Well, I am trying to continue writing and sharing things here, but
unfortunately I am slipping back into a routine of wasting as much of
every day as I can. The truth is, the last few years have been a
losing struggle against this unstoppable force that subtly sucks the
life out of me, this strange compulsion to read meaningless material,
to waste time in a randomly chosen manner reading the endless words
of ignorant fools on forums. I have so many ideas, so many things I
could create, so many things to love and cherish, and instead I
squander myself, my mind and my spirit, in pursuit of nothing. I can
never quite figure out why. Perhaps it is fear again. Do we ever
fully accept how much fear controls our every thought and action? We
are terrified to truly express ourselves, terrified of what the world
beyond our habits has in store for us, terrified of the truth that
lies behind the stories we tell ourselves about our lives. I have
always been afraid and ashamed to share my writing. Even here, I
share it when it has no chance of being read. But this writing still
somehow seeks to find its way to your heart. I still hold out hope
that it will one day cause someone to laugh with melancholy
familiarity, hope that it can ease the pain of another spirit like
myself, who longs to be a creator, who still holds out hope that the
best parts of himself will somehow triumph over the dullness, the
deadness, that also lives inside us.
“ What
ever separated us? If I look at myself in the mirror and ask that
question, I see myself backwards, a lonely piece of writing, and I no
longer understand myself. In this tremendously cold age we should
have coldly turned away from each other despite our unquenchable
love? I tossed you smoking words, burned, with a bitter taste,
cutting sentences or dull ones without luster. As if I wished to
increase your misery and banish you from my territories with my
intellect. You came so trustingly, sometimes awkwardly, asking for a
word with beautiful colors You wanted to be consoled and I had no
consolation to give. Profundity is not my business either.
But an
unquenchable love for you has never left me, and now I am searching
under the rubble and in the air, in the ice-wind and the sun, for the
words that should throw me back into your arms. For I am consumed
with longing for you.
I'm not a
piece of fabric, I'm not made of a cloth that could cover your
nakedness, but of the fusion of all materials. And I want to burst
into your senses and your mind like gold veins in the earth,
illuminate and shine through you when the black fire, your mortality,
starts burning inside you.
I don't know
what you want of me. I cant write the song that would accompany you
into victorious battle. I retreat before the altars. I am not your
go-between. All your business deals leave me cold. But not you. Only
not you.
You are
everything to me. What wouldn't I want to be for you. I'd like to
follow you when you're dead, look back to see you even if I might be
turned into stone. I'd like to ring with song, move the remaining
beasts to tears, make the stones bloom, draw fragrance from every
bough.”
Ingeborg
Bachmann, “The Poem for the Reader”
BOX OF MEMORIES
Careful now,
For the true poetry passes
by concealed
then is gone forever
leaving only what came
easily
You feel a brush, a gentle
twist,
And are touched with an
instants innocence.
But oh to record it,
We speak of its loss,
to preserve a piece but a
moment longer
Safekeeping till we too
are gone
And our little box of
treasures sits at the curb
Forgotten, forlorn.
I miss you, moments, so much.
SIMPLE SEASONING, SAD
SPICES
Suddenly it has passed by
Sweet childhood.
I turn back to seek you
Words wishing against the
turning of the page.
As time gently brushes
past I struggle
Face against that steady
breeze
to rake together all one
million
of memories little leaves
they scatter to no end
crumbling to dust as I
bring them with a misplaced craving
to my little blaze
that I must put out.
When did that fire start
inside me?
It eats at my spirit and
spits sarcastic
tasty nihilism taken up
too eagerly
turning my virtues into
vices
my simple seasonings
into sad spices
I suppose I had to pass
along this way
tracing the helpless
footsteps of Joseph K.
Where the wise ones walk
Why did i betray those
bygone days?
Now I know the knot of the
doubled soul
All false choices
strangling the good, they intertwine
But is it the same rope?
In the dark, I follow it,
but Disney days are gone
and I know the minotaur lurks
CREATION AND DESTRUCTION
Somewhat scared to start
there might be nothing
there
Of course there is already
something
judge it carefully as it
emerges
softly crying bloody babe
of thought
wrap it gently in white
stare at it with eyes full
of meaning
searing its soul with
silent speech
It must understand and
reflect, respond
stretching to speak
Once words are won
they tumble out heedlessly
helplessly building
momentum
haphazardly heaping into a
house
here
home
walls, boundary stones,
world of wonders
that we must wander
or sometimes sit, sick
and stuck in darkness.
