how words got me in trouble

there is no privy to the nuances
of men with hollow tongues
our wills
wants
wonts
and truances
all verbally spar arms

but why then is it so
that words must tender meanings
when civil tongue is fluid
and eyes work just by feeling

and so i speak through glass
and satiate my impatiences
were all alone together
olfactory with no fragrances

it crusts it's edges when i talk
no pittance for the penance
before i run amok
evict my mind's tennats

winter comes
the city settles
seasons change
i feel it breathe
exhaling steam
polluted kettle
whats concrete outside
within seethes

the cars
aloof
they sleep on sleet
shored ocean bile foams
observing shadows
always greeting
while in their dark i roam

then years from now
the sun ascends
lights roads for us
and answers
whilst my eyes singe
i can pretend
that this town wasn't handsome

all allusive alliterations
corrode conspicuous connotations
and these high pitched reverberations
are muffled by muzzled lips

enunciated hasty
your words are so abrasive
and with your porous skin so tasty
lets tongue step social waltz

his words sound so unique
then you hear on the phone
of how he lip synced lies
with his own voices tone

you meet somebody for a night
and abscond with his image
meet someone at a bar
who's at bars meeting people

-

this pebbled cobble
with it's edges still rough
has it's way with the tide
until it's had enough
while the months are still young
the tourists are still few
the days here are long
and the air breathes like new
in a few weeks time though
hell - perhaps even days
arrives calms greatest foe
with it's frantic displays
crusty jugglers and leeches
hunting crayfish and roe
cigarette ends on beaches
it is my time to go


-


he hopes it rains a saline rain
that keeps the waters warm
he hopes she pangs a certain pain
that keeps her wanting more

she paints her portraits with her tears
they keep her brush stroke straight
he fills his inkwell using shears
writes sanguine words irate

then when the critic comes around
he'll warn them for good measure
but what he thinks they do for passion
they only do for pleasure

-

you asked me to write something happy
but please mediocre instead
the former comes off just too sappy
yet the latter will go to your head

your guitar that you practised for years
got outdone by a kid from taiwan
if we sit somewhere nice and share beers
i'll lie to you that you're number one

we whine words we practise on stages
we complain that we're all getting old
expecting better from upcoming ages
to go through with the promise of gold

the now seems to always be raining
yet yesteryear and tomorrow are warm
but with phrases so full and pertaining
we survive every day of the storm

-

this place rests uneasy as it tremors with murmurs
and as glass is broken the near future is set
from mere silence - to violence the world's erupting in fervours
as he sits back and lights his cigarette

first come yelps then the screams hither noises galore
there is nothing left civil no not here any more
still behind the flames past the blood minarets
he is still sitting calm smoking his cigarettes

buildings crash bridges topple hear society crumble
after one final anarchy nothings left to abet
hear the sanguine sky whisper hear it cry hear it mumble
see the last one alive light his last cigarette

sparks descend much like snowflakes onto streets once alive
no one to see him leaving no one heard him arrive
there is no one who fought left alive to forget
to find one who remembers follow the scent of cigarettes


---
in our favourite room the floor is an ashtray
and your face is difficult to discern
amidst the wisps of burning incense
oh, you were so picturesque

we barred the doors
and the windows
pressing our faces to the glass
noses smushed
eyes darting
we watched the seasons go

we saw structures crumble and empires rise
until they in turn collapsed as well
we learned to listen
we learned that nothing is forever

we stood up much older
letting go of each others hands
we wiped our knees clean
and headed outside
where even the summer
feels cold

-

my young sailors ashore
four pints in - maybe more
a days wage on a whore
and they're flying

men turned tougher than nails
all from hauling those sails
but for now they chant tales
and erupt bars to wails

through the gap in their teeth
onto land spit their grace
once was tar on my ship
now is soot on their face

eat now, drink now and laugh
throw the queen a loud hail
live these evenings rough
for tomorrow we sail
-

the time it takes to accept time
takes more time to get used to
a memory scarred with scents of thyme
may take one years to wade through

the distant chime of ancient bells
the seaside roars and whispers
a worried story a face tells
a months untended whiskers

peel muscles
skin
rip tendons
then crack the skull asunder
though a gruesome note to end on
it leave the mind to wander

-

i would like to explore your geoncentric universe
the one you surrounded with the barbed white picket fencing
where you locked yourself behind pearly gates
where you locked galilleo in a tower
and dedicated him a church
five hundred years later
i want shotgun in your limo and a drag of your second world cigar
i want to see the view from your apartment
which you can keep
can i please walk your pet and hug it

If you're pencil, I'm paper;
we're height marked on a wall.
I'll be five foot seven
when you're six feet tall.

