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Poetry 4 Like mentioned on the other poetry pages, it's James Dickey-inspired poetry. Not sure why these five ended up on yet another separate page. It seemed necessary to break up the uploads of dazzling, brilliant prose. (heh, heh... does that still work here in January, 2011? Y'know, the future?) NOTE: None of these are repeated in the new digital poetry book, Brief Tales of Compromised Solutions
Misery Postman
Misery Postman finds himself Clawing through headline worthy wreckage Leaving milk rotting in the Saturday morning sun Checking the soft hands gently passing him up to the front Staking claims that might absorb the wrath of his idiot king
Misery Postman defends himself With a voice that shakes the robes of a dozen burned angels Through an accusation that clips clouds and tears designer stamps Under a hail of return to the absolute most high senders Because the gardens he was promised got out from under and off scot free
Misery Postman positions himself Above the emergency test railing at the trial With his bag at his side with the names and addresses of the very dead Beside a lighting rig that he has paid off to only show his bright side Near the only mangy dog that ever gave him the time of day
Misery Postman reminds himself That the wealth of nations could save him if he makes the right rounds That subjected to such a letter could take the wind out of any sail That a faulty punch clock could very well have cost him everything That the shit he has to deal with would look like gold to anyone else
Misery Postman lets himself Be taken out of the rushing stream for one gasping moment Be licked and stuck onto a destiny that is half a time and place away Be chased off course by a raging and wild hole in someone else’s alibi Be moved like a pawn from the slow but real playing board to a great and artful nothing watching from the sidelines
You’ve Taken Too Many Chances With the Blood
One day I am going to have to clean up these dusty attics Sometime soon I will turn around and account for my wake A sun will rise upon all my garbage and I’ll be forced at gunpoint to tally every piece Counting the days that made moments and the nights that made nothing in a brief stretch of time that I hold on the edge of a pale white string
Everyone sells out my numbers Strangers turn in my whispers Picking apart the sands and clocks While demanding future on the side
A clear and concise analysis of my doings in these vaunted blood rooms is a matter for distant history books Something they will make me crawl for when the times comes for me to hide my tracks like a leper You try to renegotiate your position but secretly know you’ve taken too many chances with the blood
Triumphs in name only fall like dominos Hollow achievements echo in the cold and real air A place of high ceilings and distant piano chords Furniture in appearance only An odd corner of the world to pour out your heart and mind onto whatever you can get your quaking dripping hands on Playing down the long and windless plains of uninspired stone Clutching to the lightning flash of the motionless moment
All in a sentence Of days weeks months Of soft and stained carpet Of strong arm posturing Of endless notes and rewrites Of random routines thrust upon us Of flashes and failures that form you Of collapsing black holes at the tip of your tongue Of making the best with wet black words And all for a sentence That holds these things up to truth’s light
Unstuck In Time
The thousand forest The yellow waking Youth on the fridge Getting together with the unelected accomplice Dreary November sames Pushing shit news into the next pay period Refusing the clicking of the patriarchal tongue Nary a squawk from the simple red bird Purposeful positioning of statements later rendered truth like It all reeks of tags and undiscovered but clichéd codes Winking into the phone and making thoughts a general advance Creaking the bedsprings with a bag of old nickels
Pissbox mutterings An underappreciated examining Of the quivering tombs of our sinless elders When the fence is torn in the perfect spot And the dogs are set upon with wires and pardons Unlike your flailing submarines Which just pitch and caw the whole night through Beside long dead lakes that run worse than dry Saluting the cutting of wise support systems Dust ups like a drunken uncle anecdote Sent down the tubes onto Christmas dinner Getting caught twice behind the same eight ball lie Selling off the trapeze when you’re still in midair Forgetting the foreign words when I need them Turning tables on the persons with a charming sneer Pumping out the same new paradoxes Catching me off guard with frigid contradictions
I was okay with all the mistakes Until they fell on me And now unstuck in time The mistakes are all I see
They Called it a Joyous Occasion
It didn’t take long No one had the time to glance at their watch to make sure
There was a youthful clanging of the circus bell Which called out the tricks and shut up the suspects Made fine linen out of the overtly pleasant answers And turn gold back into a senseless shining light With heads no longer turning with the routine of the sun
And it was a moment that split like aces Roughly handled by the shrunken expectations Moved through personnel files like a curious and drunken rat Dropping notes and hints like fighter bombs Filling up bellyaches with an ethereal nourishment
Freely made associations then cumbersome traffic reports An onslaught of shipping containers begging you to cop a feel The piano lurched out of the corner to accuse him of boring And she can’t help but agree as the dance seemed like something out of a cage Like a sentence rolling up on itself an starting again and again
Toasting the gasping foam death of the waves at our feet Counting broken finger victims twice for sport Invitations that disregarded the time and location They only made it by following crooked and nearly fallen stars Listing the wrinkled anecdotes in bullet time on the torn drapes
They called it a joyous occasion And even the friends in old familiar chains could not deny That with just the right amount of force the charm would slowly appear The future was brighter than men who promised its end The answer baked into a cake that could never leave the oven
Over in a second I forgot the meaning because there was something in my eye
Hunting Freedom with a Hammer
Hunting Freedom with a Hammer Crippling Justice to keep it within arm’s reach Making a point with harsh blunt intentions Because today the best chance is with coming through tears
One whimper of a bang Holding rags in sweating hands Wringing both out over the fires As the roofs fly off with slow shingled wings It was a glorified idea birthed with the cold eyes of extraordinary men Giving shape and mass to even honest dreams Warping it slightly so it could fit through the doors and onto the tables
Cutting through spiders webs Making strides along the dotted lines Given enough rope to string us all up ten times over To trip over and tumble whether our steps were noble or not
Gathering steam and letting the burns roll downhill Passing the buck while supporters fawn Trying to balance your future with what you hold dear Sanctioned until you’re pissing red tape
You look into a faceless sea and are informed that the numbers are people and the people are numbers Briefs and contracts taking you into the abstract halls of formulas over flesh In case of heightened states of risk management break glass and slit wrists
They hear the hollow clatter of the last pills in the clear plastic bottle with the stale white lid They have the photos of your death mask while your heart beats in resentment Make sure you get too big to fail Before being set up to fail Putting cheques on sticks as a warning to competitors
You skipped over the grinder Read only the meaty dispatches in between Chatted briefly with disaster Suggested keynote recipes with a warm afterglow
Hunting Freedom with a Hammer Cornering it in beneath a darkened underpass Demanding secret answers to classified questions Forcing open its jaws and extracting the key tooth
The little voice inside Starving since your shotgun handshake Faded and grey after the clear and present course Rendered obsolete by committee and compromise Is sticking its proverbial head in a figurative oven
You ask for a moment to deliberate Themes and slogans bought wholesale Coming out of the woodwork begging for revenge Desperate to avoid being tossed in with the young junk
Answers dripping out of the cracks of your mouth A finger from the inside wiping it away Your past is a ragged husk with black wind blowing around its bones A transmitter switched off and under
Don’t ask how you found yourself in this position Only creased static bursts through the radio There’s good money to be made in professional denials A bait and switch of noble truths for the holy sharks
And all that’s left of you with me Is a single breath stuck on a steaming mirror Nothing wrong with getting lost in the fog for a moment Just as long as the power of love doesn’t become the love of power
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the morning sun has yet to climb my hood ornament. | |||