Poetry Collection 1

A Poem that Bleeds

Look at yourself in the mirror. See what you’ve become over all the years. Try to remember the point when you stopped being the “good boy” momma always wanted you to be. It was a long time in the past. Blow a few lines and think about what you should be doing tonight. You should be thinking of going back to school, should be finding a nice girl to make nice kids with, should be thinking about your career. Find the bottle of rum in the refrigerator. The cold dulls the sting in your throat. The neon outside the window reminds you of what you will be doing tonight. Screaming. Shouting. Bleeding ears from music too loud. Bleeding ears from music loud enough to drown out a conscience. Call momma. She doesn’t answer anymore. Stumble into the night where people know your name, but don’t know you. Find places that are familiar. A few shots make it easier to assimilate. Feels like slipping into a warm bath. Feels like dying, one more piece. It slips away, one piece at a time. Fighting for breath, the air is so thick and pungent with the smell of bodies undulating. Screaming faces swirl in the strobe lights, but make no noise. Some show recognition, others desire, others fail to notice. Show them your own silent screaming face. Think about the alternate you, the one that went to bed early because he has to get up early for work, or school, or church, or... Realize that the alternate you does not exist, and may never exist. Feel the pain of that realization. Kill it with a few more shots, or a few more lines in the bathroom. It gets easier to silence that voice every day. Repeat. Stumble home when it dies. It doesn’t matter if alone or not. Feel just as empty either way. Stare at red eyes in the bathroom mirror. Cry yourself to sleep. 

 

 

Sweet Chastity in Wonderland

Anti the Hero enters the church

He has an appointment with the Devil for lunch

He wants to learn the meaning of life, and he's looking for the truth

Anti the Hero asks the priest if he's seen the Devil, but the priest scurries about and doesn't notice him

He doesn't have time for such foolishness

The Devil prances in and sits down next to Anti the Hero

He's smiling

As usual

The Devil has two buttons on the lapels of his wolf-skin jacket

One says, "Jesus was a man"

The other says, "Men lie"

The Devil bids good morning to Anti the Hero and puts his feet up on the pew

"I hope you didn't wait too long," The Devil says

When Anti the Hero says, "No," the Devil shrugs and says, "Oh well"

The Voice of Morality comes in to yell at the priest

She is drunk and smells of stale urine

She has been sleeping in the streets because she thinks that's how to suffer

When the Voice of Morality sees the Devil and Anti the Hero, she stops to tell them they're wrong

When the priest ignores her, she goes to sleep off her binge in the confessional

"It's going to be a good mourning," the Devil says to Anti the Hero and goes off to the concession stand to buy popcorn

A Great World Leader comes in to see the priest, but he says he'll settle for the Devil if the priest is busy

When he sees the Devil isn't there, he says that he'll settle for Anti the Hero

He has taken LSD and contracted HIV, but says he still works for the NWO

He demands respect, even though his phallus is buried in a rat

He goes into the confessional to see if he can seduce the Voice of Morality

The Devil returns with two boxes of popcorn and asks if he missed anything

Anti the Hero says, "No"

Enter a man wearing a shirt that says, "I Love Satan"

He is carrying a sword in one hand and his dignity over his shoulder

The Devil smiles and hands a bag of popcorn to Anti the Hero

The man sits down opposite the Devil and Anti the Hero, and admonishes them for being in a church

He tells them he is Satan's Chosen Warrior

The Devil smiles

He asks the man if he would know the Devil on sight

The man says, "Yes"

He begins to whisper insults about the priest

When the priest's ears perk up, the man runs out, looking over his shoulder

He is careful to take his sword, but leaves his dignity on the pew

The Great World Leader tip-toes out of the confessional

He has impregnated the Voice of Morality

They will name the child Sin, but neither knows after which parent

With a bang and a flash, the Good Christian woman comes in

She is excited about seeing the Devil

She says a religious experience with him is better than no religious experience at all

She shakes his hand and kisses his hoof.

The Devil pats her on the head and tells her "Jesus loves you."

She bows and runs away

Anti the Hero asks the Devil if it's always this exciting

To which the Devil replies, "Only when you're here"

Their conversation stops when a black man in a tiger costume stalks into the church

The priest screams and runs into the confessional, waking up the Voice of Morality

The black man says his name is The Roar of His Brothers

He begs the Devil for the power to stop the men wearing sheets whiter than their skin

He says they hunt him down and burn his flesh

He then asks the Devil to clear the white people from his Homeland so it can be One

The Devil slaps him and calls him a blasphemer

He sounds offended

The Voice of Morality comes out of the confessional

She is crying because her child will not be stillborn like its mother

She puts her arm around the Roar of His Brothers

She promises the Devil he'll burn in Hell if he doesn't grant both wishes

The Devil ponders them and looks them over carefully

Then he agrees to grant their common wish to always walk with their backs to the Sun

The Voice of Morality exits, supported by The Roar of His Brothers

The Devil nods to Anti the Hero and tips his top hat

"I must be going," he says. "A Devil's work is never done"

He skips out of the church, leaving Anti the Hero with the bill for the popcorn.

