Scattered Dreams

I just wanted a place to throw out some random poetry, the stuff that comes to me without siezing everything I am. Odes to empty liqour bottles and assorted cigarette butts, I guess. My own spot for random inspiration, or little stuff I don't want to submit.

~~~

The man with the needles
Looked at me like I’d
Grown another head for him to put holes in,
But I demanded the hollow one,
And he took a chunk of flesh
Out of my ear
a quarter inch across
replaced the missing piece
With half an ounce of steel
and
a sense of accomplishment
That comes from seeing people with
More holes
Than just my one
Flinching at how much it must have hurt.

~~~

(Because I feel like I promised an ode to an empty liqour bottle..)

Southern Comfort
smells like alcoholism
And
tastes like hopelessness
But it's the only thing that makes me cry
reliably.
I keep that empty fifth
on top of my bible.
(The one with the yellow cover,
stained by smoke
water-damaged)

A reminder:
stop looking
just see.
Everything is right
where you
put it.

~~~

Cross word
puzzles:
arguing when you
don't know what you
did wrong.

~~~

Bar napkin poem

The sax player sounds
like he's throttling a goose
and what's sauce for the goose
is a punch in the eye
for his bitch-ass.
Leave Coltrane alone.

~~~~

Whee! Digital cable calls.
~D.A.

give me more

Diaphonous!
I want to be diaphonous!
No, ephemeral!
Evanescent!
And other big words
that may as well mean
'Hard to grasp.'

~~~~

The Slow Decline of Captive Madness

Cubicle as straight jacket
Phone as noose
Substitution:
beer for inspiration
Fear for certainty
Unsure is today's watchword

~~~~
Too many commas, not enough comas.
Or something.
No fire, no smoke.
Where are my matches?
Gone!
I'll wait on the cigarette.
Emotionally drained,
almost out of cigarettes
no idea what I'm doing.

~~~~

I love getting my hands dirty, working on cars.
the best part, sitting down to smoke a cigarette
having to hang my arms off
pulled up knees
because I don't want to get my pants dirty.
Smoking with my fingers on the white part of the paper,
don't want to get motor oil on the filter,
on account of it tastes like shit.
Sleeves all rolled up, hair all sweaty and greasy
I can't keep my hands out of it.

~~~~

I watched as the long neck of outstretched twilight tensed
with a special kind of madness,
and lifted her head from slumber beneath rocks
Shoulders shivering
She wandedred across the earth,
trailed long fingers over the bark of trees.
She seduced with a cool touch that did not linger.
Unafraid, the night danced for me
into the corners of fallow fields.
Watched, she flowed toward me,
eyes like faint reflections of myself
As darkness came into my arms
We shared a shallow breath,
lover to lover
then walked together
quietly away.

(for my girlfriend, also the subject of "My Crazy Gypsy," which title comes from how when she wakes up, I think she looks like this:
"I'm a crazy gypsy! Gimme yer wallet!" and "After she took my order")
~~~~

I want to be lightning-blooded,
Dire, fast, decisive
A fleeting flirt
with a desire for mystery,
"Why then do you seek to be free?"
Quiet, Zen madness
That is not for understanding
Just accepting.
If we don't question nature,
Why do we question ourselves?
Y is a crooked letter and will
never be made straight,
Why, the fork in the road,
that doesn't let you go anywhere

~~~~

What is more perfect
Than sleeping
Like a pile of kittens?

