Could it be that I have pushed away pain and sorrow and failure to the point that I have nothing to gain? That I have dumbly succeeded and that is what drives my misery now. This normal ho-hum day cycling on and on and on. I can feel it, this cycle, I know it exists and that I exist within it, but I cannot see the whole of it. I feel it in my bones, in my tendons, ligaments, and muscles. This habitual energy flows through me. I’ve worked so hard to proliferate this endless bloom.
Tag: addiction
I Have Seen
It’s here in these early morning nighttime silences under shadows of abandoned office buildings— solitary light in the window, computer screens waiting to be wakened; in the silent shudders of trees and passing cyclists; here in the promise of the day that we must come to terms with the howling cries of death and hunger.
And I have seen a future of abandoned corporate office parks. I have seen parking lots deserted save for staggered cars parked with windows busted and garbage bag taped over. It is there that I have seen a future wherein the word hope has been replaced by neighbor. Longing, by community.
Where the sun-rise from the west behind thread-bare quilted blanket lies the bosom of a new day.
Her Face a Song
Her Face a Song
She came to me. Like she knew that her pain and my guilt were forces meant to be joined together. A magnet, she walked right up to the window and locked eyes with me. She knew the guilt, the shame, that my humanity and hers would conjure up. Years of smokestain in the cracks and folds of her skin, sunken mouth and a pair of lonely brown eyes like the mouth of a tunnel. She was silent but her face sang me a song.
On the return, a moth fluttering in the back-light of a streetlamp, between the fingers of needles, then just over my head. A happen chance glance that changed the entire course of my fluttering mind.
Wants and Needs
Under a dense grey sky, under the gas station canopy, a black girl wonders, sentences collapsing at the edge of her lips. She’s wearing a rain jacket with the hood partially up over the back of her head. She has legs that are like matchsticks, legs that are barely there, waiting to catch fire. She’s holding everything she owns (everything she needs), cantering around in syllables, she yells to the fungus soaked maples, something about want or need. From behind the broken down cars (or nearly broken down) parked on the side of the building a white girl comes out, fiercely walking, full of intention, her short hair in a short tail, shaved on the sides. Her flannel shirt lifts in the drifts and kisses the undersides of her arms. Short shorts so short it’s like she’s wearing legs, flicks her cigarette and walks passed the black girl -with hardly a look, and she thinks something about wants or needs. The gas station remains empty, territory claimed.
Living
Living
with the knife between your teeth
bloodshot eyes
sweat on the brow
'Here's Johnny'
type living
that must be
real living.
clenched fist
razor blade scrapping
knuckles
bruised and ragged
a tireless workshop
of words
always going 'round
each other with words
'round each other with fictions
isn't it funny how words
can stroke
can bury
Living
real living
you don't even know what real living is
nobody does
itching
the scratch
temptations'
callous hands
busy at work
-always at work
and you call yourself
a liar and you call
yourself flames
and you stroke
and bury
and stroke and
bury
until there's no more
weight left to carry
Wake Up!
you dance with
last nights hallow
memories
of dreams
putting distances
between
you and your loved ones
trying your damndest
to live up to someone else's
ideal
Wake Up!
wriggling
like a trout
plashing
the waters
ripple
lungs
balloon
expansive now
the waters rising
touching
the tip
of your nose
and there's no
where for your feet
to touch
Wake Up!
it's 6 o'clock tomorrow morning
time to get up and go to work.
Resistance
Habits are memories in action
Inaction is resistance
Resistance is the sound the wind makes
Rain streaked window pane
When you go
don’t slam the door
when you go
it’s all gone
it seems i’ve got it out for myself
afraid of really livin’
i always make it harder
and when you’re not around
my head gets to spinnin’
habits are memories
in action
inaction is resistance
resistance is the sound
wind makes
When you go
don’t slam the door
when you go
it’s all gone
So sick of this self deception and
inattention we’re living in
mirrors of reflections man
it’s alright,
it’s alright,
it’s all light
it’s all light
Once i get caught up in these shadows
you think i’m missin’
but all i need from you
is to fuckin’ listen
Habits
are memories in action
Inaction is resistance
Resistance is the sound
that wind makes.
When you go
don’t slam the door
when you go
it’s all gone
I’ve got this gene
It’s self defeating
I know I can’t win
Because I always give in.
Habits
are memories in action
Inaction is resistance
Resistance is the sound
that wind makes.
Addiction (A Poem)
Addiction
Replete with silence
mistaken for taken sides
an escape artist
i’ve mastered the illusion of being here
with my hands bound i drown
sinking into a sea of misery
escaping from reality.
seagulls’ echoed cries of agony and
hunger pierce the surface
of this mirrored illusion. refractions of
sparkling lights and distorted fantasies
dance like idyllic reruns on a liquid screen.
filled with conflict and struggle
i look for distractions in actions
-typical American response really-
there’s always something out there,
to make it all better again.
i transform the object into what i need,
simultaneously the object transforms me
again and again.
this sinking does not have a sinking feeling
in the vastness of expanse i close my eyes
it feels like a primordial womb
a viscid mix: sediment and water
walls of feathery pink tissue undulate
purple fingerling tendrils caress me
they are and are not my body
heartbeats and pressure builds
compressing coralline ribs
split fragments pierce lungs
forgotten -what was i escaping?
somewhere in between
reverberations and nothingness,
swallowed in the abyss
where even a thousand buddhas couldn’t
hear my song,
bottomless shadows fill the sea
i writhe
singing back into infinity
this void holds no sound
i’m bound to repetition.
