Methodical Slacking
Posted: Sat Feb 02, 2019 7:14 pm
by MethodicalSlacker
I used to have a thread on the old board for all of my writings and stuff that I wanted to share with everybody else. Stories and things like that. Mostly it was poetry but occasionally it had other stuff. It's 2019 we've had the new board for a decent amount of time so I think I'm going to port as much of my stuff over as possible by hand—by hand because I want to make sure that what gets over is in this new context, this new site, which somehow feels more archaic than the old one lol. It's like a relic of the old internet. We're hiding from social mediafication in the ruins of what is left.
What hurts is that all of my writings have lost their titles. The way that spoiler tags work on Tapatalk ruined all the titles I had for my writings. In most places I know what I wrote, for them, and in other places they're also in my iCloud so I can just look there. In others, I have to come up for new titles.
So I guess I'll do as many of them in this post as I can, and then take more posts for more. It's like I'm trying to get my suitcases off of a slowly sinking ship when I should just get in the lifeboat already, but, enough of the dumb metaphors. Also they're not me anymore. They're old. But they're still real, I think. The higher up on the list the writing is, the older it is. New poems and writings will come in new posts.
What hurts is that all of my writings have lost their titles. The way that spoiler tags work on Tapatalk ruined all the titles I had for my writings. In most places I know what I wrote, for them, and in other places they're also in my iCloud so I can just look there. In others, I have to come up for new titles.
So I guess I'll do as many of them in this post as I can, and then take more posts for more. It's like I'm trying to get my suitcases off of a slowly sinking ship when I should just get in the lifeboat already, but, enough of the dumb metaphors. Also they're not me anymore. They're old. But they're still real, I think. The higher up on the list the writing is, the older it is. New poems and writings will come in new posts.
- [+] I Am From Poem
-
I am from sleepy mornings
and sleepless nights
From bicycles and rainy night rust
I am from staying indoors for many consecutive days
lit by pixelated daydreams and clouded by
paper thoughts in glass bottles out in the ocean
I am from Seven Stars, cursing myself, accidentally
using the wrong ingredient
I'm from pencil shavings, graphite grey,
speeches before the dulled masses
From stories one hundred thousand words long
and stories better told in six
Whispered kisses and hideaways behind each other's backs
Nobodies, nowheres, nothings,
Cross-examinations and lies
I am from scrawled song lyrics
thousands of iPhone notes
The Microphones and Neutral Milk Hotel
From Clarinet notes and squeaks
Trombone blaring and lights all night
Holidays from different religions, miles mesmerized
by metaphysical meandering, sentimental drivel
and standard tuning.
I am from "I don't feel the same way,"
"It's over," and "I'm sorry,"
I am from "You have the wrong guy,"
"Goodbye," and "Don't worry,"
I'm from all of these and one more: "Please hurry."
I am from a busride I took when I was fifteen
and an old friend I met along the way
The lack of consciousness in our eyes
as I explained hastily that I couldn't go home
without saying why
I am from the melty chocolate starbucks cookie
I ate across the street from her house
without knowing who was inside
or that she even lived there
I am from cemetery walks
worried apologies, holding back
and seven days in a hospital ward
with others who gave up on running away.
I'm from broken promises
Polyethelene, elevators
dead malls and dead flag blues
A CD tracklist scrawled in blue pen ink
and a CD cover with a painting from China
of a Pink rose
Windows to your Soul.
I'm from a good accent
that made everything she said sound like it came from
a bad telephone connection.
I'm from unconventional whispering
language barriers
half light with no celebration
and a far away radio tower light
that
never
stops
blinking.
- [+] Towers of Stone
-
It was hot in the evening, cold in the dark.
And with rising smokestacks in the distance I made myself cry
But you didn't look over, you didn't leave a mark.
We held each other's hands on the descent
Looked across the sky
I couldn't tell you what I felt
It doesnt sound very good in words
So I was silent and prayed for our health
If I sang this alone with no other sound
Would it still petrify your soul?
Would it keep us from getting old?
Can we live together at all?
And we don't get our well deserved peace.
No, not until we're long gone and still.
So right now I'll think of that warm release.
Won't be long and then I'm gone.
- [+] This Is The Place
-
This is the place where you were
a detour you took
to run off into a world of
shrubs and wild turkeys,
away! away from people
tormentors, detractors, haters, nepotists and egotists
and lovers.
This is the place where you are
full of the dead and frequented by
the dying
with water yellow and murky
secluded from most but not all saviors
and those trying to reach in to
the grave you dig for yourself
This is the way it should be
do not strike out
do not leave
do not open that door
leave your crypt undisturbed.
- [+] Beeswax
- I am held, I am loved
My minuscule mold is made into many mammals
and small fish
pots and pans
I am dropped, squished, remade
played with, torn apart,
mixed with a greater whole
One day I am a candle
I burn, and then
I am scraped off the pan
stains of bright colors.
I miss the love
but I enjoy the adventure of
what I become next
Will I be a ball to be thrown?
Will I be pressed again into animals?
What do I have to give?
What is it that I am raised for when my whole existence is to become something else?
I do not care
I will be
a happy shape.
- [+] Annex
-
Underneath a dead flag at the top of its pole
No stirring winds pass by to blow
Cotton eyes and cotton tails cannot contest with wind that fails
Unseen Psychedelic sunbeams
Under the shade of trees and
miraculously aligned bricks, red and gray
A chained up trash can, a barb wire self defense against any deepness
or darkness
Instead, the light
Light of the annex comes down from fourth story rooftops.
A breeze tossled frown and shade coerced smile
turn left turn right then back again
Settle down right where you didn't know you
needed to be.
A single wispy waste
of white
graces the sky
by another name
Cloud!
What feelings will it hold?
What festers and bubbles up, coagulating into so much rain?
Tears, torn from host in broad daylight
Exit stage left, the spritely apparition
fades
to
blue.
Fragments of an argument make their way across public streets
almost run over
swept away
down storm drains and through sewers
the ones that stay afloat will
fly upwards
finding homes in the
crescent half moon shapes of
working ears.
The flag, now stirred, flaps in a sudden wind
then lies dead again
but soon is arisen once more
propelled by some occult virtue
to brush away the cobwebs from the sky.
Uneven flower planters
orange magnolia is
perfectly placed in quite an
imperfect place.