~~~~

I smelled you on a towel,
This morning.

~~~~

(Written in an all-night diner. Bizarre poison theme, that night)

So many downcast eyes
faces covered with hollow hands
but one man, ugly, proud and happy,
raises one finger as if realizing the final truth
and
says to rejoice and drink your poison.
He is soon to be a recovered leper.

~

I dreamt once of a poisoned sky
hanging dead over the body of night.
the land tossed and turned
sick as any cancer patient
in the rancid buttery light of the moon
ill shapes crawled upon the ground.
I hated all of it and I loved it all.
every cracked concrete block and gently rusting light post
even the death rattle of the cars
It was all revulsion and appeal,
wrapped up in smoke
fog
I looked across the face of it all
wished I was not a part of this landscape
with my sweaty palms and rock-knotted stomach.
but I was deep in all of it
evil to the core
hated
good above all things
loved in the techno glow of a guttering electric light.
And a dog walked out, trotting all jaunty
its coat radiated.
Golden, shaggy and happy tailed
it left a trail like light across the darkness.

~

I always wanted to walk in China,
hands folded together behind my back.
I'd weave myself into a bamboo grove,
in the valleys that kneel before the mountains.
Would I smell fresh earth?
Exotic spice?
Would I climb a mountain, nameless,
sit with my knees poking
out of a grey robe,
just looking?
Would I meet myself there?

~

Empty tables
trashed into beautiful still-life.

~

She was a biological ticking time-bomb,
a raging uterus with a beast infection.

~

If I could buy anyone a Shot,
It would be Tom Robbins,
And it would be Tequila.
How would I talk the
Tequila into taking the shot?

~

not so cool with the sunglasses on, but I don't really care.
every pop-top shiny fucking thing in this restaurant makes me
happy for half a second
and the paper i'm writing on smells like promise,
smells like hope
looks dingy and unprepared
make my notebook a rape victim, quivering under the pen

half a minute where I'm powerful as a God
the rest of the time, i'd rather be unemployed
than go back to researching other peoples' success for ten bucks an hour.

I want to reach the point of madness
want to cast myself off and fall
unbound
into whatever is waiting on the other side of reality
that part we see as through a smoked glass
darkly
like prophecy
prophecy
prophecy
can I be a mad-bearded prophet
would you all make my eyes burn and
my throat itch with a clawing voice
that wants to boom out
roll over the world with
blood flecked foam at the edges?
Would I say that all your study means nothing
all my words
- blood flecked or not -
are just dust and weary gravel?
Would I say that your study is beautiful
that the fact of words
just
that
fact
is beautiful?
Can I absorb your life through some kind of ocular osmosis?
Would that I could tell you of a nice
cute place I made with monosyllables
a simply pretty place that I created
out of ink and tiny ideas
but i can't see it
can't cast those bones
see that future.

I'm a positive person who's positive
he'll never let himself go anywhere but down.

Drunk on how the varnish at the edges of the tables
has been rubbed out by a million elbows
attached to uncivilized beautiful brutes
with ketchup on their pants and dull eyes
I'd love to polish one at a time.
Where are the ideograms in the
smoke that scarfs around the necks of the lamps?
What would they mean if I could see them?
The smoke would say that I'm a fool to poison myself and then
look for answers in my own exhaust
yet here i am staring like an idiot
enraptured with the holy fucking noise of everything
the way the waitresses walk
barely slowing for anything
priestesses of the dollar in the temple of french fries and
quick-slung burgers
all of them angels
with nametags and shoes for crews
I'd take them all home and make them dinner if I could,
just to see them off their feet
hear them talk about
the laundry they don't want to do.
every painting in this place clashes with the idea I have
of Perkins and blends in
- clashing camouflage! -
sneaky and over the top
bastardized art
not half as pretty as hard-working men
in short-sleeves who smoke unfiltered cigarettes
scratch stubbly chins,
"Well, that's how that is," they say and I like them for being
simple and unhappy and old.

(end all night diner poetry)

~~~~

Why must I be plagued by a memory
that's not even mine?
her eyes,
so green,
not sharp, but deep sea-green,
like the ocean.
how she stared at me.
Such lovely hair
falling around her small, heart-shaped face
a honey tide
The bed of ivy,
fragrant, soft
we made love among the leaves
the crushed honeysuckle, jasmine
eagerness.

Who am I? Who was I?

~~~~

Checking in from the land
where all our dreams fit comfortably
within 900 square feet and
we're unapologetic about everything.

~~~~


I was thinking, the other day
about the meaning of life
and how I'd heard someone say
that it's different for everyone.
I started wondering what it was,
for me and at just that moment
a girl walked by wearing a skirt.
I laughed to myself, a little bit.
Cosmic Coincidence
or selective hearing of the soul?

~~~~

I want a girl with knobby knees
stretch marks
a nose that's a little too big
a mouth that's only made for smiling.

