
even with such awe-inspiring
joy at my side?
I want the apex always above,
to ride the tide that never crests.
Never will I dub best
the days I've left behind me,
nor revel in their ever
diminishing light
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| The plan |
[01 Mar 2007|10:37am] |
The Plan
"I believe that you can reach the point where there is no longer any difference between developing the habit of pretending to believe and developing the habit of believing."
-- Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco
Gazing at the elephantine leaf,
green and blade-like-
its tip aimed to pierce the sky,
I savor its reality,
trace its many veins
to their origin,
their umbilical base.
I sense the parallel
between its grounding and
the strength of its being.
From this I make the leap
into imagining
its unseen roots
as the unknown,
the invisible,
mystic godhead,
the insubstantial.
Then suddenly
on some primal level,
I know this plant is connected,
not to just the soil
but to everything.
Strange that plant spells plan
if only you subtract its t.
Another puzzle piece
falls into place.
A sinister design begins
to form and shape in my skull.
Imagine that beneath
the surface of our perceived reality
lurk the hidden masters of men,
of the unknown,
plotting and manipulating
the world above from
subterranean vaults of
primordial lore.
Covens of secret invisibles
could even now
be scrawling sacred numbers
upon papyrus scrolls
with quills of human bone-
we the pawns
would never know,
or perhaps perish
over only as much
as I have told you now.
My basement door
was never a point of worry
in the ignorance
of my past.
Tonight it yawns
malevolently
like a knowing throat
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| Occasions of myself |
[01 Mar 2007|09:38am] |
There have been occasions
of myself falling into myself,
as if a manhole cover were
purposefully left out of place,
when firm footing is suddenly not
and the pit of my stomach
lodges in my throat, gulping to get out
and up and away.
There have been occasions
of myself despising myself,
and I contrive desperate
ways of spitting myself in the face,
like nocturnal sled rides
down the steepness of my decline,
then when the speed and pitch are right
to bring sufficient gust, just hock it up
and not away, but briefly out of me,
long enough to feel the difference
before I catch up with that globular release,
then: smack-
I recall why I spit it in the first place.
Contrast has a way of bringing me back,
righting my keel,
so I don’t over do the doom and gloom parties
having a guest list of one,
because when I arrive fashionably late,
I am so very seldom impressed,
it’s on occasions like that,
that being pitiful and full of vinegar,
stands out as such a waste,
like checking my email every five minutes,
hoping some she-surfer
liked the look of my digitized face and my witty quotes
and the recent novels I’ve read,
or maybe just by chance clicked on the profiles I post,
that really say: lonely,
between those well thought out lines of poetry
and likes and dislikes and dissertations
on my height and weight.
It’s thoughts like that,
yeah just like that,
but occasionally man
it’s moon dances and hot springs,
boiling with lunar buoyancy,
it’s hell yes fused with fuck yeah,
rip roar motivation that makes my
milquetoast alter ego look like
the flimsy shell encasing an egg,
hurtling at the face of futility.
It’s rage at the gentling razor keen to
clip me with neutrality.
It's striving to make this the mostly,
not just the occasional reprieve
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| Well Aged |
[28 Feb 2007|08:56am] |
I condense everything I know
into one erect moment-
From trembling hands
I feed the gathered masses
bits of past intentions,
stale from age and exposure-
the crusts of nibbled dreams
and rinds from fruits of labor.
They flock to me like filthy pigeons,
squawking and shuffling as one
they wheel ominously
as a thousand beady eyes
skewer me with expectation.
The mob is never satisfied
with meager leftovers,
they want the whole larder-
the choice cuts
and the good stuff you were
waiting for a special occasion to uncork.
Indignant I offer them a warm, golden
chaser to wash down their remnant feast,
I spray them with at least a few gallons
of pent up, liver-filtered release
and send them flying,
disgusted with me once again.
This is the way it’s always been:
me; conflicted with what I offer,
they; truculent and brazen,
like a dinner guest that
that leaves with the unopened
bottle of wine they brought with them.
I pour the distillation of my condensed self
into a crystalline decanter and store it with the others-
some things are not meant for all to see
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| Wife |
[25 Feb 2007|12:53pm] |
For her, the words “I will” incite my tongue
to never tire of forming their sound,
to inflect with love the stilt of the “I”,
the round of the “whe”, the feel of the “ill”.
I will- even in sleep I say it still
and waking it’s poised upon eager lips
to challenge the sparrow’s jubilant song,
making it but a shadow of a trill.
Throat-sung transcendence into the ether,
never have I uttered more truer words.
I will- for her I assure: forever.
My honor could not as surely instill
within my heart a loyalty so strong.
My life, my wife- for her, I purely will
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| To the pessimist |
[24 Feb 2007|11:38am] |
In anger, you rail against the world,
riding your sorties of guttural, club-like words
against the perceived endless ranks
of overlords pouring forth
from some black morass
or deep crack in the crust of the earth itself.
From the booths of bars
you shroud yourself in smoke,
wearing the numbness of inebriation
like a shell, pocked by the cold hail
of your frigid, fictional hell.
Sad, that you feel happiness is for the weak,
as if you allowed yourself this, even briefly,
you’d loose the edge you’ve honed
onto every piece of fire hardened material-
if only your angst were real.