Bumblebees float from lavender to lavender
pollinating, work or pleasure? Death of a loved one.
Unfitting music plays
trap beats over otherworldly serene calm
angry disaffected youth
shouting along at the swing of
a conductor's baton.
The lavender bristles in the wind.
- [+] Shepherd Tone
- hollow, it echoes
deep and down and dark and dimly lit
its not there, was it ever there?
have i ever been down there?
the depths, the reaches, the outlands? the downward descent
is calling and calling for me to begin to be falling but
no
its more than that
bells echo chime ring cloister
together, with a stringful of sound rushing
a cavernous maw of an ancient beast
books never opened with millions of words never read
my words
my words?
your words?
your words
call it what it is
twigs will snap when it falls
dumbly and dimly and grateful as all
always and never will it ever be
something for you, not something for me
the inside of the brain is low but pierced
with high frequency when disturbed
a cancelled broadcast unsanctioned scream in a flat
but also in an apartment, two the same two different
modulating between two notes on two different telephone lines
nill, null, knoll, never sinking away
at the end of the world will you come find me?
i'll stay right here and wait for you
it won't take much effort but
you know and i know perfectly well that
i would hate to be alone
sorry
so sorry
sorry sorry sorry
its too much to ask of you
the wind is hollow and it rings
deep and down and dark and dimly lit
a street preachers lips have been cauterized into the brown mushy soil between my toes
a low drone in A Flat
but also through my apartment
i've been down there many times
for you to come with me is asking too much
a grassy knoll, tied between my teeth
the grim reaper
my smile
ringing.
- [+] Street Scene Routine
- I wake up
its a dark day and the sun is out
i brush myself, washing between my teeth
slip on my shoes and pants and shirt and shirt and shirt
and coat and i go for a walk to work involuntarily
people pass me by and they dont see the ringing
i cant even see the ringing
the ringing of the noise in the air
i keep walking
i walk a bit more
and then i get to work
work is dull and boring and dreary
corporate nothing so materialistically unwound
i make it through half the day and then throw myself off the roof
my supervisor catches me on half my way down and throws me in front of a desk
tells me to get to work
i type and type pushing paper but
its really not what i expected out of life
i see her then
she smiles unfakely
her skeleton fingers
her bobbed black hair
her cheery disposition
a laugh that would send angels to her feet and demons running to convert
i see her then and decide that i will write her a poem
i talk to her five times
the first is unexpected
the second is planned
the third goes wrong
the fourth is to give the poem
and the fifth is to deny writing it
i walk away from her and i am defeated
i am off company time so they do not care where i go
on the bus; advertisements
tired? sick? hungry?
we will help
insured.
we will give
for sure.
we wont stab you in the back
we wont
we wont make any promises
i consider the offer and get off the bus in front of a bridge
she is walking by the bridge and she does not want to hear it
she is walking by the bridge and she does not want to hear
its not her fault
she is walking by the bridge and she does not want to
I have been this way for many months
she is walking by the bridge and she does not want
i just wanted to show her how i worked and i wanted to be more of a person to her
she is walking by the bridge and she does not
if she just listened to how i felt she would understand
she is walking by the bridge
i just wish that she would stop and turn and look at me and maybe this would show her
she is walking
i am not here anymore
she is running
i was never here
she is stopping
it was my fault
she is pulling
there isnt anything to hold onto
she is screaming for help
it was just the same thing over and over again
she is wishing she was stronger
and over and over and over and over and over again
she cant hold on much longer
but this will change pace. it will. change? things
she is explaining the situation to a passerby who is nodding understandingly
everything? will? drop? and it wont be here
she is helping the passerby grab ahold of my hands
i was never! distresses sink into my teeth
she is hoisting me off of the bridge railing and onto the road
i dont understand her that even when i try to make it easy for her she has to make it
she is making it harder for herself
i am thanking her
she is htting me in the face
she is blaming me for ruining her day
she is not amused, or pleased, or happy
she is doing what is right
what she is told to do
the passerby agrees
i am scolded
i walk away
happy
i moved away after that
another day
another dollar
- [+] Terrible Fire
-
self defense, cords running within plastic
strung up by the wrists, dancing like a puppet to
some one else's tune, strung like elastic
we havent a clue no we havent but a clue
keep it light and moving and right and grooving
gears turning within without you and choosing to leave me
see? its nothing typical just an unknown soldier sailor problem that's moving
decree within a chapel that the birds and squirrels and mice within are of the holy see
it's a gaze galloping terrible fire
beseech me, green trench coat, have at me with blades
dark and hopeless pit green mire and the smile i admire
so fondly. it brightens every glade
time runs out with four minute warnings
echoes and bellows of caverns glisten
a hole it makes, curving and boring
just pick up cartilage ovals and listen
to heartbeats and the terror within us all
i hear the sound of a long-dead man jump and fall.
- [+] CBP Jumps The Gun And Makes A Mountain Out Of Being Sworn At
-
I don't remember how I got there. I lived, and still live, on the other side of the city, and there's a perfectly good playground right down the way from my house. We must have been there for an errand, but I can't remember what that errand was, why i went on it, or if it was even a successful adventure. All that I know is that somehow, my mother, brother and I ended up at a playground on Broadway, near Central Square.
I could still count my age on my grubby little fingers, caked with dirt and seasoned with scrapes. Gleefully, I bounded up the big play structure, a sprawling mess of slides, ladders, and wood-chips littering the corners. There was a gear contraption that spun around, making a loud mechanical creaking noise. I sat transfixed by the spinning wheels, whittling away the minutes, cut down to a singular hour, just one wood-chip, sitting between my index and middle fingers, both unaware of their significance and the chaos they bring.
My mother called me over: it was time to leave, to continue on our nonspecific errand. Carefully, I walked up to the canopy, from which there were two options to leave: stairs or slide. There were technically two other options - a ladder or pole to slide down, but both terrified me. The kind of monster my sleep-deprived brain imagined was in my closet. Eventually, I settled on the stairs.
Every surface on the structure is covered in a dot pattern, holes to stick your fingers in, for some architect's idea of stability, the air rushing through it up and down, rushing like a crawling child. Transfixed by the polka dots, my mind was so caught up in a simple optical illusion, that I'd not noticed the boy walking into me.
"Watch where you're going, asshole!"
The boy, older, his fingers betrayed by numbers long ago, pushes by me, saying nothing else, meeting up with a friend.