~~~~

Looking out the window

A girl in sweatpants and old sneakers
smoking what I know is a Marlboro Red
I bummed one from her last week
outside the student center.
Her name is Claire
she's robo fuckin' ugly.
Nice girl, though.
"Pretty on the inside,"
whatever that means.
I was tempted to hit on her,
tempted to take her home and fuck her
just because I wondered if anyone
had ever really
shown her a good time
and then broken her brittle,
hatchet-faced little heart.
Because everyone needs to have
their heart broken at least once
- a rule I live by.
More than once, really.
Your heart should be broken until
you learn to like it and then,
just when you're getting used to it
you should find someone else's heart to break,
THAT, my friends, is what crowns the whole affair.
When you break someone else's heart on purpose
(Or at least when you know it's going to happen if you
continue,
and you just go ahead
instead of walking off)
it breaks your own, a little bit.
Stress fracture,
crack in the cosmic egg,
a little off the top.

I just smoked the cigarette
made small talk.
In my head,
she was bent face down
across the back of a couch
moaning my name
Bent forward
with her elbows on a dinner table
telling me how much
she thought we had in common
Bent double and crying, hugging herself.

~~~~

And that's all I've got handy.

...Oh, hey. A cigarette.

~D.A.

D. A. --

I think you have an awful lot to say -- it seems to me there is a lot there that can be molded into very cohesive poetry.

I'm with Perks -- would like to see more from you.

Submit what you consider to be a strong offering so it appears in the 'New Poems" someday soon, and see what type of reaction you get. There are a lot of sophisticated readers here who will react to what they consider a strong piece.

Tara

DA, you must run away with me, we can break each others hearts over and over again.

Tara,

Thanks for thinking I'm worth reading.

Perks..

Ah, my girlfriend might have something to say about that.. Hee!

~D.A.

DeepAsleep said:

Tara,

Thanks for thinking I'm worth reading.

Perks..

Ah, my girlfriend might have something to say about that.. Hee!

~D.A.

Click to expand...

your girlfriend, my girlfriend... not to mention my husband.

Ha! That made me chuckle.

My ear hurts so much, i've been sweating for an hour, on the drive home from work.

No inspiration, today! Maybe tomorrow!

DA your writing style is deja vu of a female poet here

This would be
a good thing


#

Summoning Demons is Like Lighting Farts With Your Soul

Amne, Asphen,
Nosferatu
Simarru,
Balduru,
Tetragrammaton!

Abracadabra
I create as I speak.

Aleister Crowley,
Anton Levay,
Jakob Springer,
Morgan Le Fay!

Al Azif of Abdul Alhazred,
I've turned your pages of skin,
Past the point of no return
And sold my soul to Baal.

I've written a psalm for the
uncomfortably dead,
I have bathed in the blood of the weak
Until my skin went soft and white
I've frolicked in salted fields with
The serpent and fed children
to the ravens,
Oscine raptors with unforgiving
razors between their beaks.

I have walked under the earth,
with Y'ggsoggoth
And caressed the worm of death,
Mumbling praises and hallelujahs
as I kissed its sickly hide.

For all that's left of my humanity,
I received a deep insight,
piercing into the heart of man.
I know my neighbor as I know myself.
All that I see is the weakness of skin.
They are paper souls, but I am forged of iron.
One annealed soul, high tempered and
heavy handed.
There are none so strong and strange as I,
None so determined, or damned.

(Note: Given the silliness of the title, vs. the 'seriousness' of the verse, I really wanted to end this on a ridiculous note, as that's how I am.. Ridiculous, most of the time... Something like, "So I'll burn forever! Boo-ya!"... But I didn't. I'm going to come back to this one, when I'm not at work and overhaul it, because I kind of like it.)

~~~

~D.A.

The High Cost of Personal Responsibility

Amne, Asphen
Nosferatu
Simaru
Balduru
Tetragrammaton

Amne, Asphen
Nosferatu
Simaru
Balduru
Tetragrammaton

Abracadabra

I create as I speak.

Al Azif of Abdul Alhazred,
I've turned your pages of skin,
Past the point of no return
And sold my soul to Baal.

I have written a psalm for the
uncomfortably dead.
I have bathed in the blood of the weak
Until my skin went soft and white.
I have frolicked in salted fields with
The serpent and fed children
to the ravens,
Oscine raptors with unforgiving
razors in their jaws.
I have loved every moment.

