A Continuation of Lost Thoughts

The Wrongdoing

2008-12-27T21:07:00.000-06:00

He was premium light lager -
Brewing in the confines of my mind.
I stole him from refrigeration
With a muggy headiness looming…
Better to take than smear salt

Into the burn - that would hurt
Like a cat scratch, and linger, like
A faint wail in a Hitchcock matinee.
I can’t justify the Miserere.
It doesn’t taste like beer because

It’s ancient, like Mother Teresa.
That’s my excuse, I say before
You feel the incinerating burn.
A perspective on deep dark sins
Requires a placating grip on

The reality of the world -
It’s raped time like an unwrapped
Gift, given to you on the 25th,
Only for you to spout it up, allowing
The insides to settle in remorse.

Room #4157

2008-07-19T16:32:00.000-05:00

Living in code blue, without a pot to piddle in.
Man’s largest toilet, dotted by the Dogwood, idles
Outside with shaken leaves made for wiping.
I can’t race to the wilderness. I can’t jog. I surely can’t fly.
The loss confounds my mind. So, I’ll stud my eyebrow with a

Hobnail. The transformation is quite becoming.
These four white walls are made for breaking down.
I never knew how to crack up before this accidental discovery.
Smash, teeter, and fall, and all the doctors couldn’t put it
Back together again. Maybe a pill? A blue one, of course!

It tastes like a stale peppermint with a chalky aftertaste.
Where are my house slippers? The ones you bought for my visit?
Sideways and up your rump roast, most likely, so I shall not
Race into the wilderness. I still have my broken sole -
Now fire poker red, and dripping, mimicking a leaky spout.

It’s soon to be the great Niagara! Dogcatcher! Code red!
I’m beginning to itch forth another solution for the heartache -
You must excavate the pain, then suture up the buttercup,
Or all the blood will drain to my feet. Tell me, then.
How will I run? How will I jog? How, ever will I fly?

The Auction

2008-07-18T16:35:00.000-05:00

Going, going, gone!
To the most sincere bidder,
The penny worth a luxury or more
With its copper profile - a man for sure!

They wheel and deal the woman
On the chopping block. And believe
They can buy her for what she’s
Worth, and sell her for what she
Thinks she’s worth - a ten-cent piece!

Humbly. They knock her up for scoring,
And proclaim the purest love, she’ll
Find a suitor for eternity, unless
The emancipator calls for her first.

Freedom or shag-dom, the auction
Doesn’t foresee. Coinage
Is the rate for beauty, the debutante.
Buy a gumball, buy a girl,
Spend wisely, unless you think you’re hers.

The Land of Sour Milk and Honey

2008-07-14T20:08:00.000-05:00

I set myself up, by putting
Myself out
Amongst mealy-mouthed mosquitoes,
The parasites chomping the spit, spat out
Relishing in her disgrace.

A cake, a candle, a celebration
Is in order. Or perhaps a funeral.
Black dresses and black suits adorn
The congregation in attendance.
Blasphemy! Maybe a hymn?

May she quiver in quietism, below
Ground, while the misses and misters
Hover above her casket, her cake
Missing the piece they ate
In her token honor. Her pink

Negligee torn. A game piece. Spent on a machine
Called life. The ambivalent attitudes
Forego the special occasion.
Babies to attend to. Sockets to
Fiddle with. Might I electrocute myself?

The Separation

2008-07-12T18:56:00.000-05:00

Some people like to pull out the nail, only
To ram it back in, with splinters
Slicing the skull, my skull into
Shards of hard knock luck.

I hide all hammers, your hammer
Inside the safety deposit box
For safekeeping, my well-being -
You can’t find it there

Or my screwball effort to save the
Flotsam as it bends out of reach
Too far away for the withering fingertips
That long to make a deep indention in

Your left cheek. I leave you unscathed.
So much for wishful thinking, or cathartic
Means of reconciliation, like replacing
The cap on an empty container of lighter fluid.

