Archive for May, 2013
Plummeting with Today’s Coffee Chore
I was scolded because I didn’t
make the coffee
properly. The electricity
from the grass burned
my feet even as I sat
inside, looking through
protective covers
of glass. The thunder
in the distance made the grass
frazzle, and I
longed for that statuesque, red brick
home where I could paint, slathering
canvas with burning
yellow and brandishing
black to draw stick
men with circle heads, men
far more successful
than I. “You
wait for the water
to be scalding, and then you
soak your pot before
you brew your coffee.”
The thunder allows
me to surrender,
to quit fighting
everything, and the darkness,
the weight
of the drops pounds
me into safety, allows me to
retreat into tiny rooms
with those red brick
walls and steel bars and aluminum
utensils so that I can live
out my
days,
protected in the shattered violence
of complete retreat, but my
throat tightens because
it’s not
true and I struggle and I
hate this moment, just this one.
.
The Persistence of the Sharp Freezes
The freezes visit too often
on some of the days,
longing for round and deep sewers,
forehead is warn from friction of hands,
mostly the left hand, working to wear holes,
to make openings for the tense, frightened
animals, for their escapes, for relief,
for return to the emptiness that is more
dull aching, more like the squeezing
of an adult’s hand on a child’s tiny arm,
which is far superior in the frozen mind
than all of the stabbing of ice picks
on all of those small, squeaky animals
scurrying about like lost rats in daylight.
My mind feels like that baby’s arm,
and I wonder if it is you, though I know
better, but I wonder if it is you, that fierce
beast behind all of the ice picks, and if
it is, why can’t I block them with my
sullen, stiff, messy face made of all
the tiny frayed, burned, torn wires.
.
Lunch in Empty Park
While the wind emptied my spirit
in the soulless park, while
many vacant, metal picnic
tables laughed at my loneliness,
tortured my Ill-founded sense
of being, while people, all dressed
in black, walked around the park
edges as if in Olympic parades,
I brushed my sandwich against
the rusty metal of my picnic
table, took a bite from that
edge of the sandwich, not
purposefully, and waited
to die without struggle.
Rolling, Meaningless Willpowers
choosing where my mind aims
losing light
“Too fucked up to care anymore.”
finding tedium of scales
coming back to art
speaking death but unification
being told I’m worthless and buried
in sleep
knowing instead, I’m diseased
Broken
Shattered
Irreparable
maybe wishing
Not asleep
coming back to music
why don’t you choose happy music
why not music that pampers
my soul has too many bandages
looking inward builds more disease
but outward tinkles with no substance
choosing targets
obligated to fabricate smiles
fake they all are
False
why do we forgive the pretensions
we drive through repetitive forests
powerful boats full of empty bowls
antiques stained with dried oatmeal
chips of personality
Torn
by two poles
life having constructed the magnificent gift
perpetual pain is unendurable when awake
my mind lies to me
I can’t force it to wipe away
all of the evil
all of the dirty germs
.
Memories That Terrify Beyond Their Aged Powers
A brief instant, coming back
frequently, but not more than a
spark, a tight frame, when I surely killed
my son and a dear friend, one of those
lashes where there is no possibility
of survival barring some god
which flowered sympathy for the
tragic follies of men so deleterious to
themselves as I, and that maroon
truck which should have flown through
unforgiving skies, which would have
fallen so far, it would have bled its
own gallons of life as that same
merciful god, merciful if it had allowed
us to die instantly, would have used
our own gallons of blood for lessons
for people who were meant to be
frightened by the terrific powers of
those named follies, this increasingly
swamped unconsciousness which
seems to alleviate years of agony, of
empty purposelessness, but only
prolongs the blankets of pain,
as the stadium grows larger and
larger, our wiring blurs in tornadic
waves, sounds fuller than a stadium
should allow, having dreamt of the
massiveness of the musicians we
longed to see cranked my drive to
a state beyond intoxication into an
evil blob of emotionally stormy
empty, evil for it was to murder
us but for that sympathetic god,
and when this flash comes back,
I long to know that god for one
moment or more and thank it
for that night,
ask it how it chose
such worthless, mostly
in my case,
candidates for rescue, but the truth
seems to be I’ve been saved
from the nothing of the end
millions of times, despite
thousands of desires for the end
from a defeated spirit, it seems
this impossible prevention of the
end was either done to save only
my son and my friend, or more
frighteningly, done to prove to me
that something loves me despite
my follies, that something needed
to show me my powerless receipt
of a gift too large to imagine.