I have walked under the earth,
with Yoggsoth'oth
caressed the worm of death,
Mumbling praises and hallelujahs
as I kissed its sickly hide.

For all that was left of my humanity,
I received a deep insight,
that pierced into the heart of man.
I know my neighbor as I know myself.
They are paper souls
I am forged of iron.
annealed, high tempered and
heavy handed.
There were none so strong and strange as I,
None so determined, or damned.

I counted each sin as dear to me
and created new torments
undreamed of by fair men.

At the end, I did smile.
My arms stretched high and wide
I embraced every tongue of fire.
I am not sorry.

~~

Explanations, if necessary:

I dated a satanist for two years, and I learned a lot of bizarre things from her, chiefly the things in the beginning of this poem. The chant at the beginning.. While I am unsure where it came from, got into my head. It's got it's own rhythm and it bounces around inside my head until I think I'm going crazy. I've had a few opinions on what it means, exactly, but the one I like best is simple: They are the names of demons.

"Abracadabra" literally, means, "I create as I speak."

"Al Azif of Abdul Alhazred" is a reference to the necronomicon. It's supposed that there is a point in that book where, once reached, you must keep reading or forfeit your sanity.

...Lastly, I'll say that I'm not a devil worshipper, and I don't summon demons any more powerful than the problems within myself that I wrestle with and this poem is.. I dunno, a thin coat of paint over a solid core. Ugly words to cover up ugly ideas..

eh.

Later, kids.

~D.A.