 

 

 

Stranger in a Familiar Land

“Join the Game,”
Begs my pornographic heart,
Innocent mind gazing over that
Lithe body with braless back
And form-fitting black pants
I’m counting on wine
in a juice bottle
To break my
convictions soon
Someone should respect those
Who don’t respect themselves

It seems everyone is out tonight,
Trying to get a piece
Trying to get a little more soul

All around me,
Orgiastic thump of dance clubs
With sweaty, undulating bodies
begging to be invaded by
Another creature
I want to touch them so bad
Taste their sweat
Feel their bodies slide,

Frat boys scream and chase cars
Overfed dogs in heat
Looks obscene
But someone is attracted to that
I have yet to find a diamond in the rough

Thump
Thump
Thump
Wanna be my lover?
Asks the music

Spewing out like phlegm
From the bar across the street
Platinum
Inside,
Mindless people find tonight’s conquest
With some luck,
I’ll be my own conquest tonight

I walk past the posh hotel
Where famous people stay.
Through a window I see
umbrellas on the tables
around the indoor pool.

I escaped from friends,
To spare them from me
as I think myself to death,
I pass a woman
with head split by broken bottle
Police stand around asking questions,
She struggles to staunch the blood
Ambulance workers stand idly by.
She'll be out again tomorrow.

I’m about to go home
After a couple drinks in
Awful clubs with awful people,
Drowning one more sacred memory.
I meet Krazy Karl and friends skating to a party
I'm enticed with of more booze
I’ve been drinking for the last week straight
And it doesn’t look like it will end soon

Karl runs and leaps
at the cross of Main and Front
One foot lands on the hood
Of a white Beamer

Out jumps a slick,
Black-haired, rat-faced boy
His buddies are coming out as well
I don’t think they see us

“Doo yoo theenk eet’s good to jomp on mah ca’?”
Krak!

“Ees eet nice to jomp on mah ca’?”
Krak!

“Doo yoo theenk eet’s good to jomp on mah ca’?”
Krak!

Karl retaliates and drops the guy
“Man, I’m sorry,” Karl says,
“I’m drunk, I slipped, I’m sorry”
Faster than I can register,
Karl levels the guy a second time,
For good measure
I’m tense, but laughing

The tough guys back off
We move on to the party
Drunk,
Disorderly,
Laughing,
Good people

Yelling like maniacs
Us poor beaten children
Are exiled kings of the world!

It’s mostly skaters and punk rockers on the porch
the keg is inside, up deceptive and dark stairs
That I brave like a true adventurer
I'm not sure who lives here
The apartment has little more furniture than a couch and bed

The party
HURTS
More than I can admit with words
Just another time I wish I was blind,
That I wish I could lie to people,
Or at least to myself
But, even if I’m not a good liar,
I’m a good actor,
And I pretend to be much more intoxicated than I am
And even though I can usually get people to do what I want,
I can’t seem to get them to do what I need

Later, as adrenaline burns away the drink,
I spill my guts on the street,
Letting loose everything on my mind,
Like I’ve been planning to do for a while now

No
No No No No
No No No
Echoes only in my mind
Like a night on a hill, overlooking the city
When I thought I would fall in love

Even though I don’t feel good,
I at least feel relieved,
Because I played this game before
Against another opponent, or maybe two
And I always seem to fail
when words won’t come out
No matter how much I beg

This time, I defeated my greatest enemy,
Me,
And I can sleep tonight,
Even if it is alone

So I walk
I walk, I walk, I walk,

Because if you keep moving, they can’t get ya
It’s after three, and all the bars are closed
Life is starting to fade
A few stragglers still linger
Desperate for a last-minute hook-up,

I’m hungry and spent,
And my throbbing head begs for coffee
And I think I just need to get the hell out of here
I’m so sick of this place,
All its filth, all its degradation

I’m entwined in all these stories,
The interpersonal trials and tribulations.
Names I just don’t want to hear anymore,
Or the ways people try to hurt each other
Restless vipers who gnaw each other,
Bringing me into the mad-dash chase
For their tails
Why do some people want to be less than they really are?

I start walking and don’t look back
As I kiss the city’s lips
And go on my way
"Sleep now, my child, and forget me not"

 

 

Olympia Blues

Find the clubs on Fourth Street
The Eastside, the Voyer,
Students escape brutish reality
Or looming future
Just like back home,
Kids laugh and storm the bars
Oly kids are used to the rain

Rainbows of photo-copies clog bulletin boards
“Can you be an environmentalist and eat meat?”
“Of course not,” it answers itself.
Being revolutionary means following rules
Adapting strict party lines
And wearing them like an arm band

My soaked hair hangs limp around my face
I’m cold, but at home, it’s snowing
A tightly bundled old man beckons me
Three times I gave my change to him and his dog
He knows a sucker when he sees one
He asks me again,
I lie that I'm broke
Coins jingle as I walk
How deep must compassion run?
I’ve never ordered him to get a job
Though I worked an hour
For what I gave him

I walk past slightly cold
Probably a bad person for refusing
I don’t have a bed to sleep in,
But there are blankets and a roof

Every head is a different color
Red, blue, green, purple
It makes me feel out of place,
Regular crazy with my natural color

The hipsters all give dirty looks
I’m not cool enough to live here
I’m not hardline enough
Friendship revoked by
poorly inked photocopy
from anarchist bookstore
Condemned with Hitler and Reagan
Victimizing every woman I look at.
The standard doesn’t go both ways,
For sake of propagation.
I’m terrible in so many ways
Can one more matter much?

I’m on the waterfront,
Away from the people
Rain beats sooth the bay
“Thuck! Thuck! Thuck!”

Makes you feel clean
Easy to live with myself
It rains a lot here,
Oly kids are used to it.