This is the first time that I was ever directly sworn at. I'd heard the word before, many times, in whispered television memory and closed door stay-in-your-room-we-aren't-fighting-I-love-you arguments, but never to my face. Not so blatantly. Hurried along, I rain to my mother, and was led by the hand out onto the sidewalk, fending off my one-hand-count brother's questions, disappearing into hot air. My particles disperse, and I am no more.
Now, I reappear, ghosting into the playground like a recurring nightmare. I have doubled my height, age, life, but it all started and ended here.
I walk up those stairs, sun bleached and weathered by time. Back then, it was all too big to wrap my head around. Now, it's small to the same degree. One size never fit anybody.
It rained yesterday, and the slides and stairs are sweating sky droplets. I find my way back to the gears and cogs, still just as loud, though not as hard to turn, and take a seat right next to it. A few spins satisfies me this time; my ears have tastes fireworks splashing across the sky; the whispers,
slips, and tangles, of lover's voices; the fury of a father scorned by his second born child filtered through closed headphones. All these noises tie me to this Earth. My ears know worse than "asshole."
I look again and see myself. Day turns to day, night lit by the sun. I'm pushed down, to the ground, sworn at, and I waddle away to my mother,
off into the street, my feet tiring but still dragged along as one corporeal being. I seize the moment in my hand in my day, crushed between my fingers, squirming like caterpillars, centipedes, each leg a month spent in anguish, a month in doubt, a month in useless introspection, spent mastering walking on one leg, breathing manually, glorifying the needless critique of being.
My fingers grace the holes in the floor pattern, and I smile, closing my eyes, and feel the cogs turn in my chest. I lost innocence, not all at once but in pieces, flower pedals. It its place grow dandelions. Weeds, sure, but beautiful and bountiful and flowery all the same.
- [+] Alice is the Earth
-
Alice is the Earth
I walk barefoot through empty fields and
cake my feet with dirt
There are no storms here
Only sugar-dust and crumbling handfuls of
soil, rich in
life
Sometimes I walk through mud
I must be careful not to fall in
I don't want to get the ground dirty
Trees like brain stems
planted, ideas and songs and books
a row of bushes is
the entire Harry Potter series
another is
the faded memory of a musical
grass grows, and also
worms
I was once welcomed to other gardens
made of clay, baked to bricks
or of granite, secrets hidden in topsoil
I look over fences to other gardens
but I always return to her dirt.
Right now the dirt is being paved over
a sidewalk for a new road. Wet cement
does not go well with bare feet. I miss
the dirt, I could hide in
I could live for
I should be buried in.
Closed is the garden
gone are the trees
what's left is fading
Alice's memories of me
But someday soon I will return armed with
a pickaxe
Break through the pavement and find dirt
I know it isn't the same deep down
But I know what I did.
Alice was my earth
I used to walk barefoot in dust and
have dirt shoesoles on my feet
It doesn't stop raining here
The worms come out to bathe and drown
and die, with
I among them
-
Alternate Ending:
The pavement Is never paved
I lobby for the garden to stay
open
and free to the public
I share its dirt one last time
then gather some up in a jar
like ashes
a memorial of
what was never dead.
- [+] Sixteen Melodies
- metal slides back and forth, up and down
the room is empty but for a broken violin
that is, if you ignore everything else
shattered bowstrings line the dark floor of ignored substance
curled wood with age
damp and darkened, ritualistically destroyed
years ago i sat here without the airplanes above
years ago when fire was new
years ago i stood here without connections and love
years ago when i never knew you
the broken violin? snapped straight!
i did it, and it felt
strangely
not as good as i knew
that you wanted me to feel
all those years
its a sweet distress
in the emptynotemptyoccupied railroom
as train cars dash back and forth walkie talkie bleeps and blops
broken violins rain from the ground into the walls and out again
a snappy tendril, a bloodcurdling laugh
the sound that the wind makes when i want it to stop screaming
is not enough to drown out
an endless cavern
a cavern with no bats
no spikes or rocks
nothing but hollow that goes past
the end of the earth
past void and past hell
into the netherrealms where the great ones once lived and will never live again
a land that sits
on C-String
ringing in sharp tone, out of tune
on a broken violin
its not my violin. is it? no
was it yours ever? was it? mine?
i wish? i could place!
its nothing to me broken violin
not much that i could want
the railroom is not empty anymore
the violin snaps underneath
this is why i am here
the last thing i hear is the wind starting to scream again
as i am torn from my place on the floor
like a violin broken to shreds
dropped
like unwanted food scraps
and cast aside
like a test that came back positive but couldnt have been true no matter what the doctors
said
torn apart
- [+] The Monsters
- i have to be fast
or the monsters will get me
i can hear them chittering in between the
bushes i can hear them scampering after
my feet they are right next to me and they
want to eat me alive so i must be
careful where i step and i
want to avoid them
they made themselves known
they roared
and they knocked over a trash bin
so i run further
that was a house now that they knocked down
they broke a piano over each
others necks and ate the keys with blackened
teeth from the soot that they fed
themselves on for
so
so
long
and they are hungry
there was another one
they would not listen to
me and they never would no matter what i said
they flash up and down with the scratchings of my
reality they are coming to eat me
i dont have long i have
to be fast they are dragging my legs back and twisting me and snapping me apart because
its too late you have to run
and you have to hide even if it wont
work and i know that when you hide that it will buy you precious time to
call a loved one because the end is here and has always been here
we expect it to never show up but
its really just the beginning that never came
discovered not sleeping i was
torn from my bed and
eaten alive
by
- [+] Melodrama
- It's been a while
not since I was here
but since I was with you
has it been three months yet? It felt like four years
I hadn't seen you for seven hundred and thirty days.
Each day shorter than a half hour.
Remember when we used to guess at
what our lives would be?
Given ten years?
Ten
real
years?
Walk up the stairs with me now
I'll lead you by the hand
creaking footfalls don't bother me
step through the porch door
say hello to the cats
with no names, nebulous
of the same litter
castaways from the cat herd
they watch, but they don't bite
Now through the front door
the real start
a mud room filled with dirt - dust - sand
the stompings and residue of
afternoons in the yard
woodchips in the corners
childhood, intermission.
The living room has a record player
with some Puerto Rican boy band records
the second youngest loves those
I know what you think
do not trip
over the nylon ukelele strings
it was out of tune
and I felt a connection there
broken fixes broken
is that familiar?