What's too much? I ran into a problem with the poem I submitted, today, in that I couldn't stop writing. There are so many verses, so many things to say, that haven't been written, yet, but I feel like I went with too much, in the last one. Can you over do it? Gah, I dunno. I'll just address them differently, here.

~~~

You were the only lesbian I ever met,
Who wanted to be Donna Reed
In lingerie
Virginia, the girl who never seemed to mind
when I called you my Vagina
(Surrogate, of course)
You were the only one who wanted
to find the american dream
and fuck it into submission
as much as I did
You were always at home
Completely unafraid to shave your legs
in a washer full of water
at the laundromat
I was going to learn to turn a wrench
You wanted to cut women's hair
We built forts out of dirty clothes
when we ran out of quarters for laundry
because you got fired from the pizza place
and I didn't get paid for almost two weeks.
a whole afternoon spent throwing wadded up
socks at each other and screaming curses,
"Fire in the hole!"
"Death to all nazis!"
"Eat it, carpet muncher!"
Eric came over and we tag teamed him with
sock grenades.
He called us morons
We just laughed.
Virginia was the happiness of sharing
cigarettes lit on the stove.

~~

~D.A.

when I need to relax or just surround myself with art, and don't have the wherewithal to do it myself, I come here, now.


Thanks, DA. I'm really enjoying you.

Thankee, perky.

~D.A.

haha, i love the bar napkin poem... I've felt like that before in a club while listening to somebody HACK the hell out of something masterful.

my favorite was the one about southern comfort.... beautifully sad.

great writing

light
R~~~

Random bits of something or other


~

What if we could walk like tigers in tall grass,
You and I,
Quiet, innocent and unrelentingly violent.

~

It's hard to feel deep, or profound,
with a cheeseburger
hanging out of your face
while you type

~

the moments in between
stick to memory
waiting times aren't one or the other

...

Back to work!

~D.A.

I thought of this while working on a submission, but it didn't fit the theme I was running around in...

So I'll stick it here!

~

Fingers tensed into claws until every knuckle cracks
like branches exploding in the cold
of a winter that never knew the sun
save as a distant memory.

a crystal man, a pressure cooked diamond
limbs limned in chrome, carbonized,
baptized in laval basins.

~

Whee!

*scoots*

~D.A.

I want to thank everyone who's commented and/or voted on anything I've submitted, and let you kow that I will get back to each of you, eventually, either by sending you comments through feedback, or commenting on something you've posted. I don't always have time or presence of mind to really comment on what I read, but I do read and like many of your poems.

Yers,

~D.A.

some revisions.

Bailey

When I come home,
I look at my white
horse of a cat
say, 'Hey, boy,'
let him lay on my shoulder
Enthroned!
At work I am the end all be all
Alpha
Omega
King shit of poop mountain.
Here,
just an ambulatory
cat toy.
Happy slave to a purr
An ingenious face
If I hadn't inherited you,
I would have named you
Captain Pancake
Because you’re crazy.
Aloof, demanding,
With that irritating
penchant for tapping me on the arm
when I'm sitting around
not paying attention to you
And then walking off after I’ve rubbed
Your fuzzy head just once.

But I got the last laugh.
You come to a whistle.
~~


The Pit Dance

The heart is not a drum
beat for love.
Love is a mental trip.

I take my heart-beat to war.

Fists striking nothing
random bodies
nothing, again,
as if to stave off invisible forces:
Sameness, Age, Giving In,
Growing Up.

Each 1/64th beat on stage
mirrors the instrument in my chest.
Every cymbal fill,
my aching breath.

A guitar God,
aloof
distant
enraptured
picks a fast rhythm
to claw its way into you,
ripping your eardrums open,
throwing you into the war dance.

Every thumping chord is
a reason to lash out;
love thy neighbor
with an elbow, a knee.

We are sixty sweating bodies.
One spirit not afraid.
The modern tribe,
with the pit as our right of passage.
Moshing is for pussies,
throw a punch.
Spin-kick,
windmill your arms.
Don’t just run into me,
that’s cheating me out of absolution,
cheating yourself out of a chance.

For three minutes,
I’ll be your demons,
if you’ll be mine.
No fear,
anger,
hurt.
A lifetime of
unrelenting passion -
sometimes a kick in the face.

We are not old enough to remember war,
just old enough to glorify it, a little,
to believe in the honor of battle.
We’d love to be modern Samurai.
We are just
children punching the air.
Kicking each other
with an odd kind of love and affection
that only lasts as long as the next song.
Crazy to the last one.

~~

How many angel-headed hipsters
can dance on the head of state?
It depends on the poet.
Ginsburg had it easy, when rock and roll songs
were still written for dancing.
No one writes rock for dancers, these days.
I don’t think anyone remembers how to dance.

On the road, with the windows rolled down,
the wind smokes my cigarette.
Everything is emptiness and
some part of my blood remembers
what it was to rebel,
why it was necessary,
but why bother?
All the kicks are marketed,
all the mountains have been climbed
and everything is accepted except
anti social tendencies
binge drinking if you’re not in college.

A mustang under streetlights,
running on asphalt
hauls a load of girls with
impossibly long hair,
Every one naked,
screaming into the night.
Windy tears streak their
makeup.

The chill of the world
Crinkles their nipples
into points that should
pass for stars.
Each howl as they pass raises
my bloodpressure
another point,
until I’m bouncing in my seat
yelling and laughing and shaking
my fist out the window,
fooled by nudity into
believing in the beauty of the world.

Sometimes, we remember to live without fear,
Sometimes, we remember
dancing is more than motion.
Mostly, these things sleep, sung off
by hate and acceptable angst.
America is filled
with caricatures of ancient rebellion
and not very many rebels.

I think it takes more than beer and piercings,
blue hair and pre-fab punk.
