Archive for July, 2012
Willingness – Part VIII
The heavy, wet, navy blanket
was tilting my skull, left and right,
but not back, and sometimes
forward into a bowl, a chintzy
cereal, bluffed with crunched
sugar, smearing my eyes, my
coffee slathering all over my
shoes and my favorite paintings,
but the door was too close, my
hand working, my body flowing
like stale varnish in the basement,
my legs, two steps, and movement,
then the cement moving by, grinding
ankles and knees, these brain waves
crushing the pain and huge storms
of blood stirring my brain cells,
while the birds with perfect sixes
(torched pink by my favorite threes)
followed by eights in a blossoming
light telling me that air was
arriving slowly and today, yes
today I don’t want to leave
this world, as something has
taken my blanket and left it in the
ash can and the birds stretch
me into a terse example of reformed
ugliness, lightness of being.
.
Ducking the Parade of Battlefields
Today, like yesterday.
She undertakes disgust
as if I am a poisonous
entity without value,
so home is a battlefield,
and I have no space.
A bar would be nice
but alcohol is a lost
privilege. A baby.
What does a baby do
without a home?
A toddler walking
like an old man,
needing a cane,
a broken dog beaten
beyond recovery,
death the only
open stream.
.
Sacked by the Orange Frog and Bombed by the Baggy Vicious Bird
There is an orange frog,
with furry skin, not slimy,
with that forked tongue,
just two tines, nothing
useful, but those sharp tines,
they stole my eyes, and
black cotton weaves, like
old baseballs, sit in the
sockets, reaching for love,
looking up, not seeing, but
feeling the bird in descent,
like a hawk by the sound,
and he lands on my desk,
cackling at me as the Russian
infantry marches on sidewalks
made of donut glaze, whistling,
the infantry, a tune that’s
sad, dedicated to all of the
aromatic corpses they carry
like so many sacks of flour,
as the old bird squirts his
liquidy shit, reminding me
of all of the soldiers inside
this building who, it only
seems, are working to
make me more meaningless
than I was, if it is possible
to be more meaningless
than meaningless, increasing
the hopelessness, and I can’t
jump out my window, finish
it all, for it’s sealed, the window,
and there is more worthless
work to be done while the
trillions of gray cannon balls
drop from the ceiling tiles,
indefatigable symbols of
my lack of hope.
.
Willingness – Part VII
When hours away, not many,
simplicity drives the heart,
the ease of an idea being
manageable, but life is
completely unmanageable,
the mind forgetting the normal
patterns of life, how humans live,
and so I go swimming in
muddy waters hoping
to meet other serpents
who might show me
how to care for the time
given to me with
no price, no pain
but that generated
by a broken mind.
.
Breaking Me Breaking News Breaking Me – A Collage
man charged with beating,
suffocating sisters Platte County authorities
to discuss missing woman’s case 4 vehicles
collide on highway 9 near highway
169 construction workers hurt in possible
lightning strike police: woman found dead in car
near 39th, Kensington report Penn State leaders
didn’t protect kids crashes snarl
morning commute in Johnson County
where can I go? firefighters battle large
landfill fire, fire breaks out at Blue
Springs motel Zimmerman makes
bond, released from jail KCPD investigates office
building break-in on Ward
Parkway jobless rate remains at
8.2% missing Atchison teen found
in Hiawatha bank robbery suspect in
custody after Sugar Creek standoff bank
who are my neighbors? robbery suspect in
standoff with police in Independence Lawrence firefighters
battle large grass fire near neighborhood Zimmerman’s
bond set at $1M Leavenworth authorities seek missing 1
6-year-old crews respond to Blue Springs apartment
fire 2 siblings electrocuted at Lake of the Ozarks person
killed in fall at Westin Crown Center Hotel toddler
found wandering near 39th, Prospect pedestrian
why do I do this? struck by suspect vehicle
during police chase KC police sergeant
accused of stealing from mother man found
dead in home with no working AC or fans.
.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
P.S. Pardon my temporary dive into the avant garde. This is the rearranged and deranged text message racket I’ve recently received from a local news station as “Breaking News.” These collage pieces don’t work well for most people, but they are fun for tinkering. Some of you may recognize the last line and a half as inspiration for another piece. Really, all of these little ditties could be the start of tragic, perhaps glorious, short stories if one were diligent and crafty enough.