I hate to be the one to break it to you
but you are not-
the Jew gassed at Auschwitz,
armless Somali ravaged by a machete,
Kurd, murdered by an insecure dictator’s whim,
Tibetan monk drowned in a red sea of assimilation,
Cambodian ground through the death camps of the Khmer Rouge,
filching hand barbarically removed by Sharia Law,
or vagina mutilated by female castration.
You are a lower middle class American,
pissed off because the busses don’t always run on time
and the cost of cigarettes went up again today,
bitching because you have to smoke ditch weed
instead of crystallized kind bud for a week
and they haven’t done a thing about the pot hole
that recently appeared in front of your driveway.
Well cry me a river you spoiled, bitter, little asshole,
or better yet, try sitting by one for a while
and watch the gentle waters flow by like mana.
Imagine the sky as a gracious provider
as it wets you with its gift of rain.
Look past the black for once and see the green
that inevitably arises from the downpour.
I ask you this: just once make the trek up the high road,
try to see you possess so much
instead of thinking you could always have more.
If that task seems too daunting
for your nay saying personality
could you at least just quit crashing my party
and go stew somewhere less public in your sour mash,
because some of us are at ease with happiness
and the same story you act like you hate to rehash
but do so at every bleak opportunity
has worn out its welcome.
A true pessimist should expect to be alone
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| In the cards |
[10 Feb 2007|12:07pm] |
There’s something in the cards,
maybe a streak of dirty luck,
like a luck stain across white cotton,
or a rape styled fucking
that leaves you wanting to punch
innocent, inanimate objects
or yourself.
Without realizing you revert
to a state of automated rhythm,
like playing king of the mountain
on a floating dock, you flex
and roll with each dip and swell,
hoping with each adjustment
you will catch your opponent off balance
and send them splashing into the muck.
Beer after hand, hand after beer,
chain smoking through
dashed hopes, hiding your fear
while making the desperation bluff,
revealing nothing while slow playing
the absolute nuts.
This is cards, the art of the sharp,
the heart break and the rush
of taking down the pot.
I enter this world and time
loses track of me,
guilt becomes an intangible concept
like being color blind
and attempting to understand hue.
Some would dismiss this as madness
or at the very least a disease,
perhaps it is.
As I pad into the house again,
this time at six AM
and face the vehement question
of “where the fuck were you”
I think – lost, in countless,
separate moments, each like lives,
replete with birth, death, victories and defeats,
but I reply,
“winning”.
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| The many-headed dragon Tomorrow |
[27 Jan 2007|11:36am] |
If only it were as simple
as the split-second, selfless act,
like instinctual mortal combat
or pushing her from the path
of a reckless horse cart’s hurtle.
Such heroism would come
as easily as my love.
Yet the true weight
of being responsible
is more akin to supporting
five pounds with an outstretched arm
till the muscles and sinew burn
with the flames of prolonged exertion.
The stories always end
with the unlikely love’s blossom,
the culmination of a dragon slain
or a quest completed
against all odds,
then the underdog gets his kiss
and the punctuation
of implied, eternal happiness.
We don’t get to see the hero’s
swagger or bravado tested
in terms of fitting the bill
of the marathon ever after.
The reality of riding off into the sunset
is that tomorrow comes fast
like a tireless pack of tracking hounds.
The true odyssey amounts
to the seemingly endless little trials
of day-by-day support.
If only it were as simple
as being bequeathed an enchanted sword
or being the center of some grand prophecy.
But in the real world love
is won by true intentions
and consistent habits – not hobbits
and those are far more character driven
than any convinient fantasy
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| Small town, Missouri snapshot |
[14 Jan 2007|02:10pm] |
A thin shellac of corn-fed morality clings to the main drag,
American flags hang from every corner store,
but at the far recess of the Business 35 bypass
the edge of the masking peels back to show a not-so-serene underneath.
The belly of the beast pokes through like primer
below the shoddy spray paint of a four-by-four that hasn’t moved
since somewhere around the year nineteen and sixty nine.
At first glance you might think that time has managed
to somehow pass this little outpost of Americana by,
but “ 'taint so ”, as the old-timers like to say-
for every upstanding Christian there’s a cracker on crystal meth
and Bud at the bait shop’s got kiddie porn
hidden in a panel of his Rapala and Rebel sticker laden desk.
It’s a town where everyone waves and everyone’s got something to say-
behind each other’s back far more often than to their face.
Oh, quaint little burg, where lineage is closely kept
and the curbs are all painted white just like the populace,
well not counting the Mexican migrant workers
who get swept to cheap hovels on the outskirts of town.
Hell the KKK even kept the Catholics away.
A place of closely guarded secrets,
like Martha’s recipe for catfish pie,
or the fact that she turns a blind eye to incest.
Daddy knows best when wife-beatin’
is a time honored, family tradition-
bruises here go mostly unnoticed.
There’s a sign on the highway that says “dirt for sale”
but nobody’s buying-
They’ve all got dirt of their own.
Just one of many tales of this show me state
where there’s not enough troopers to drag every pond,
not enough hounds to sniff every ditch
or stretch of back wood forties,
but you can bet that flora's got plenty more to say
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