Here's a bad place to stay,
it reeks of years of our sweat.
Let me take you away
to smoke foreign cigarettes.

If you're tide, then I'm beach.
You are water, I'm land.
We can travel the coasts,
wet our feet and kick sand.

Moon reflecting the sun
and to earth the lights fall.
The night as we know it,
not so dark afterall.

On Rail

south of Budapest
old houses
to older country
where amidst the rails
sparse
unkept
and patchy
the poppies grow
and yes
i do miss those at home
yet they have thorns
and these are redder

Of Bows & Arrows

whenever he could
the archer would ascend high
to shoot his falling feathers

and at dawn
descend to the delta to sleep

wrapping his bow
in soft words and smoke
he protected it from himself
when his nightmares
tossed him about his cot in his sleep

nothing he had was enough
to protect his most prized time
from himself

broken and cracked
the arrows go nowhere
and rest comfortably in his arms

a holocaust for individuality
in the age that we live
what matters most
is written on the backs of discarded napkins
and forgotten

the blue bins that keep us green
go to the trash too
we might as well have thrown it anywhere

REPOST (the old one deleted)

Sphinx

When the sphinx was once lost in a storm,
neither Ramses,
nor wit,
could recover her then pallid form.
Once begotten through linens, and now torn from her place;
it took twelve slaves nine ages to reassemble her face.
They had shined off her mane,
wiped the snow from her eyes,
yet irreparable thaw,
showed her spirit demise.
Now when travelers come, and demand to be asked
what it is they must answer, in order to pass-
The great cat shy's away
and drops one solid tear
an icy cold snowflake
she resents that she fears.
Still in dreams when she rests
we hear liquid within,
by the time the world sees it
its just frozen again.

a dream

when we kissed
i tasted the vomit on her tongue
and liked it

it was night
and all the shadows were touching
what was left of the light
was artificial anyhow

the train tilted with the curving tracks
careening
as the streetlights
caressed it’s metallic trim
with a playful flicker

we were hovering high above the pavement
over all the insignificant others
foreheads pressed to the glass
yawning like lions

sometimes
i just wish it is never day again
so i that don’t have to wake up

withdraw

what is a word
if not a bird
to sing of my emotion

and all it’s lies
your words
your cries
their confidence
their notion

what’s left of me
that’s worth some glee
or smiles
or tunes
or fortune

and i’m in bunkers
of sarcasm’s spears
a pallid verbal urchin

were all alone
our flesh
and bone
were all alone
forever

were all alone
our thoughts
our tone
were all alone
together

i cant believe
that you read this
my verbal minaret

i can’t believe
but i don’t matter
so soon you will forget

yet life on dirt
so dank
so curt
and so full of regrets

will teach the boys
who want to melt
of how the world abets

he never once cried to mother
until that day
from the stone floor
from where she would not hear him

“please fix me i need a fix
pluck the hair off my forehead

i miss the lighters flicking in the distance
and i was never selfish
just in a world of my own

oh and mary
i miss mary”

i met a man while train hopping
would you sell me your laugh
he asked
in exchange
i will write your life story
as one that people will want to read

he winked to beckon me closer
you know,
there’s no desire in omnipotence
a man could go mad
among all the easy questions he said
until then we’ll demand easy answers
to tide over the sadness

so what’s a smile
when the lights have gone out

to god and those it may concern

as i float about
within your ever vast essence
i feel caressed by time
kissed by light
smothered by thought
and disconnected from you

in truth i only seem like a bad person
sometimes convincing myself of it as well

and while i compare
my actions to my thoughts
my thoughts to my desires
and my desires to our reality
my desire will drive me to act
wilting my body
leaving it for you to rightly judge
my altered reality long behind me
how i miss it

