Posts Tagged American Culture
Travels Through Death Soon to Come II
My death is arriv-
ing with brown and purple hugs,
temporary nails,
Gregorian chant sneaks up,
John Cage cheers my soul
Recursive Empty
Friday Afternoon at Costco
I know it’s
me — the people with
anger that
mangles my
nerves — attacked by carts, wanting
to curl down and die.
Take a Look in the Mirror – Meditation on Mean People Pushing Their Big Carts Around at Costco
I see self,
but this moment, I’m
so oddly
kind, gentle,
I know that inside of me
is meaner than they.
I Try Not to Slip Away from Who I Want to Be
Posted by Carl in Photography, Poems on February 23, 2017
We fixed you,
made you modern.
What would the windows do
when you have aluminum?
And lines, old lines, tan split by old,
above-ground lines, split by a
telephone pole, hand-carved sitting
by the door that would not allow you in
unless you showed your whole face
in the tiny box.
Oh but we opened a nice front
on the side and more aluminum
and now there are sadly-ripped papers
glued and taped to that window,
that door and the painting
on the window
look so stale, as if to be dead.
We gave you plenty of spots
but you sit there with
empty slices of bored, and
sleepy gravel,
waiting for action,
waiting for
the brightness of the energy
we need. And then,
and then,
and then,
would you watch that concrete
on the front?
Did we fix you, old man, or what?
No more curves or gaps or carvings.
We gave you 50s slab,
and if you don’t like it,
bang your head against that slithery, slimy wall.
until you bleed,
and the aluminum
laughs at you again and again.
.
.
America, 2016, Unnumbered, Crashing Crumbles Aboard My Late Train
Posted by Carl in Photography, Poems on February 20, 2017
Confusion
from concrete, crumbles
spray grain dust,
curling light,
crushing spirits that fly, creeps
crimping my dead brain.
.
.
Yet another Dystopia Today shot from the amateur Carl in some very small town (somewhere hidden in the midwest) sometime late in the Summer of 2016.
America, 2016, #2 – On Gravel to Avoid the Hit
One in front
of the other they
said and no
one would love
me again, tossed I am on
rusty grills.
.
Carl’s dystopia today shot near Gibbon, Nebraska, September 2016
.
How Might I Squash That Fear?
Later, I remem-
ber being stricken
by dread of
what they felt:
How much did they spy rummag-
ing beneath the crust?
Why I’m Not a Good Spectator at Poetry Readings
I’m here early. Observing
in a disinterested
way, or trying to appear
that way. The students, I want
to be one, and the hippies,
the hippies and a dead nylon
smell. Nothing wrong
with green hair but it bothers
me that it’s a fashion statement
while being anti-fashion, and I’m
anti-, anti-social because
I’m fearful of people I
don’t know, because I’m a
chicken without a mind,
perhaps intriguing on the
inside but flat as a board
in these chatty situations,
and all of this makes me
want to hate myself, especially
when George
won’t have the courtesy
to say hi to me. He is
the weirdo who was happy
to see me unofficially
kicked out of the writing
group. I hate him almost
because I set out
my weakness for
him, he being a similar,
bizarre character, and he
dismissed me,
the scoundrel.
Riffed Out of Easy
Listening to loud Middle
Class Rut, wishing I
could run away to
their fields of play.
Some things are simple,
blare with clarity,
and they’re impossible.