You can’t fight with directionless anger
and expect to get anywhere.
You can't fight nothing
expect to win.

~~

Well. I'm going to a poetry open mike/slam, tomorrow, because I feel like maybe I should stop pouting on the sidelines, around town and get some feedback from people i can punch in the face. (joke!)

Like perk-o-lator did, a few days ago... What poems do you think I should take? I've settled on the one that I just submitted, earlier today ('cos it's new and shiny) but I can't decide between the others.

Any suggestions? You guys know what's better more than I do, I think.

~D.A.

wanted to hack on this in public. getting the linebreak thing down is killing me. I have a problem with the way the 'stanzas' (i use this term for clarification purposes - I call them 'chunks,' i.e., that which you find in....say, vomitus, for instance. ).....ah, the ways stanzas look. My line-breaks skew the implied rhythm that the structure is supposed to give, and it's a bad habit. I know, i hear it all the time. But it never LOOKS right to my eyeball. So, here goes, JD. With different line-breaks.


Old Market in Autumn

I have rips in my jeans like
the street has pot-holes
and I can’t stand up straight
or stand to think about what I’ll do tomorrow.
The streets, at least,
will get cobbled again.
My jeans have less in store.

Old brick road’s got sinkholes, too
and every kid with a store-bought cue
is going to try their luck at the ‘Stream,
but the old Filipino man that runs the hall,
he can’t be beat because he doesn’t drink,
or smoke, or do anything but play pool,
polish the trim of his tables,
and brush the felt until it looks cool as living leaves.

I yell that at the kids as they cross the street
dipping and swaying like sailors on wavy bricks,
“You can’t beat the Mad Filipino,
you dumb fucks!”

My favorite street musician laughs
while I cop a lean against a post.
He can never remember Naima.
I still ask him to play it every time I see him.
He shakes his head and asks if I’ll hum a few bars,
but I am painfully shy about making music
and always say, “Fuck it, play My Funny Valentine,
instead.”

Another performer walks up and we share the post,
leaning and listening and when the playing is over,
Jazzman number two says to jazzman number one,
“Count Basie called. He told me to fuck you up, homie.”
I laugh a little as I drop a five-spot in the empty sax case
and leave them to talk about things
I’ll never understand without brass in my hands.

Spaghetti Works is bright tonight,
doing booming business out of an old train car.
It sits on rails unused since before the great war.
That’s what grandpa always said,
“Ain’t seen streetcars or trains downtown since
afore the big one.”
I have no way of knowing if this is true.

Across the street is a sharper place, bucking for Soho chic,
but sliding in closer to 'good Midwestern try’ than
east-coast fashion, just like most everything around here.
I don’t hold it against them, anymore.

Christmas lights in trees that have shaken off their bullshit
kick on as the sun settles down and the night takes over.
From a distance these three streets look soft and warm.
Slogans painted on brick walls advertise
products and companies that no longer exist,
and fuck if the Butternut building didn’t burn down.

I used to lay in the back of a 280ZX two by two with
the rear seats folded down, making a flat space.
On my back, with my head on the console,
we drove around downtown forever, looking for a parking space.
I could look up out of the windshield as we cruised.
It felt like flying, a little, with no ground to trick my head.

All the buildings and streetlights seemed to float by,
too tall to be real.

Then someone would pop the hatchback, say
“Dude, we’re here.”
and I would realize I was just staring.

Lots of poems and I haven't read them yet. But I did read your first post and you have a great line for a poem: "Odes to empty liqour bottles and assorted cigarette butts"

DeepAsleep said:

wanted to hack on this in public. getting the linebreak thing down is killing me. I have a problem with the way the 'stanzas' (i use this term for clarification purposes - I call them 'chunks,' i.e., that which you find in....say, vomitus, for instance. ).....ah, the ways stanzas look. My line-breaks skew the implied rhythm that the structure is supposed to give, and it's a bad habit. I know, i hear it all the time. But it never LOOKS right to my eyeball. So, here goes, JD. With different line-breaks.


Old Market in Autumn

Click to expand...

I still like it with or without your new line breaks.

When I chose line breaks, I read the poem aloud. Which isn't necessarily a good thing considering I have an accent so what sounds natural to me isn't to another.

And so I stick to little lines

Ha... I wasn't much help, sorry.


- neo

Something about love lost, or the one that got away.
(tentatively, "Ring Every Bell" - Somewhere between poetry and rant and low-pitched heart whine. >=] )


I will walk a mile to put this where you can see it.
I will wonder, the whole way,
smoking and hunching against the cold,
if it's a good idea.

I walked to where you are, nights ago.
I rehearsed all the pretty things
that I know how to say,
tried to make up some new ones while I walked.
it was cold
but I was determined.
I swore to myself I had all the right words
the magic combination that would make everything
every little thing
alright.

but I got to your building and
the doors were locked
and I don't know your apartment number.
I wanted to smash the glass and
rush up the stairs,
kick in your door,
try to get everything I felt out,
get all the begging out of the way
before the cops hauled me off.

I could have rung every buzzer with manic fingers
until I heard your voice and
begged you to let me in
(in more ways than one, hahaha)

I could have called ahead of time.

I didn't do any of it.
I felt creepy, standing in the lobby
staring at the call box,
creepy peeking into your life.

I did laugh low in my heart and say,
"Yeah."
I did that, at least.

So I went home and thought about
ringing every bell,
screaming your name
and pounding on a window.