The Yo-Yo Law of Gravity

2008-05-13T20:38:00.001-05:00

Abandoning another attempt at poetry, she sinks into a place of inner frustration, contemplating the advantages of being down, for what has crashed to the linoleum must rise to the ceiling, says the yo-yo law of gravity. Down works sympathetically with up, toying with the momentum of her emotions in this sudden state of vocabulary depletion. She thinks this instance of down could be her final destination, never to dwindle up toward the high mindset of triumphant literary accomplishment. Perhaps, she will sink even lower, down to depths where complete sentence structures become stagnant, and eclipsed thoughts shudder without fulfillment. These tiresome ideas dissipate as the fluidity of her prose begins again, one word connecting itself to the next to form notions she can comprehend in the onset of light. To find it once again, and continue the forces, which bring up and down together, creates balance in her life. She carries on writing, remembering the prior blankness when she thinks to stop and recall when time stood still in the night.

Life's Blueprint

2008-04-30T18:53:00.001-05:00

I scheme to find self
And reconcile
With chromatic years
Lost to black and blue
Marks from a grand
Design called the higher
Deity’s plan

Had it all been
In my outstretched palms
I could have
Would have
Raised my own bars
Felt a little more love
Written a few more poems
Designed a dozen more layouts
And sung a better tune

To name a few items
On the “never-could-do” list

If the takers morphed
Into givers
A missing piece
Or two
Or three
Might be illuminated
In the shade of
Former misery

Wholeness

Or at least the body
Might seem half soulful
Instead of half empty

Situated Next To You

2008-02-17T20:06:00.001-06:00

We’re down and out, but never thru
With missed phone calls
And penciled in IOUs

On tests that balance out the day
To get out of bed
Can be a major mistake
For it puts the brakes

On fanciful dreams of yesterday’s you
When I stood under a hung moon
A hue of bloody blue

Thinking all I ever needed
Was the silhouette
Of your lovely exterior
To get thru

The bruises brought down
By time’s hands
And a mislaid plan
To get to your heart

It’s fallen apart

The Statue of Nonobservance

2008-02-09T17:19:00.000-06:00

I’m the punchline to a poorly worded joke, broken down by the grandfather clock’s own hands. Unable to avoid the laughter, I tiptoe across rotten tomatoes towards the shiny pendulum swinging from right to left, its dyslexia biding me time before the next round of giggling disgrace. A jester chimes in. Something about falling from my rocker or rocking myself to sleep in disbelief of being the butt end of tonight’s sense of humor. Smearing some cement within my ears, I can hardly hear the unpleasantness, the taunts, and jeers. Suddenly, a bright idea comes to me: to leave behind my own piece of mind. Turning my back, I proclaim, “It’s all Greek to me!” as my warship alights across the sea of stone-cold hecklers.

In Thought

2008-01-10T23:24:00.000-06:00

Mindless
In the sense
Of derivation.
I’m unhappy
Because happy
Is spelled with
Two Ps.
Sad
Because unsad
Is not a word.
So I have to use
The word
Happy
To express
My elation
And
Happy
Has two Ps
Which makes me
Unhappy.
When I should be
Unsad.
But unsad isn’t
A word.
So I’ll have to be
Sad
Until I can think
Of another
Synonym
For
Happy.

Love Means Nothing or The Semifinals of Tarnished Feelings

2007-10-29T15:23:00.000-05:00

Next to nothing, but love when you bring
out your A-game and send a backhanded waterlogged
remark to ricochet off my weathered sensitivity.

Feeling the sting, it could only mean
you’ve never formulated a feeling that concluded in
amorous reciprocation. As I stand on the clay, clasping the

black and blue, I think if only I could perfect
my follow-through, the sentiment would return to you.
The scoreboard admits to its earlier

mistake. We’re no longer situated at love,
we’re taking backswings at indifference and
perhaps hate. When you served up your competitive dish, I

wasn’t sure if you wanted to rectify our
situation with a hit or miss, or rub your meager first ace
in my mascara-smeared face. Is a solo win your

solution? Silently wishing the medal stand was
built for two gold victors, I equate love to nothing,
and slam down an “I really, really respected you.”