The kitchen is glass and metal
and beeswax sculpted animals, alternative health
and nature products
would you like a drink? Here's
a mason jar of water
lemonade
orange juice
apple
pear
you don't say a word, but I know your silence
How could I forget? I've known you
for five years
on and
off for
five
real
years
Upstairs or down?
macintosh plus computers, car parts,
litterboxes, laundry
drywall, laundry
drywall, dust,
grime, grief,
rust, recollection
or
my room?
Two beds and
a copy of 'Kafka on the Shore'
roll from one to another
like the curl of a page turn
or sit with me here
the lower one
watch the window pried open like crying eyes
enjoy the breeze
I won't tell you why we're here
or whether you'll wake up soon
or why you're dreaming of memories
you try so hard to forget
the secrets your soul keeps from itself
permanent ink on a pahe
All I can give is a shrug and laugh
and watch you age, here with me
Why is it this house we buy
in nowhere, upstate New York?
out of college, out of youth
no children grace the mudroom any longer
I restrung the uke
you broke me again
and if we don't fall apart
maybe we'll get new cats
ones with names that sip their water
out of mason jars that in drunken dazes we held
up to our eyes and pretend to be the
six year olds we never knew.
But we're not there
and you're not here
this dream was never dreamt
but next time I go it will be in memorium
I'll bury you there
by Niagara Falls
And when I come back and see you again
My head is filled with the roar of plunging water.
- [+] Alewife
- No amount of set dressing could hide it
Six art installations, seven levels, eight times visited in the course of one day
Nine times cried in
Uncountable infiltrations and immeasurable usage
Untold measures of
People
Lay within the cement walls of this structure
Trash peaking up from below tree cover
Plastics and methane and oils and solid and wrappers
And stoppers and bottle toppers
Echo beneath and beside
The sounds of trains and busses alike in dilapidated Dublin Donuts talking weather and sports
People things
The rejected sleep in tents, separated by
A foot of concrete and a mile of shopping carts
From the children and their play-structures
The tarps and the beer bottles leaking over every now and then
There's a door out, two feet off the ground from
The inside
And all gone to rapture it has
Once we waited here and saw people pass by
figurative one way mirrors, I hid you
Underneath my coat, black and white and dirtied grey
Drawing you more attention but still keeping you warm with
The thought that counted
So far away from the Fire of your home
The Fire we carry now separate from each other
The Fire I give to this station and the rejected in their tarps
Opposite is an art exhibit or a protest
Further down the spiral you go
Spray paint to last a life time with
"God help us believe in God helping us believe"
And
"Those god damn kids"
And
"Life is shit" next to a crossed out "short" echoing amidst obscenities
Unsure if they themselves count or are too profanely knowledgeable to join the pack
House in these walls your sick and dying
The motor cars and bumble bees by field and fire the crumbling ceilings
Echo
Echo
Echo
Foxtrot
Despite best attempts and false prayers still remain here
Housed in these walls
Give up your ghost
On a bed of needle stalactites drilling from the ceiling like icicles
Do you live here?
You would be home by now
Carry your flame
I wake up just in time to catch a train
to my job just down the street from
The other Fire
To wallpaper my life with hell and all my family
To deny them to see the rejected
The zoo open any other day
And the homeless find their comfort in knowing that which we can't
And I take their comfort with me for I am one of their kind postponed until a later date
my long walk given over for another day
You look at me again
And I forget the third rail
- [+] You Did Not Die
- It's been a month and a half
since you didn't die
And I'm left alone still here
All alone, but better now
I don't depend on you
Like a glass bottle swinging
By my side filled with
Your warm blood and honey
Ten times I checked your pulse
Just to see and make sure that it
Hadn't actually stopped and I was
Just dreaming about an end
That I wouldn't see
You're not dead to the world
But you may as well
Be dead to me
- [+] Winding a Spring
- In a little town by the sea
In a little town by the ocean
I'll waste my days
I'll avoid the commotion
You'll ask me how I got there
You'll ask me why I left you all
I'll ask "Well where do you go when
You drift like leaves in the fall"
For everyone I knew
Who made it true
Who made the lies true
For the people who always said they had my back
For the people who left me on the stretching rack
Don't question our motives
Don't question our motives
There's no love but true love
There's no love at all
For anyone I ever knew
Who led me to you
And the things I used to do
For the liars and beggars who thought they could've won
For those who find that now they're the lost ones
And I'm a liar too
And I'm a beggar it's true
And I need somewhere new
Cause I'm a lost one like you.
- [+] Peace on Earth
-
I see things better
When I see them reflected in your eyes
I see the world clearer
Without listening to your lies
I'm here with you
Nine hundred miles apart
I'm like you, now
Hollow bronze heart
I'm no longer here now
Taken from my earthliness
I see things clearer
In the night
I see things better
I see it every single year
I see things clearer
When I have to look at them through tears
- [+] A Show
- And I am still cold here
And I have been for many months
For a year I grew warmer and now
I've lost my heat
When I ask you now
If I do what I did because
Of the pain that made a home inside
Words kiss like death
Nobody knows it
They assume that everything's fine
though regular and nice I still
Walk on the edge
I'd like to get messed up
I want to be fucked up
I want to obliterate myself
Tear off my skin and hit myself
Make it clear that I'm not here
I went to see a show
I went to see two in three days
I shared it with everyone and
They hated it
I put out my hand
Made an effort to reach out and
When they saw my outstretched fingers
They bat them away
I'd like to get out of here
I'm fucking running out of here
I want to obliterate myself
Break all my bones and crumple myself
Make it see that it's not me
- [+] Seagull Fragment
- Any other day at the beach would have been fine for swimming, but today a quick dip in the ocean was the last thing on her mind. A quick walk through town, situated by the seaside, was all that she intended on - no interruptions necessary - when all of a sudden her phone rang. It was her lawyer, calling to inform her of a break in her case. She frowned: a quick stroll was what she was hoping would take her mind off of the disappearance of her brother, not remind her more of it. Begrudgingly, she held the phone up to her ear, only for it to be snatched out of her hand. She stared up at the sky in amazement - a seagull had mistaken the shiny phone for food! It was carrying it off into the sky, settling on the beach. The woman ran after the gull, kicking off her shoes as she ran through the sand. The bird was pecking at her screen, likely ruining it, each jackhammer thrump sending another spindly crack across the glass. A flock of—
- [+] The Triptych, Soon A Quaternary
-
1.
