Poem-A-Day: Day 49

Balls

It’s a new year marked by balls dropping.

How prophetic,
or metaphorical,

as some baby representing good fortune
dances around in a diaper and sash.

But what of the old fortune,
the hard knocks,
time passed,
and moments missed?

It’s been a year of what ifs,
Holy shits,
did we just do that,
change we can believe in,
fuck ups,
done wells,
firsts,
seconds,
and most certainly not the lasts.

A year marked with a toast;
burning bridges of the yesteryear
with clinking glasses
and champagne supernovas.

Weeping and joy,
it’s something or other, a mess most likely.

And on the dawn of a new day
comes nothing more

than the memory of balls.

Poem-A-Day: Day 48

Imperialist Mind

doing the imperial march
down memory lane,
high stepping,
and pushing things aside
like it makes a difference.

it’s a give and get nothing action,
shoving and taking whatever it takes
to get nothing done,
like the tell on a poker face,
some signal amplified by the speed of sound.

the black parade marches
through the square
until it reaches the lone protester;
an unflinching moment
that seems to never be erased.

it’s a piano tune,
caught like a casualty on the breath of the wind,
bleeding its music through the ears
of an army of none
left in shock and awe.

Poem-A-Day: Day 47

Wings of Wax

Indiscretion is the name
of this sinking ship
bound for ports of call.
S.S. Stuttering to a stop,
dead in the sea of unwashed faces
gracing one winged beauty back.
Angels refusing to fly
because they can’t hold hands,
and instead choose the path
of Icarus descending
down into the ocean;
blue and fervent angry sea.

It’s not the falling that hurts,
it’s sticking the landing
that kills,
shattering knees,
and tugging at the heartstrings
in some sad attempt to release the chute.
It will open,
if only too late.
But the water is soft
compared to the feathers of the wing
that tears to shreds
the finale of thoughts that bleed the ocean red.

Poem-A-Day: Day 46

Oral Report

One night standing ovation
for the orator of these great halls
adorned with candle wicks,
discarded moments,
and misunderstood bewilderment.
The speech is long and touching,
touching on everything that
needs attention;
global warming,
sweating ice caps,
individual rights,
and the deep and penetrating issues.
Each gaze cast to the crowd
is met likewise
by the eyes
locked in the passionate delivery.
It’s an act in exhilaration
for the speaker and the audience,
each moment,
and tender minute passing
is another poetic movement
taken in.

There is no closing argument,
because everyone is in agreement
that it couldn’t have gone better.
And with the crowd pleased,
the speaker bows out
with the doff of a hat...
and a wink.

Poem-A-Day: Day 45

Go Go Gadget Giblets

Whiskey a go go,
we’re going down,
down, down in flames;
a red velvet knapsack disaster
compounded by a slacking
serpentine whisker lickin’ good.

Double over,
double down,
just double up the double mint
julips, tulips,
red lips, dead lips.

Red rooster frowning
beaks a plenty;
throngs of yellow belly
beer busting blasphemous rumors.

Sometimes it’s hard to explain,
the goings on going on.

So instead,
I’ll just have a whiskey to go.

Poem-A-Day: Day 44

Lasting Impressions

It’s a life not lived,
or half-lived,
lacking some lasting
impression;
relief in the marble
casting shadows in the detail
of the craftsmanship.

The craft is mere witchery,
boggling the mind,
stewing in the bubbling muck
that resides within the darkness;
the shadows dancing swiftly like a breeze
slowly blowing across the laughable
boughs of memory’s memories.

The memory is world famous,
one at a time,
here, there, neverwhere—
some lasting impression
pressed skin deep in the mud
that’s washed off of a life,
just lived.

Poem-A-Day: Day 43

Heresy Hearsay

here it comes in wild destructive glory
riding valiant on a steed
held together by sinewy chords;
sound that gallops through the brain
from ear to ear,
in a grinning fashion
that exposes the dirty underbelly
of everyone’s own indifferent
bastardization of what we’ve come to love.

we love fucking up
and blaming everyone else
for some misbegotten gathering on,
like some accidental injury
rubbed deep with shit
so it stands out better on the skin.

there isn’t that big of a difference
between the
sacred,
scared
and the scarred,
because they’re all lying about something
far deeper than the dropping
of salutations and the sacrosanct
solution of some saving grace.

the best thing to do
is to remain calm,
and follow the fall
of this fastidious fellowship,
because it’s far more fascinating
than thinking
about inevitable obliteration.

Poem-A-Day: Day 42

Merry Christmas

Pagan holiday
absconded by the Christians
for magic babies.