.
Pissy Refrigerator Truck
Spikes of frozen hopelessness permeated
trotting around empty crosswalks surrounded
wrappers crawling along human legs
loose change not falling
wheelchairs wider than doorways
big men cheer while fixing noise systems
lights, maybe, lights reflecting mean walkers
peaceful phone call undone, lost despairs.
.
Choosing Survival Angles from the Swamp
A favorite artist refreshed my
broken perspective
this morning, leading to a dead sense
of life.
I need shiny
perspective in the frames of a
regular day. Without,
I am a defeated rabbit,
ready to hang
from that sturdy oak tree. (I pause
knowing that all oak trees seem
sturdy, so no need for adjectives, but
sturdy helps me feel more comfortable
about hanging. Successfully.)
But with this fresh view
from my favorite artist, I understand there
must be beauty in all tiny fragments that
speed through foggy crosswinds in the
chaotic frenzy of working
to do things right in every
moment, all moments, and with these
clear views, realization of the sickly,
petty, empty, frightening day strikes me as an
ice pick deep in my skull. Life,
bedazzling in its beauty,
leaves me
on splintered picnic benches,
being stabbed and
shot by the
modernity of gray roadside weeds,
weeds that laugh viciously in cackling
snaps with broken xylophones, splitting
cottonwoods, and through heavy tears
which come from dry horse troughs,
I cannot see anything
but my invisible
contributions to a society
that wants to laugh
with the weeds, see me hang and laugh,
but further,
it is with cowardice that I ask
with all clarity of my empty soul,
I plead
with you to bury me in a brick cell,
turn up the flames, if you will, and feed
me bread, but please don’t laugh
while I die. And medicine might help.
.
Ups and Turnabouts
Roller coaster is the quaint way
to reflect on what the red sauces
with black electrical wires do,
but today, I am running down, exhil-
erated or running up with climactic
buzzes showering my body, good
parts of the body, chilling, shivering
parts of the body meant for engage-
ment, or am I in at the bottom where
we load on and roll off, where we
drown in silky, muddy waters, devil-
ishly eating us, for they are left
over from yesterday’s distress,
never done ruining, but today, breast
stroke, grabbing the wood seat with in-
cisors, twisting desperately, and I pop
up, see the monsters left, see the wa-
ter dry vehemently, and I dive, head-
first, you catching me, loving me, driv-
ing me into your lush folds, warmth at
last, and today is full. Full blast, down
and up, hard and fast, sweet and juicy,
all is big beautiful life for these minutes.
I told you; quaint.
.
Dragging Along Before Lunch
I know about rounding up
courage; not bragging, but
I stick sharp fingers in plaster of
dissonant accidents, disliked
by all who know. I search for
purposeful dissonance, stomp
feet in defiance, move my head,
make my eyes wide and terrified,
petrified to be moving still, wanting
not to survive, screaming, WHAT
IS WRONG WITH ME? Knowing
chance is all gone, shaking my
head at the madness, my own with
all the others, as my hands freeze
in the plaster, choking life out of
me, not fast enough; oh, why
do I live to tell you this shit?.
I’ll Never Be Cured
My brain leaks,
just like my mother’s did,
my brain hurts,
I’ll never be cured.
They throw it back,
they give me shit,
my brain leaks,
I’ll never be cured.
My brain hurts,
just like my mother’s did,
she threw the black pans,
hailed our personal failures,
told us we’d never be good,
but I’ll never be her,
I’ll never ruin your psyche
My brain hurts,
just like my mother’s did,
my brain leaks,
I’ll never be cured.
The world hates,
It foams in my head,
with no smile,
I know I’m no good,
just like my mother said,
just like my mother said.
My brain hurts,
I’m scared of you all,
‘fraid I might crash,
you’ll see my soul crushed,
for my brain’s dead,
excepting total despair,
yeah, my brain hurts,
just like my mother’s did.
.
stillfugue 