Seven headed Cerberus guarding gates of Hell
makes no sweetness
no fuss about our presence
nor does his hellhound pal.
We've been upstairs and all around and
found it crowded
so we fall down further
Tartarus takes us in hand
Over piles of furniture, bed sheets, clothes,
archways, pillows,
magma, floorboards
that creak to disturb the doze
Fallen angels, the same kind as you,
unburdened countess
disgraced, untethered,
laugh about each other too.
We find in the labyrinth our Elysium
cluttered with grass
and but one bed
to this precipice we have come.
We take in each other's hands on our hearts
hushed whispers, laughs
careless words, I peel you open
and you begin to take yourself apart.
2.
How did I get here?
Why are you so near?
Have I had too much to drink,
poured all five shots down behavioral sinks
I really must be going soon
But your fingers, your delicate croon
Invites me to stay.
Is this alright?
Do I bring you any light?
Push me down onto the couch
This hollow room, you are no slouch
I was here once, Christmas Eve
prying eyes, I could not leave, I
Never came back until today
A cluttered table, is this rushed?
Tilted television, should I have blushed?
The kitchen is right over there
With the spirits, why, we tried to share
I poured myself out in some words
You needed none, you already heard
That things would wind up swinging this way
Did you like my piano tune?
Or did I make myself a loon?
The bicycle upon the wall
The guitar ajar could see it all
Two lost ones, torn apart
stitched together, leaking hearts?
when you kissed me, there was nothing left to-
-say.
3.
We weren't ever here to see a picture.
We came in to admire the tile work.
We walked in to find an empty place.
We walked in to look at sinks and Johns
We strode in on horseback.
We gallivanted to make ourselves whole.
We jumped in and shut it behind us.
We locked the latch to keep ourselves in.
We didn't look when we passed the mirror.
We already locked ourselves inside each other's eyes.
We breathe as one, but never joined.
We came near, but stayed far.
We watched as we jumped over the chasm.
We looked back and saw our feet hadn't
left
the ground.
You looked up and saw I wasn't there yet.
I tried to get it to start.
You knew I was on the brink of jumping off,
I caw you in the air, I couldn't join you
You dove far down, you dove deeper
I didn't dare dip
my toes
in.
I open the door.
You run across the hall to clean
yourself
up.
- [+] This Is Being Alive
- stealing traffic cones this is being alive
trains to nowhere this is being alive
knife fight bruises this is being alive
filing cabinet this is being alive
unused nomenclature this is being alive
parasites inside this is being alive
erasing myself this is being alive.
stealing more time this is being alive
watching paint dry in waiting rooms this is being alive
mud crusted tires screeching this is being alive
child crusaders this is being alive
failing systems this is being alive
lost souls packed and herded into train cars this is being alive
breathing this is being alive
plastics, chemicals, physics ruling everything this is being alive
Hesitation,
this is being alive
Delicate revolutionaries this is being alive
dodged responsibility this is being alive
dual regencies this is being alive
dr., dr., dr., Doctor, this is being
alive?
alive?
Is this being alive?
"I never loved you."
this is being.
- [+] I Love The Word Citrus Right Now
- I love the word citrus right now
now, and then
the things that aren't shared between times
limes and lemons and
blood orange.
San Pellegrino's
fizzy blood orange soda drinks
simple, understated, sweet,
perfect for a bench
perfect for cherry blossoms
perfect for the girl
the girl I hadn't
been able to
bring myself to
the point where I
don't understate
how comfortable I feel
telling here that
there's something I should have
told her a long
while ago.
We could share Blood Orange San Pellegrino's
if I knew what they were
maybe then
she wouldn't have said
"I love you too."
I love the word citrus right now.
Now, and then.
But not the taste that comes with it.
- [+] Peace on Earth Two
- at the end of the evening
the ensemble decides
to play one of Coltrane's more
"Free Jazz"
compositions. They do this
two times in two years for two versions
of myself
My first self is dominated by sound
saxophones swirls and tuba tones,
drum dynamics and trumpet moans,
a stampede of trombone, up a gear,
an upright bass, a flute's soft cheer
a pink backdrop towards which peered eyes
glance
unending stares into the night
it still brings tears to the places I used to be able to see
clearly from.
An evening, a night crawl, a cemetery on legs
the dancing celebrations of the nearly dead
in search of watering holes, the highest heights,
to let the music's last few notes last all through the night
A year goes by.
I anticipate to be blown away in the wind
Gaia under my feet
between my toes
the crumbling foundation on which I am built
torn to shreds by termites, aching for
one last symphony.
but the music
is the last thing on my mind
I see things clearly
I see the ocean wide
I gaze out across it and wish to hide
The light glistens off shining hot gold plating
and cascades through the air
but in the back of my eyes I see a jury
and behind them, I see a judge
the evidence presented my own memories
I am not on trial
I stumble outside fending off
the questions of two-bit afterthoughts
metalheads and skulkers who just came to see a show.
I write a small fragment and cast it off,
wait to find a ticket and catch the train
that left from the station
365 days ago.
The piece resolves in major.
- [+] I Am Not Myself Today
- A pack of bones wrapped in tissue paper
when wet gives out and crumples inward
and the same am I right now
surely any minute now
there will be a wave
and then
nothing
Oh, I am not myself today!
I sit on the apex of an archway not daring
anywhere
go near
to it
Passing through is predetermined and
not my business to decide though
I already know what may lay
on the other side.
I am not myself today.
I have never been
And though it be as it may
I've always been made of tin.
- [+] Windowsill One
- I took what you gave me
"Leave if you hate me," see
you probably shouldn't have done that
Because I took it and ran
stuck my head in the sand
A screech, fangs bared, and an exit
I sat on your windowsill and sang to myself
You would join me sometimes
in your shrill, shrill tones
And when you were trapped in the country
your ancestors grew up in
taken by tumors driven from themselves
I lazed around without you and shed hair everywhere
wallowing
Walking on glass bottle rooves
staring at the sky
with plunges and drops and pavement tops,
stray dogs cry
I hissed and whined and cut at myself with cat claws
Charlie, yours, left alone to fend for himself
staring off balconies into temptation
a flick of the tail, nothing left but
pawprints
You up and died on me
I felt absolutely nothing
- [+] How To Disappear Completely And Never Be Found Again
- Sit down
It doesn't matter where but find a seat
and you are halfway there
find something
someone
to stare at
and do not falter
close your eyes when you are tired
keep them trapped that way
now imagine the space around you fading
travel towards what you had last seen
all the while talking to yourself
in mumbled tones
"I'm not really here
this isn't really happening."
