Poems as Promised

[snake0067]

A Drunken Memory

Faint red lighting hides the fluid bodies
bleeding alcohol from every pore.

Between private stares passes a tell-tale signal
of pursuing pursed lips. I’m slurring praise
to her hazy green eyes lined with some dark goop.

I feign intrigue over brands of bottled water.
Am I living some defunct barfly philosophy?

She is utterly not into me.
Her glance keeps shifting sideways to find a way out
of our conversation which was once possibly flirting.

Outside, rain pools to a little river.
The wet soil is seeping into the front of my clothes.

My face against dirt brings such strong memory
of how sand sounds like your hand skimming a tight sheet.
I betray the part of me wanting to stay on the cold ground
and away from staring at the stars above the
beach from my youth.

I always liked my nights alone,
finding the Milky Way and surf
as consistent as a heartbeat.

 

[snake0067]

Blue Spiral Stairs

When I was younger, every lapse of rain made the adults
comment with mock distress how low the river was. Our
flowing water rots every piece of wood. At its lowest, you
were forbidden to water the grass during the afternoon.

If I slept late enough each day, a summer shower would save me
from lawn mowing. Today, the building that’s been
so many failed restaurants is bare again. Kane’s’ Furniture
still has an empty parking lot, and Adult Supercenter thrives.

Dad’s unused lot needed to be cleared of the homeless.
The bright vines blanketing the cypress trees are the only things
that still have color. Always be careful on the algae-covered
walkway by the pond.

Faded blue spiral stairs have chipped to reveal the original
brown color. The slime has climbed the outside walls. Cobwebs
are fixtures in every window corner. Our old jumble
of wood, glass, concrete, and blue spiral stairs fit us all then.

 

[snake0067]

The Beaten Poet

When Hemmingway said the fish
was just a fish, no one listened.
The opiates and alcohols
reveal no golden domes
or hearts beating beneath
the floorboards which drive
me mad.

I can’t say whether Donne
saw god or found his ecstasy
from climax. How Burgess’
language shifts from
indecipherable to
natural after
the first couple pages
still eludes me.

Being a prodigy
would have sheltered me
from reality. We are “The Bear,”
“The Hollow Men,” the ones
who slip through time
and didn’t claw hard enough
to leave a mark.

I’m not a fool even at
Shakespearean standards.
I’m a buzzard picking through
the rot to find a morsel. I’m
my own forgotten king.

When I ponder on my golden
lines enough they turn green
to me.

 

[snake0067]

Planetarium Field Trip

Through the whole route the bus growls,
today it is so packed I can’t even see the driver’s
blue cooler tucked behind his seat. Making an
effort not to be distinguished, passengers
block posters displaying bus rules with
cute animals.

I focus on my window which doubles
as an emergency exit.
If she shaved her head and floated away,
The girl next to me could be Remedios
the Beauty. Her shirt has words stretched
tight against her chest so I can’t look.
I’m trying not to stare at her,
so she doesn’t think I’m staring at her.

The bus driver breaks late and my hand slides against hers.

It was dark. Beyond the hot air on my skin
and the sound of breathing,
I felt an overwhelming presence.
There’s a flash, and little white dots
fan from a single point faster then
I could handle.

The universe was born on screen above us.
The stars settled into place. What started
as a light touch against my palm, became
the first time a girl and I held hands. The
heat surprised me.

The metal bar is cold.
Remi’s hair is shorter than hers.
Our class laughed and pointed from our
reclined seats, instead of sitting quietly
as the buss stops. Back then,
all that mattered was the star I got to touch.

 

[snake0067]

From Kyoto to Tokyo

My grandma, aunt, and cousin crawled over the straw floor
for dirty clothes, toothbrushes, and makeup. The basho
was still playing on T.V. As we put on our
shoes at the door

the owner bowed. Grandma quotes how men should bow
only to god. We leave the inn, with paper and wood doors,
a large bath house

(we confused the women's and men's), a Go board, and
windows showing suburbs framed by green mountains. On the first
night they served us a traditional meal. No one else ate much of it.
One sprig had a coating of snot which almost made me gag.
After trains, buses, and subways, we reach our new home,
sandwiched between bigger buildings.

Inside, there is little room
at the foot of the beds. Instead of mats there are mattresses.
A platform for our suitcases and cramped bathroom with
a western-style toilet are all that’s noteworthy.
Lying in bed,

I turn on the set and press some button on the remote. A naked woman
with a blurred crotch is moaning. Everyone shrieks. I click
another button and it’s a different woman with a blurred crotch in a
new position.

Beet red by this point, no matter what I click a new woman
appeared. By some miracle the T.V. turns off.
For the remaining trip I
am “porno-boy.”