Poem-A-Day: Day 41

Well I Never!

The ghosts of people walk past
reminding me of people I’ve never met.
It’s a horrible souvenir;
a globe
filled with dirty underwear
and a little man waving,
and talking
about some beach I’ve never seen.
It’s a pen that’s handed to me,
golden box,
with the message:
“54 years working in the United States.”
It writes me stories,
mysteries that delve into the deepest,
darkest areas
of the insane in my membrane,
though I have never read them.

I have never
realized the things
I’ve never noticed.

Poem-A-Day: Day 40

Christ

someone puked in the doorway,
and there were christ-like apparitions
shooting up in the corner.

girl,
the days keep getting longer 
the longer the sun goes away.

Poem-A-Day: Day 39

And I Guess That’s Why They Call it the Blues

A day saddened
like any none other
not unlike the next
but just as painful to watch
through rose colored shot glasses.
It’s warm,
and the scent stays
but only so long
as the olfactory shuts down
and the migrant workers return
to their pitiful homes,
tired,
washed up and dirty.
Despite their declining senses,
they know they have just lived
one thousand days longer
than anyone had imagined
in the matter of seconds
passing.

The door becomes the subtle release
to the dark and vacant.
It’s cold,
and despite calamity,
some reticent wind is wailing
sad, sad songs.

Poem-A-Day: Day 38

The Best Part of Waking Up

integrated festivities
sucking shades of yesterday
into kamikaze swirls
of caffeinated fascination.
it’s the dark city
liquid double blending
dripping subtle genius
in decanter dances.

life,
in one hand
sipped platonic.

Poem-A-Day: Day 37

Something to Think About

Red carpet massacre
stripping the last sanguine shred
from the core of copasetic.
It’s a transformation
into something not specified,
but nonetheless deformed somehow;
a tangential wave repeating itself
back and forth,
synchronicity,
robbing every sense and regulation.
It’s well regulated,
and worth thinking about.

Poem-A-Day: Day 36

Dream Warrior

try as I might,
there was no more fight left
     in me.
and while I touched the stars
on cloudy days,
reaching up past streetlights
and broken wishbone collars,
I still have yet to make sense
     of me.
sadly I’m mistaken
often, for other people,
     for myself,
or just in general.
dangling wild-eyed
and phantasmagorically
over the cliffs
     of my
own self pity, doubt,
seemingly endless shadows stalking
every step I take.

I suppose I wouldn’t trade
the horrors
     in my
nightmares
for the best Scotch in town,
but I would trade the angels
     in my
daydreams
for the chance to dream
     of you.

Poem-A-Day: Day 35

Resting in Ease

The scent stays for days.
It’s a blend of familiarity
and unadulterated comfort;
a head resting.


 It’s a scene of calm violence
 tearing to shreds complacency,
 and the sagacity of probity
 of a head resting.


The sense of decorum
is an emulation of home décor;
an absolutely beautiful mess
between two dead resting.


 It’s serene in tragic
 passion of memories passing
 over, and past the thoughts
 of two dead resting.

Poem-A-Day: Day 34

44

the cold steel flashes brilliantly
and fades to gray
in callow hands
sallow eyes
and flaccid fingers probing gently
amongst the pile of dead.

the diadem is no more diamond
than it is a golden halo of thorns
shattered softly on a furrowed brow
sweating bullets.

the ground is soft and malleable
and it pings metallic
rings ironic
and washes thoughts away
in crimson tides drowning borrowed souls.

the trumpet sounds spewing flames
glorious in hues of blues and reds
leaving burnt ember husks
still smoldering
tinder in the hand of god’s callous grace.

all worship the same devil
raining death
reigning death
from high above the skies
clouded by the cinder smoke
and reflected on the scarred land.

Poem-A-Day: Day 33

(-_-)

I once knew the whitest of Asians
Who dabbles in artsy persuasions
She shows up at chance
And puts chaps in a trance
But is never quite in the equations.

Poem-A-Day: Day 32

Cannibal Junction

I’ve been slap-happy silly
one too many times
to think about the consequences
that built up to my arrival.
I am, in a sense best befitting Jesus,
the king of kings of the nonexistent.
My entrance is more grandiose
than my egression,
yet far less noticeable upon repeat viewings.

They tell me,
“It’s just a phase you’re going through.”

But I haven’t been fazed
since Total Recall.
I recall everything in small doses,
jumbled up,
and shit back out on pages
sacrosanct in my vision;
the blind visionary
calling out to deaf crowds.

“Don’t cross the street,
there are cannibals on the other side.”