Back to differentiation with each forearm challenging
the last, I contemplate the notion of letting you win,
only to accommodate your fragile state of best.

Thump, Thump

2007-07-09T16:56:00.000-05:00

Reason distorts the heart -
That picturesque central beat
We all enslave our desires to.

Thump, thump, feel
The fuzzy dogs barking
In watery afternoons,
As the tears scream from heaven
And gleam on the glass windows
Of passersby.

The Foreign Language of the Chocolate Covered Banana

2007-04-04T21:49:00.000-05:00

BANANA = B AN = BE ANOREXIC
CHOCOLATE = TALK A LOT

She’s a chocolate covered banana,
Heavy and encased in robes of fatty folds.
Hidden, yet
Missing meals in a secret
Quest to become a yellow fruit.
Once peeled, alienated, and unable
To converse in discussions
On space and unrequited love,
The changing of leaves,
And the taste of grandma’s cherry pie.

Situated to be forever frozen and isolated,
Stuck on a popsicle stick as
A centerpiece for immaculate dining room tables
That remain vacant
And free of her bodily presence
In her mission to become a banana.

Escapism in 2 Parts

2006-08-06T15:35:00.000-05:00

Part 1:

Despite all that obliviates
A greater presence consumes
Nothing more
Nothing less
As she turns on her dream machine
And asks what she needs

**********

Part 2:

I sleep to dream
I dream to imagine
I imagine to believe
I believe to exist
I exist to die
I die to find freedom

Tears in Context

2006-03-14T17:23:00.000-06:00

Some people cry
And some people weep.
If you think about it
Hard enough,
There is a difference.
Crying is done sitting or standing.
Weeping is done on the knees.

What I Bought For a Quarter

2006-01-29T16:56:00.000-06:00

Gumballs.
Tie-dyed and spotted, polka dotted.
Scratched and dented,
Reinvented into hues of cantaloupe and picnic table paint.
Ketchup-flavored gumballs.
Trained for popping.

More gumballs.
Post-marked and bench-pressed
Into stale papier-mâché sticks.
Denim gumballs.
Reupholstered and draped with fabric wrappers.
Squeaky clean gumballs soaking in a bubble bath.
Oatmeal-flavored gumballs.

The colored balls of chew wrestle with each other
Under a sky of hungry liquid foam,
Each one debating what to eat. They look at me.
You see, I’m edible. Digestible.
Won’t stay in your system for seven years,
But rather a few days,
Or until your bowels can perform a quick shit.

Where I become flushable.
And into the abyss of sewage waste I go
To dance with Kleenex clods
And play thumb war with soiled toilet paper.
After months of this,
I reach the vast polluted sea,
And eventually meet shore under an old gumball tree.
Looking up nonchalantly
A middle-aged man grimaces
And catches a porcupine gumball straight in the eye.
On his blind-side.

Thoughts on a Monday Afternoon

2006-01-19T22:32:00.000-06:00

I put
All my prayers
In one lump sum
And call it
Love.

I use
My tongue
Like a weapon
And yell
Miscreant.

I lay down
A king of hearts
And pronounce
Him an
Iceberg.

I play
With words
And form
And label it
Poetry.

The Day-Old Dream

2006-01-04T21:42:00.000-06:00

In a world where mocha tastes like mint, I have heightened reason to believe I could sense you around a corner and run into your body, and we’d be there in a hug, an embrace. After hellos and words said to catch up, I’d reflect in this moment of seeing you and think, “Can I take this feeling with me when I go?” But instead of asking I tackle this word, this feeling, and tattoo it to my right ankle, and climb out of this day-old dream, and look up at you, now knowing I can leave all my mistaken mochas behind to some faulty taste buds and a pair of peeled eyes.