You will never
be found
again.
- [+] Washing Machine Heart
- A brick
chaffing and powdery, crumbling apart
falling to pieces and weak in the heart
tossed up and down again
masonry in miniature
A washing machine
plugged in power strip, extension cord
no more stuck inside, no clothes worn or stored
a broken gear, turning wheel
outliving purpose
The brick in hand, the machine on pavement,
I flick a switch
The systems failing start again
A screw comes loose under no duress
and I toss the brick inside
shut the door
and stand back.
The damage is visual
The brick smashes the glass pane
It bounces around and dents the inside
the machine hops around, unrestrained
by gravity
the brick eventually bounces out
and the machine shakes itself apart
a gentle seizure
a lonely whirr, a tired hum
the machine lies in pieces
Satisfied, I walk closer
and see what is in the wreckage
metal parts, plastic casings
a cheshire grin on my face
I take what is useful
and disregard the rest
for what was once superfluous
has now been trimmed away.
- [+] Arthur Bernstein Lives Forever, Arthur Bernstein Never Dies
- A misunderstanding
A gymnasium
A pool of blood on the floor
Tainted toes and tithed tiles
A gramophone
A softball
A thin dust cloud swirling in air
silent shouts and scratchy sounds
A flying kite
A dead daughter
A living daughter ten years younger
Reused refuse and recycled rhymes
A churchbell
A shotgun
A camera in a cobwebbed corner
Questioning quantity and querying quails
A man
A plan
A canal, panama, a palindrome
painfully placed and poorly planned
A soundbite
A signal
A red light blinking in the dark
On, off, and on, off
A chemtrail
A document
A stately bowl of shaving cream,
Never no, and not now
- [+] Love What It Loves
- Love what it loves
take what it gives
through mountains and mortality defeating
every golden hymn
sanctuary islands and climbs and trees
give all unto all and love what they see
Love what I love
in your own face
the way curtain eyelids draw themselves,
the contours and laugh lines and dimples never seen,
curled brown hair, like a dream
nine versions, iterative,
prototypical typists
hammer away at the backs of
their skulls
Love what you love
every last drop of my
licorice black sorrow, cry
"I am not" and dissipate into
etheric fog around the tips of skyscrapers
their fingers scratching the back
of the sky
Love what it loves
make what you will
though buckets upon buckets and heaps upon heaps
of evening sing
you are not listening
scratched up and bruised
dragged down, lose
sense of self sensing your place on the shelf.
Right next to infidels,
heretics, barbed wires,
the weeds that take root and look out like flower
to an untrained eye
anyone else's but mine
you need not share,
your despair is already mine.
Love what it loves
see what it brings
cats dragging roadkill to doorsteps proud of themselves
covered in leaf and twig.
- [+] Catchphrases
- two crooked kids sit
their fingers splayed over keys
and stare at each other
screens like mirrors show
a bleak glow, though still one to
gaze upon at night
not half as bad as
an "i'll try living like this,"
or as what you thought
like "so far, so good"
or any kindly phrases
our myriad, then
diverse mismatch of stitched souls
and our unifying rejection
you aren't watching
- [+] An Audition Non Canon
- Lili Williams opened her case, and shakily put her instrument together. The district festival exam proctor watched as she took out her crumpled up sheet music and put it on her stand. Three points off; presentation.
She counted to start the piece, and played the first note.
"BREEEEEEP!"
A long, stripey, rolled up party horn unfurled from the foot joint of her flute.
Laughter echoed three doors down.
She began to cry.
- [+] Ring Rot
- You are a vinyl record that I have worn out
Your grooves are over-played
Your sounds coated in surface noise
You've lost fidelity
And I do not care
I put you in reverse once
And you rose from your body
Separated and serated
The bones of what you built
The veins of what you decry
The nerve of when you deny
The muscle that spasms out
The skin pierced by guilt
A new copy is
On its way
In the
Post
But I
Will keep this
One because it is
Signed
I learned recently of the day that disco died
The time in Chicago they blew up that crate of vinyl records
For no good reason other than because they were fed up
Like I am of you, your worn out grooves tracing
The folds of my brain sitting in my skull
In the dead of night I will drag you out
Of your spot in my makeshift wine box record crate
I will walk down to the football field by the train station
With a hammer and a book of matches
In the cold of the winter, in the heat of the moment
And set you down right on the fifty yard line
I will shatter you into a million pieces
I will collect those pieces into a pile and light a match
I will burn a hole in the turf the size of my heart
And, when I get home
I will open up the drawer in the pantry
Where I keep all my bad ideas
I will lift out the copy of you I recorded onto cassette
Take the car keys off the hook
Sit in the driver's seat, and turn on the radio
Put the copy of you in the tape deck
And freeze to death
To the sound
Of your
Voice.
- [+] Alice Salts The Earth
- I miss you
I'd write this in
My paper journal if
I really wanted this to
Stay secret, to be unseen,
To be hidden, to disappear,
To fade away into nothing
To dissolve into the ether
But the truth is
I want this to be seen
I long for you to come across it
And for you to be
Struck with grief, with regret,
With "why didn't i's", with "I could've,"
With "I could've been a lot less cold"
And with "together we could have grown old"
You are the only person
I have ever truly loved
You are the only person
I have ever really missed
That I've hungered for, that I've dreamed of,
That I've daydreamed about, that I've cried over
That I've wanted to be by my side every day of my life
That I've looked at the empty space beside me and seen standing there
I know it sounds crazy
We haven't talked in person in months
I know it sounds stupid
When we can't hold conversations any more
When we can't look at each other, when we can't see each other at all,
When we can't say hello, when we can't even wave,
When you take hours to answer texts
When I never think to call
The last time we talked
Was on the train
On my birthday
And I never could have imagined,
That my soul would stir, that my heart would ache
That my hands would clam up, that my face would burn
That the ground beneath me would split
Two halves torn apart, rendered asunder, like us
My body rages against me now
I have to fight it to get up
In the mornings
And I don't always win
I usually lose, I stay indoors,
I groan and grumble, I cannot laugh
I can only stir in my sorrow
I can only lounge in my loneliness
You can't remember
When you promised to drag me out to lunch
When you promised not to harm yourself if I did the same
When you came to visit me in the hospital more than my own family
When I meant something to you, when I wasn't just a face
When I was a face at all, when I started to fade away
All of these have passed from your mind
But not mine
The colloquial rule is
Three unanswered texts, and you stop trying
Three unanswered years, and you start dying
Three unsuccessful attempts, and you start lying
About how much it mattered, how hurt you are
How little it means, how far away it feels,
How close you want it to be
How you know it won't be that way again
I have my whole life ahead of me
Or do I?