Poem-A-Day: Day 31

Word Up

I’ve made a business
of turning frowns
into upside-down syndrome,
adding one chromosome,
and playing with the English language
as if it were my dick
or something slightly more interesting.
Words are my tool,
I wind and crank them,
strip them down,
only to rebuild them
and inject them
with my own perverse meaning.
I’m a hackneyed doctor
performing surgical procedures
before I’m licensed by the approving board,
because I’m bored,
and choose to do something
with the only thing
that I have any vague idea about.

Poem-A-Day: Day 30

A Horse Is A Horse

Why the long face
teenage abeaution,
or something like that.
It’s a far cry from beauty queen,
and somewhere not as horrible as an abortion.
There’s no crown,
but a toilet bowl scepter
and a model to match the look.

It’s hard to tell if it’s horse envy,
or the other way around.
Either way I say neigh,
under my whinnies of disapproval
and triple crown champion stock.
It’s lamentable,
only in regards to my arrogance,
and complete lack of sympathy for the devil.

Poem-A-Day: Day 29

Scrivener

Shrapnel shroud,
my exploded seas of change
in golden glowing frames of orange.
I watch the passive roots
surround my feet
and overtake the sweat,
leveling everything
in unknown sanity
like a blue glowing monster
staring me down.
He knows better than I
what will proceed
in contemplating the messages,
that reside
in the dead letter department…

although,

I would prefer not to.

Poem-A-Day: Day 28

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Some random chip
off the old chopping block
can’t clock cold weather coming
soon enough.
Some snuffling,
a tug at scarves and snoods,
hood strings dangling,
draping on chests and necks,
and chestnuts roasting,
toasting the open pits,
our wallets.
It’s dead and dear,
only one letter difference
as it descends
into our hearts and hearths,
warming socks,
clocks,
and chopping blocks
teeming with holiday hams.
Hamming it up
with family units,
untying, unifying,
It’s beginning to beg to differ:
who, when, where, and
why didn’t I get what I asked for?

Poem-A-Day: Day 27

Math is Hard, I’m Done Trying

Contagiously masquerading through
the valley of the shadow of draught,
kicking up heels,
together,
and shouting with the wave of a hat:
ten gallons,
or forty.
Shudder at the thought;
the sky’s drought
cast down like a discarded core,
apples and pears.
Pairs
have a simple meaning,
being two,
or twos of two,
which makes them four total.
Somewhere, where the pairs
are laughing under neon tubes illumination,
is a note scribbled on a napkin.
It has numbers,
sequentially mixed
side-by-side.
In the context of things
it makes sense,
but there’s no use for it.

Poem-A-Day: Day 26

Cloud Gazing

Poem-A-Day: Day 25

Response to Hate Mail

Dear Reader,
 It is, with my understanding
that I have deeply offended
one, or all of you.
To this,
I give my sweetest condolences?
Perhaps, as a token
of my true understanding
of our venerable, personal relationship,
that I offer you my life
in response.
At least, I would,
if you hadn’t already taken it.

   Yours,
   Author

Poem-A-Day: Day 24

Rolling the Die

Poem-A-Day: Day 23

Nightmare

Residual,
like a bad dream
that you fall back into
time and time again.
It’s not reoccurring
because it’s only one night
of horrible memories
and villainy,
calamitous intent
that drives the stake
into a werewolf heart.
It doesn’t do anything.

It’s laughable in the morning
after the cold sweats
recede.

Poem-A-Day: Day 22

Dark Side of My Moon

Sacrosanct the words
that etch their way
into the indelible memories,
like an ulcer;
acid eating away at soft tissue,
or collections of silver halides
caused from exposure,
to a what that remains unclear.

But the word’s permanence
takes precedence,
residence,
and grips tightly to the tendrils,
neurons hanging
from a jellyfish brain.

The words and diction,
a collection
of dictionary definitions
set to rhythm,

prismatic winding words
cast off in every direction.

Poem-A-Day: Day 21

Poem-A-Day: Day 20

After a Rain

Sometimes the trees looked like perfect mirrors
releasing

d
r
o
p
s

of water
from high above transcendent thoughts.

Poem-A-Day: Day 19

Last Call

a slap in the face
and a promise of
steady attendance
to a classroom drenched
in neon lights
the smell of despair
misery and mire
sludge of wasted dreams
genius and
a trite attempt at
best made attempts
uncorking a pale comparison
that would become
or has
what now
have more
in sudden realization
bread a salted round
and dropping dime
on wet counters
leaving under the power
of my own true self