As He Was Sitting on a Windy Evening

2005-12-21T17:46:00.000-06:00

Grey dripped from the sky
Like clockwork
As bending blades of grass
Bowed to the breeze.
The elements of a misshapen mystery
Took root next to a mulberry tree.
A melancholic stillness
Of something yet to be
Snaked its way through
The gnarled monstrosity
Called fragile evening.
4:47 p.m. to be exact
As if time was of essence
To his invisible tears,
Or the sentiment
That nearly escaped
From his back jean pocket.

Cupid's Eulogy

2005-12-16T20:44:00.001-06:00

When push comes to love,
You’ve got to grab him by the arrows,
And let Cupid do his thing.

Fling! Fling!
Arrows fly.
Like a reverberating echo,
A poisoned dart suddenly turns
And takes a deadly dive.

When push comes to death,
It’s best to lie down in the dirt,
And let the grass grow.

The Simple Song

2005-12-10T21:32:00.000-06:00

In my newly leavened
State of living
I pick at my heartstrings
As if to say
I just try to love.
I want to be able to someday.

A Pocketful of I's

2005-12-08T14:49:00.000-06:00

I’m the indigestion in your stomach,
After you ate that last June bug with Tabasco sauce.
I’m the half-written letter that never made it to your mailbox.
I’m the secret you hide in your locked desk drawer -
The one with the hand grenade and 10-inch knife.
I’m of the unlucky breed, the kind you never want
To socialize with.
I bother you when you want to be left alone.
I leave you sterile when you want to have children.
I set my priorities above your more important matters.
I bleed even when you bandage the cut.
I haggle with your positive outlook on life
And give you minor scrapes.
Sorry about the major ones.
I eliminate polite gestures and courteous deeds from your mind.
Sex, theft, and addiction follow you because of me.
I play God when you lose sight of your faith.
I am the last lie that curled from your lips.
And lingers in your first morning breath.

The Image

2005-12-01T16:43:00.000-06:00

I see a pixilated skyline,
Its edges bleeding through
To expose a carbon copy cloud
Desiring a clean-cut hue.

A pine tree protrudes into
Reserved space and knocks
Some branches off the glossy page.

I look to the corners
For an element worth keeping.
And there’s a smudge where
You picked up the image
When it was blowing.

Satellite Clutter

2005-11-19T16:58:00.000-06:00

When there’s not enough
To fear, there’s you
Exposing a comic face
In a rerun on basic cable -
Its script long-since been ignored and
Set aside without revision
To assure its weekly time-slot.

Someone in the live audience
Hollers fire and hundreds
Scatter like ants from a molehill
That’s been lit with a branding iron.

Canned laughter kills the gunshot
Ringing simultaneously.
Cue the Tri-dent commercial.
A buxom, adolescent girl scrubs her
Teeth and flashes a bleach-ridden
Smile at the camera.

Say "cheese."

Untitled

2005-11-16T21:51:00.000-06:00

A stillness hangs in melancholy,
Tire-tread silence as the ruthless street lights mock
Streaks of golden glitter perched in the sky.
One forbidden cry encapsulates the nocturnal child,
As a lone starlet turns his shine down to dim,
Breathing heavily in the unfound fumes with
The absence of something to pound a tightened fist into.
The moon gaze remains dream-drenched
As revered words endure life inside the bindings tonight,
The first and last edition of its kind -
Still roaming in a reverie that is far from getting through.
I don’t think he notices the woe-be-gone eulogy,
Or the song that remembers the missing chord to its melody,
And so it remains,
Unsung.

Advice

2005-11-14T14:17:00.000-06:00

Prize your flaws
Defects
Raise hairy memories
To life
Engage your mistakes
Deploy any
Negative criticism
Give thoughts form
Make them sublime
Kindly hold
Words set
In stone by
Jackhammers
Unable to be
Smudged
Throughout the
Fragility of time
Define those
Energies that turn
You inside out
Simply attempt
To accommodate
Your mind

The Poem Never Knew It Was Posted

2005-11-10T21:09:00.000-06:00

The pen never knew it had ink.
The letter never knew it had a stamp.
The bottle never knew it was full -
Yet no one would hand it over to me.
They would have had to reach TOO far.