What if I don't wake up tomorrow?
What if I violate our pact
The one you forgot, the one I agreed to,
The only thing, the last bastion of hope
All that gives me pause
Are the words you gave me years ago
If you're reading this
And I get the feeling you are not
Then I may have made it worse
You did not want "on again, off again,"
So let's be on always, let's stay together
Because we're ready now, because we are warmer
Or have you grown colder?
Has this been a blessing in disguise?
I don't care if it is
I miss you
That's all that there is
To say
Addendum:
I think I understand better now
It has been a few days
I have seen the ducks out in the pond
I have watched the birds
Watter dripping from their beaks
Glistening in the sunshine, yearning for home
I have seen you again and we have
spoken
and the spokes in my wheels have long since broken
rusted shut yet still made to turn and learn that of all the things people say I do well
burn has never been one of them
but I'll try anyway
They didn't tell me what would happen when I touch it
They didn't tell me what would happen if I touched it
What would happen if I touched you?
Nothing.
- [+] Nightly Observation
- There's something that pounds on the doors of my house when I'm not looking. Every so often, it'll be like the door pops, almost flying open, but it'll stay on its frame. Sometimes, whatever it is that does this will go around to each and every door in the house and just pop them, one by one. It comes from a direction. It happens when I can't see it. There's something here, always, and it knows my name, and it knows it's own, and I can't tell the two apart. I hear it's footsteps sometimes, too, and the way it can shake the pipes just by breathing. I'm ready for it. I want it to hold me tight in its arms and take me far away from here.
- [+] Promise
- I'll get you where you need to go
And if it turns out I can't
Then we'll just have to settle for
Where you need to be
- [+] Fog in Bishkek
- The comedown of sundown
knees me in the chest
and I falter and fall to the floor
I can feel the decay
the creeping erosion of motion
gripping every single one of my words
If I felt like I could get away with it I would
write the word "Devastation" on seventy two
fortune cookie sized pieces of paper
Bundle them all up in my arms
and walk to the river bank
open up my embrace at the first strong wind gust
The strips of paper would float on the surface of the water
I jump in, I gather them up,
others join in too
What goes up
must come down
I can wait the rest of my life
- [+] Automatic Writing Exercise
- automatic shrieking the last of the last ones starving into the night time looking for food and galloping on bone horses I seek to sought to sign to find the mind inside the ones who cannot realize that on our steeds we ride into the dusk of horizon of night of day of light of sun of god and blood and all of the things we want to burn burn burn burn burn the urn of ash and crash of lashes and mashes and bruised up minds and heads that turn when we walk down the street and do our dance and do our dance and do our dance we cannot dance we can only scream scream scream and bust up heads and break in the glass and break in the windows and steal from the doorways and make all we want into our own things i seek to upset a piano i seek to torment a guitar i seek to reconstitute myself i seek ownership i seek all i see it all i want nothing more than to take control of the ringing in m yhead that cannot stop going up and down a minor scale i cannot tell which and as i stare out my window in tokyo i cannot do anything but weep weep weep weep weep weakly about the lights of neon and xeon and xenon and zeon and aeon and eons have passed since i last knew what it was like to be true i cannot miss it if i have not known it we have grown in numbers since they saw us last we have grown in size we have grown in sickness we have grown and we have masticated and we have evaporated and we ring our hands together like a gigantic burning mass i cannot open my eyes or else the blinding light of scripture will sear my flesh until it seals i cannot ipen my mouth or else the voice of god will render me unable to speak i cannot open my ears uncover my nose undo my hands or else all will fade away from me i love my friends i love them all i want to kill everything that doesnt love what i do and stuff it into my mouth and it will be god and god saw all the work he had done and it was good and it was good and it was good and it was good and it was good was it good i wasnt there i cannot say i want to find a space where i can have a quiet mind because all i need is quiet and peace and war and deafening silence deaf in one deaf in the other comes in one ear and never comes out again like an abyss or a puncutred tire on the wheel of samsara i cannot say i am cyclical did you know that i am a circle that turns around and around and the automated people and the scientific minded will weep and weep and weep and weep in their bedrooms overlooking tokyo and every other city and every other town and they cannot know what i do and all i know is that i cannot know anything for as long as i live shooting giant lengths of flame right out of my head right out of my head right out of my head right into my eyes rught into my mind why is it going away? it hasnt gone away it loves me it stays and i did not kill it like i thought i did i cannot kill it it will stay pills wont help pills wont help pills cant help only fire fire fire fire fire fire fire fire fire fire fire fire fire
- [+] I Cannot Exist
- You are here
Sick
Dying
The first time I ever laid eyes on you
Was the last day of my childhood
The first time that you held me
I wanted nothing more than for it to end
By the second time
I wanted nothing more than for it to not stop
The third time
I was addicted to your cherry smells
The first time that you kissed me
I drew into myself
The second time
I pushed you deeper into yourself
The first time I touched you in that way
I erased part of myself
The first time you touched me in that way
You took up part of me
Believe it or not
I am cyclical
It has been a year since the last time you
Touched me in that way
Kissed me
Missed me
Held me
Saw me
And it has been a year since the last time I
Touched someone in that way
Kissed someone
Missed someone
Held someone
Saw someone
Loved someone
This cycle will not end
Until I hear your words
Panacea for the tumors you spawned
In my chest cavities
I am no longer attached
I am no longer one and the same
I am not there
I am not here
I am not under your stars
I am not within your galaxy
I am not a crack in your bones
But I am in your cycle
One year ago, up in the trees
A crow looked at me
When I walked around the river
When I went there, there I was