 

[snake0067]

The Most Surreal Experience of My Life

Pay attention. I restrain another cough
so I don’t interrupt the experience
of a Jehovah Witness meeting
in a Japanese

suburban basement (couldn’t make me go
in America, but they can here). In bad English,
everyone is reiterating an article from
that magazine

they always try to sell. They
pass a couple microphones back and forth.
The questions and answers
remind me

of high school assignments. Craving
some of that eternal sleep everyone seems so worried about,
I take notice of a room that looks like every
waiting room

or classroom I’ve been in. The witness
churches never have windows. Nothing
indicates I’m in Japan.
White . . . everything

makes whoever is babbling the only
object to focus on. Fluorescent lights are
the same here apparently.
The stage is

big enough for a person and a podium
made of particle board. One couple
sings opera style, which completely
ruins the harmony.

A mangled chair in the corner
could almost pass for a Gaudí piece.
I’m the only man not wearing a tie. The
women wear dresses

except my cousin who has tied the obi
on her kimono wrong. He’s so nervous,
God’s current messenger onstage
just might piss himself.

 

[snake0067]

Locating the Soul, and Designing War Machines

He was a Renaissance man,
by which they were all defined,
and an illegitimate child.
At times there were no patrons
for him.

Many designs didn’t work.
As a procrastinator,
he rarely finished anything.
The price of paper
meant every page was filled.

Upon his death,
Leonardo the Doodler
was cradled in the King of France’s arms.

 

[snake0067]

Answering The Call of the Wild

Hail tinkles off the tin roof
of our small woodshed named
“The Love Shack,” creating a chill which
makes me slide inside my sleeping bag.

Buck will carry
John Thornton’s weight against torrents
of neck-high snow, against wind that stings
to the point where you’re certain skin is tearing off,
and love him for it?

Buck relishes this place where survival is denied
without learning, fighting, and luck.

What motivates John to risk everything at the end?

Thornton’s just killed off? Buck’s inner turmoil
from inherently diametric desires is solved for him
by the narrative hand of god?

It’s an ending of convenience, allowing Buck
to become a myth of the woods.

The hail has stopped, and the thumb-sized ice
melts into a knee-high mist.

Years and several readings away,
I’m angered Buck never has to give an answer
and deny a whining retriever
a scratch above his tail.

 

[snake0067]

Horatio: What kindless kin damns my
friend Hamlet, to a life of blind
servitude. They command him
as another of their pawns,
unaware their pointing fingers
lead nowhere. Will all of them
lie until the son of kings sleeps as
tainted as they do? The dead
demand their homage in death,
while the living demand
the dead be forgotten. I have
seen the father ask his son for
blood. But a dagger for
committing such an act would
have a string tied to his soul,
and thrusting would pull all that
is noble from poor Hamlet. The
queen asks that others shut their
eyes as tight as hers. The current
king calls for the son to have the
logic of clowns, porters, and even
fools. With but two paths and
straight to hell they lead, Hamlet
must cut his own.

 

[snake0067]

Grandpa Remembered

The weight shifted inside
when they picked it up.
Mom plucks a white rose
from atop to give grandma.
The stuttering priest reads more
bible verses instead of talking
about that dead guy I loved so much
whose funeral I’m attending.

I’m at the beach, when a XXXL shirt
reaching my shins. The waves sound
like a faded cheer, and with each breath
grandpa takes my head rises and falls on
his round belly. The chorus of breath, gulls,
surf and a
faint heartbeat
lull me to sleep again.

Will that be how I remember him,
instead of rotting in a dark glossy box?
Maybe it will be his hatred
for Beavis and Butthead,
his hatred for the word “fart,”
or how I never came close
to beating him in chess.

Was me screaming
like a girl during Jurassic Park
his last memory,
or how he lied
to grandma’s parents about his age
so he could date her –
the only lie he told?

 

[snake0067]

Reasonable Doubt of Twelve Angry Men


It’s possible
the lifeless fan not spinning its little blades
was just a gimmick to fill time.

It’s unlikely
there could have been any more Fonda close-ups
without the filmy just being silly.

It’s dialogue
outside the deliberations that develops the jurors
and reveals their motivation: personal, prejudice, and baseball tickets.

It’s uncommon
that the main character is the one
you learn the least about.

It’s irrelevant
to imagine the kid did do it,
because of how little that changes things.

To watch the coda,
despite the ending being obvious,
as Cobb shreds the photo of his son,
is so hard, because you have to watch
a man break down, and eleven men
see how weak he is.

It’s depressing
to see how easily they could have voted guilty
without another thought.

 

[darkerdreamer]

A Drunken Memory

[1]Faint red lighting hides the fluid bodies
bleeding alcohol from every pore.

[...]

[2]I always liked my nights alone,
finding the Milky Way and surf
as consistent as a heartbeat.

1: Lord have I felt that before, where the liquor drips out of every miniscule opening (be it mouth, pore, or imagination).

2: A great image linking a universal metaphor into a local perspective (assuming you live by the ocean, that is).

Were you looking for critique or just to share? I don't want to offer more than you'd like to receive.

 

[Senna Jawa]

I have a positive impression from reading your poems. I'll try to write more later (or you rather I don't?).

 

[snake0067]

Sorry, I never noticed anyone had actually responded.

By all means critique away. Not like people aren't going to make judgements anyways, so its always interesting to see. I figure if they get people to think then its a victory.