On a Day When My Dismal Spirit Falls Behind
Even light and heat flow gently
when my bones are not finding resistance,
as the dogs clue me in on priorities,
showing me how to fight for a niceness
of spirit, and I want the thrill of this journey
to charge electrical circuits, to drive
my spitfire, to stifle the kind of darkness
which strives to suffocate me. As I
feel so clever for doing what the people
tell me to do, allowing the humid moss
to gather atop my skull, making me feel older
and exponentially worthless, but my steps
continue to follow one another, and the shit
gathers in between the fingers as the trees
continue to impress despite the counter-intuitive
movement of old and known trees making
a good world for me, the dogs knowing my fear
and trudging along without inclination of stopping
because they know we are close to home,
and they know that it is always possible that
something good could happen when we arrive home.
.
Man, Not Dead
Man found dead,
alone,
with no working AC.
Destroy myself.
And people complain,
the basement too cold.
How could that minor failure
bruise me so badly?
They would not want to find me.
I’m a bore, a boar, not worth saving,
Yet I run the AC,
and drink cold water.
.
On A Day When People Blur By Without Me
I say ghosts, but the spectators parade by
in quick and evil flourishes and flashes with
primary colors and terse hearts, perhaps haters,
but the term rips at my soul because there
are not any haters. No, there are only those
who are not comfortable in their fur, in their slinky
waistcoats, but it says so much about me that
I worry later about what they think when I know not
who they are, and I’ve noticed that some days
I am in full command, a confidence dances around
on top of my head as if I have a beautiful hat with
feathers which bend with my heart as it heats
up with the tar on Main Street, and then there
are the other days, like today, when the ghosts
float by too quickly for me to be greeted or to
greet and my heart flutters with a mind that
cannot sit on anything but fills with tears and
terrible wounds that float with a liquidy aplomb
like tomato soup.
.
A Little Essay While Running Away From The Trashed Psyche
Posted by Carl in Essays, Finding Purpose, Poems on July 9, 2012
I don’t suffer from the brilliant people’s writer’s block.
I get these swarms of self-hatred that swamp me and create an inactive Tonka toy, ready to rust and to be kicked.
Kicked so there are dents that won’t be repaired ever and whose cracks will submit themselves to the onslaught of rust fueled by the beads of moisture tickling up from the Jersey Street sandbox that never had the privilege of sun.
The loneliness in the dirty sand.
Writing is my therapy, but fear dunks my horrible lungs – What a silly fool.
A toad who can’t stand water.
I’d laugh, but I’m sick of being sick.
Exercise is therapy also, but do I use it?
I know myself as a bucket of shit, pardon the phrase.
Meditation, yes, you have it – therapeutic, but the good people, the beautiful people, the loving people suggest 20 minutes, and my storms conquer me and my mind will not crawl in the cotton for longer than three and a half minutes, five when stretched to my maximum after a long, tortuous day, spent as a salmon in a brown pond with no outlets.
Today at lunch, I saw three people in a continuous slideshow of three side by side by side events.
For a flash, I think I can write, but it lasts only seconds.
At the end of my drinking career, I hated being drunk for almost every moment of the ten to twelve hours per night, Every Night, but there were still those few seconds of each night that crawled gently around my collar and that felt okay like a smooth hug from someone who can save you, that felt like a solution to all of my problems.
I perpetuated the myth of solution into dark ages because I hated being sober so very strongly.
Now, I like my sobriety, but the solution is spoiled milk and miles away on a dry highway below sea level, and I can’t write a silly, shitty little poem about three humans who arrived in three sudden scenes, like flashes from god.
A gift smashes my brain with light and I can’t speak.
For a moment, I knew I could scream the loudest beauty at the walls of the world, but my brain locks as a broken chain on a bicycle and it hates me.
Yes, writing is therapeutic, so I did this little essay. I share it with you because I must let it go.
Tomorrow, I will write a poem.
It will be brilliant
and I won’t
throw it away
because right
when it is complete,
I’ll shut off my brain,
and I’ll sit still,
trying not to worry about how
I seem to be a black hole
in this lifetime, hanging
on those thin threads
that won’t leave
the new pants
I had worn into
the battles
of the Monday workplace.
stillfugue 