Furthermore,
The cigarette never knew it was lit.
The lighter never knew it was stolen.
The wrist never knew it was burnt.

Did I mention money?
It never knew it could talk -
Yet everyone would always listen.
They could not reach far ENOUGH.

(Chorus: too much is never enough)
Quite the fitting end for a poem
That never knew it was written.

Beyond Tinted Windows

2005-11-08T01:34:00.000-06:00

Someone can see out,
But no one can see in.
That’s the futility of darkness.
Grasping thin air,
Grasping molecules of mystery.
Tinted windows and
The far-off cry of sanctimonial distress.
Despair = finding faith,
Like the demonic darkness basks
In the light, simply to know its own ugliness.
To view it, like a tinted window.

A Whisker Too Late

2005-11-07T09:36:00.000-06:00

Time burns a hole through cinnamon gum
And you spit it out in place of a cigarette
That mellows minutes so nice and slow
While the cheese belly mouse begs
For an antacid, but he can’t really beg
Because he never figured out how
To get down on his knees.
So instead he bargains his next morsel of love
On a mousetrap for a way out THIS time.
While the next time he’ll be
Auctioning his whiskers to the highest bidder.
They’ll cut it all off without asking him about it first.
And he ponders the thought momentarily
As he wets his fur down one last time for his onlookers
While the man in the back of the bowling
Alley cleans his shears and contemplates
Masturbating to the face he saw earlier.

The Stamp's Stroke of Madness

2005-11-06T21:16:00.000-06:00

The envelope never knew it had a stamp, but the letter had a destination to reach when it landed in the mailbox. At least, the madly scrawled address on the front of the botched envelope said so. The words argued otherwise, but they were too in tune with amber-red wine to put up a good fight. It simply didn’t matter in that moment of reckless release. They were in a jam (no bread to lay their worries on). So they sat, amidst the bills, wrinkled postcards, and penciled-in applications, who offered ineffective condolences to the quivering words in their haste. They wailed, wanting something else. They finally settled down, still wanting something else. Maybe the right to blur into an inky, illegible mess. It was a nice thought, but postage marks have little mercy in times of flight. So blessed be to the postman, an ordinary man set to deliver an unordinary letter. Blame it on the stamp little words. Blame it on your creator.

A Fable About Two Existences Found on Page Fifteen

2005-11-05T16:38:00.000-06:00

She used to pray to something,
but no one cared, or cared to notice.

They just clapped their hands and sang
to a makeshift papier-mâché dummy on the stage.

It seemed the thing to do in that hour of forced jubilation.
The blind boy in the farthest seat from the fire escape

eyed her in suffocation. He could still see.
His handicap simply internalized everything.

He once knew her and the secret phrase
she hid inside her left stocking.

He knew it frightenly too well. It was too fragile to wave in the air.
She knew him too, and what he saw in his daily darkness

and when he fell asleep. If he fell asleep.
She thought him better off than the walking man

whose vision misses the flower that suddenly opens
in the uncanny presence of a hailstorm.

It was almost too much for them both –
the rope that shackled their ankles to charcoal black dew.

So they pretended not to care, but they noticed it
like their lives depended on it.

The Visit

2005-11-04T16:34:00.000-06:00

A blue-buckled girl down the street shelters a swiss cheese heart. I know because she let me take a peek while she was eating curds and strawberries. One day, a sweet-toothed doctor came to her door. He tried to plug the holes in her chest with cotton candy, but he hadn't eaten for weeks. She said he ran off with the candy, and left her a note instead. It said she had nine bites to live. I think she has five more to go, unless Uncle Belly Ache gets to her first. It's kind of a shame if you think about it. She used to taste delicious. Yum, yum. Quite sugary. It was the real thing. Nothing about her was NutraSweet.