a promise that i can not afford to break
i will not lose you
i will not lose me

suns and daughters

you see us

were counting the drops
on bus windows
that gravity had it’s way with

were drowning out the distant cacophony
of a hundred kitchen appliances

and when we achieve a totalitarian silence
we can ignore ourselves too

you see

were living in our differences
obscuring thoughts
censoring words
and gifting language
to its natural form

you see

we know that it was
the single parents
that bred a culturally sterile generation
to be raised by billboards
to be misunderstanding
and to be misunderstood

still we can not blame the deceived
or the messenger

you see us

we are the suns and daughters
of a hedonistic blindness

cr1100 existentialist character prose

The train tracks were empty yesterday, the day before and all of last week as well. It was a mixed blessing at best, for she has come to rely on the first daily 7:39 freight to wake up and without a dream shattering roar it was harder to find incentive.

The now empty tracks continue past the apartments back porch to beneath a nearby overpass where recently the homeless have been gathering to seek a niche of shelter. Economic recession was proving to be their golden age, with plenty of opportunities to scavenge what’s left in the piles behind failed businesses and store it beneath the overpass. Winter was coming and the mutilated trash cans were burning high. It used to be that while coming home she would stand at the opposite entrance to brave the possibility of an oncoming train. She would then close her eyes and run as fast as she could. Once, she joked that she was unsure of whether she closed her eyes in fear of colliding with the train or rather, in hope thereof. In light of recent developments, when she approached the tunnel today she plugged her nose and shut her lips. The putrid dense air smelled of what she could only discern to be a mix of beans, old man smell, fecal matter and dead wet dog. It left her feeling an odd tingle much like the subtle after effects of being punched in the nose. She wondered how anyone could live there.

As she made her way through the tunnel she was followed by jiggling change receptacles. The ones with more chutzpah and the ones with more creative stories continued as far as the canopy of the torn metal overhang atop the back door before giving up. She played with the rusty lock while shaking her head politely and then closed the door making sure not to let anyone in.

She felt sorry for them, which only lead to feeling sorry for herself when she realized that there wasn’t a cent to spare. She was working for the man, with most of the proceeds going to another. One of the men was Richard; he owned the thrift store where she sorted clothes in the back for chump change. The other man went by ‘Silk’ and refused to respond to anything else. He called money ‘the joy of the modern man’ and in exchange for it, he would provide the girl with the joy she called hers. Her joy came brown, bitter and powdery.

Silk was all business and could tell when the slightest bulge in her pocket was a bill. Upon noticing it, he would not relent until it was his. Silk’s pushy nature coupled with the fact that he worked right near her front door made it so that crossing the tunnel was still the preferable option.

Three floors up she lived behind a door that slammed with a squeak which she compared to that of a penitentiary. Upon entering she wondered how it was that indoors she was colder still. The walls of the apartment were covered in water stains which she had turned into her version of art using some markers that she had stolen from work. She brushed aside most of the papers on the floor locked mattress in the bedroom and sat down. A little while ago, about when the trains stopped running, she broke her bed by standing on it while trying to reach the ceiling with the tip of a felt. She was attempting to turn the sordid wet spot above her bed into a sun which she assumed would help her wake up. When she broke her bed, after relocating to the floor she found that not much else was different; she still woke up to a cold breakfast.

Sitting on her bed she emptied the contents of a paper flap into a spoon, spat and proceeded to heat it with a lighter. A pull, a poke and a squirt later her pupils shrunk to the size of the dots on her skin. She was smiling again and thinking of how suitable the name ‘Silky’ really was. She exhaled her existentialism and her eyes closed to better see a better life.

708

insomnia

i battle with thoughts
in a valhalla
that i created
while living in my own
abandoned house

today
is just like any other day

the first breath stolen from the morning
chills my alveoli
the november frost
travels through my bloodstream
warms my heart
and is excreted sighing

a mirror will tell stories
of sanguine eyes
drenched in blood
from dreaming

those same eyes
still choose to ignore it

she broke her bed
after relocating
to the floor
noticed that
not much else has changed
she still wakes up to a cold breakfast

to capture a moment

on my way home i notice
gravity stricken leafs that rest their respite
atop frost stricken bushes
in a medley of earthly tones
that is early november

your words
always
arrive in waves
and i appreciate you
as a break in monotony

ive come to love the uncertainty
that translates to freedom
no longer am i a prisoner of infinite choice
but rather
free to explore my wrongdoing
at the pace of autumn