I walked down
Those
Serpentines
Now, only
You remain
The river is frozen
And I am an echo
Of a memory
Of the sound
Of a pin
Dropping
- [+] The Place Sings
- Right now
The place sings
Wallpaper lullabies
To itself
Softly
In the dark
It peels and
Bends
Blue tarp
Spread across
On the roof
Moving on
Mourning demolition
Crying sawdust
Shifting
Losing
Miscarried dollhouse
Abandoned workbench
Tired windows
Whirlwind screams
It yawns
And
Right now
It breaths
"I am
Here
And nowhere
Else
"I can
Not
Leave this
Place
"I am
Place
And
Time
"I speak
These words
To
Myself
"Right now
I sing
Wallpaper lullabies
To myself
"And they go
Like this:
"You are a poem
You are a fragment
You are glass underfoot
You are manic depression
"You are my sunshine
My sweet moonshine
My cough syrup
My stop sign
"You are asleep now
You are asleep then
You are always asleep
You are always asleep"
The place
Swings
Back and forth
Restless
It keeps
Itself
Awake
In the night
Keeling over
In slow
Motion
Blankly
- [+] SOTF Ramble
- i dont post here enough. i dont post enough in general. i owe 2 memory posts right now and i posted on mini a week ago but i think i tagged the wrong person and they don't know that it's their turn. planning for my space au has stalled because ive been dealing with writers block for the past couple of weeks. the strongest writing ive done in that time period was for my english final, and for the sat essay. i hate it. i have a jazz essay due monday and i havent started, but ill shit it out in four hours tomorrow and get an a+ anyways. if i said i was coasting id be ghosting myself / ignoring the effort i put into shit / i just lost my job and all my mental health / but i think i can take another hit || but things are looking up, i got a girlfriend, and some other people, i won a creative writing award a couple weeks ago, and my college prospects are okay. im just feeling kind of depressed right now. that's all this is. it's just an episode. i'm just having an episode. it's a re-run, and the remote is stuck in the fucking couch. i can't change the channel without getting up and reaching for the tv, but the buttons on the tv change the antenna channel, not the cable channel, so i'll just wind up on some fucked up signal garbage version of abc. my computer desk shakes when i write unless i put my foot on the support beam and my knee under the desk part. its made from recycled bed parts. the longest i havent been sick in the past month is for three days.
- [+] An Almost Haiku
- Words falling down from
Quivering, trembling, shaking
Heights: stuffed with paper
- [+] Scrapes
- Laying in the roots and rolling in dirt
With sounds of passing cars at the foot
Of my earthy bed
I arise to find myself with two linear
Scrapes, cuts, wounds
Against my wrist
These marks demarcate my meadowlark cry
Of years past
In similar longing to that I feel now I struck myself
I cut away, I stripped my flesh
Of my shoulders
Believe me when I say
That I
Am cyclical
And that though I may make an effort
To distance myself
From my past, my history, my memory
I will repeat it
Fearfully
I will tear
I will rend
I will mortify
I will flagellate
I will cut and slash and stab
Until the blood I bleed
The red I drew
Matches the flush
In your cheeks
- [+] Aftercare
- I work myself up to the point
Of too much happiness
Waiting to anoint
You in my tears
I am blind to my misgivings
My misfortunes and disarray
But not deaf to your living
I cannot stop my decay
I long to please you kindly
I strive for something whole
I hope you do not mind me
When I abruptly end it here
- [+] The Shy Garden
- I will distance
Myself from the future where I lose
What we are cultivating now
The shy garden
That shrinks in the valley of the winds
Blowing from the earth's four corners
In this garden
You wear flower crowns and smile sweet
Reflecting an image of life
A memory
Strikes me down in my place and sweeps me
Off of my own stumpy two feet
A prisoner
I live shackled to this lost feeling
The feeling that I killed away
You remind me
Of sunbeams and pond ripples and peace
Of youth and bounty and high hopes
But you will also
Bring to my mind a ghostly image
Of someone I wish would stay gone
I have distanced
Myself from the past where I mistook
A hunger pain for a love pang
Pathetic cries
Outstretched hands across the void of space
Bridging our twin worlds, hot and cold
In the mountains
You would go about your suffering
And return an unchanged child
A unique fool
Dancing to the tune of the music
Hypnotism you would create
But now it makes
And takes and takes and takes its due leave
The pendulum has exchanged hands
The hypnotist
Once in control of variables
Is now on the opposite end
You remind me
Of that self-same foolish hypnotist
Who fooled me in my fall from grace
I heard you right
Windows to your soul cast open for
Blaring trumpets of judgement day
And one day
I will make due on my my promises
To cast away all impure thoughts
- [+] A Real Haiku
- Guardian angels
Perched in the highest of clouds
Do not get to sleep
- [+] Windowsill Two
- The ghost of my desire haunts your windowsill
Waiting for the kill
The sound of your breathing
To take its fill
To fill you up until you start sinking
She is nudged awake in the morning
By seven different kinds of scorning
Forsaken loves lost
Claims made in deference
To her indifference
And a boy miles away who still feels double crossed
Parlay to this crime in the audience
My own eyes, hence
The detached gaze I cast
Upon this last
Dying breath of the world
And all it's last loves
One day the spectre
Of my sepulcher
Will haunt this girl
This deranged avenger
And, insidiously, inside her it will curl
There is no ill will
As I lay still
But as I lie awake
Riding the tip of an arrowhead
I am pointed and cast
Drawn and quartered
- [+] Painkiller
- For some time
My legs have failed me
Rickety and creaky
Almost secondhand
They threaten to fall out
From under my body
At any single moment
I wonder when
The day will finally come
When my shin gives out
When my thigh splits
And when my calves buckle
Will I be out and about
All by my lonesome
A usual Saturday morning
Stumbling around
When the tremor hits me
And I crumple like paper
Or will I be with someone else
In a bedroom somewhere
A castle watchtower scanning
The earth for signs of life
To the sound of endless melancholy
When my feet fail me?
I would rather
Know in advance
Receive some kind of bodily reminder
So that I have ample time to
Crawl away somewhere
Like a sick cat
And die alone
- [+] Restlessness
- Parapets and parakeets
You held my hand
Souls and spirits
You rested next to me
Grass and gradients
You put your head on my shoulder
Looks and longing
You yearned silently
Sincerity and sunlight
You laughed endlessly
Tired eyes and trite words
I sat alone