Stir from slumber
and strike out at our very
shelter
with fearless violence
seeking
to shatter through
create cracks
Now rays of burning golden
insight
Appear
THE GENTLE ONE
Labouring under massive
ignorance
the poet still manages to
emerge
time and time again to say
the same
less convincingly
It used to flow,
it trickles, as it
splatters on the page
wasting spirit, agitating
the eyes
the bill will be high this
month
If you must pay
for lazy grinning days
when you saunter around
pretending
that half your moments
never happened
these days I could almost
feel whole
if so much of me was not
already up in smoke
what still holds is happy
to be here
improbably so
It seems solutions find
themselves
losing true memories to
recall imagined joy
the hideous mask of
desperate yearning is peeled off
to reveal the ugly but
smiling face of contentment
no never that
never quite that
It could all have gone
differently
thus do I bless and curse
my little days
playing with the children,
smiling, absorbing sun power
while the dreamer who
wanted to be great weeps quietly inside
and the powerful one
pounds the walls in frustrated fury
the gentle one walks again
with soft footsteps and a
hump back
trying to return
THE CRITICAL FACULTY
SPEAKS
Ur kinda creepy
gawky gay gunhold
shut the fuck up you
faggot:
I can sense some criticism
coming.
But if there is one power
the poet has
It is power over words
So weak, so wishful, they
want but
never get
to the heart of it
the object they try to
gnaw at
latch onto, hungry mouths
open
to many possibilities
I am dissembling
I am afraid to embarrass
myself
With honest words of woe
what are they for but to
share?
We deal them back and
forth
to pass and mark time
a game of diversions,
gambling
Our very souls at the
table of posterity
No, you didn’t play
right. It isn’t beautiful enough
Go away.
But with words I somehow
stick
On the page, in the mind,
a mantra
repeating what someone
else said to you
listen, the words are
speaking.
True?
Ah but somehow your weak
words
wont let me go
stapled to my flesh
insterted like pins to
work their voodoo magic
I carry them with me
everywhere
so all can read the signs
Oh great courtroom
Oh many judges and jury
Such skilled shallow
evaluators
knowing for certain what
smacks their faces
and killing what lies
behind and beneath
the sheer force of your
dumbness
numbs the whole of things
so it can be painlessly
butchered
into a simple profitable
set of pork chops.
feed us endlessly
on each others obvious
weaknesses
laugh and place things in
their place
all in their allotted
place
price tags affixed
dead doll eyes flickering
with electronic light
satisfy me
again and again
till I am sated
sitting silently
sulking
that I cannot let myself
dance like you do
to the simple soundtrack
of this stupid world
pouting on the page
I call it poetry.
STRANGE SPIRITS
some of us
merge with the urge,
become the instinct,
thus they will it.
Others
struggle against it
rebels to themselves
they split
and become reflective.
That battle often lost
those voices speaking
words that aren’t quite
you
who replies?
Who acts?
Terrified with no where to
hide
Someone searches for
peace,
while around them
circling, dancing, laughing
strange spirits seek release
THE POET DOUBTS POETRY
If i could only pour my heart out moment to moment, let it flow
evenly and boldly from within to without, let it rise to triumph and
sink to sorrow, feeling fully each instant that it risks everything
and accepts all the costs. No, over the years I have learned a
careful restraint, I could never burden you with my full feelings,
the shame would simply be too great, the wrongness of my rightness
would be offensive to the general mood and to your fine
sensibilities. The weak repress and meekly step in time to the
belches and burps of the strong as they gobble up each sweet emerging
portion of the ever renewing banquet of the future. Oh, I store up my
hearts yearnings to waste here, where no one cares to look or be
cross, where I can be daring and brave against no obstacles, eloquent
with no listeners, strong lifting no weight. This dream world, so
well expressed yet so dead and pointless, has a strange choking air
about it, if one spends too much time growing and admiring secret
flowers of evil in the head's hothouse the scent poisons the soul,
sending it on a reverie of fantastical images and possibilities while
it hurdles unaware towards the jagged rocks of harsh hard despair,
hiding its eyes and dreaming that all is well. All is not well, when
the lurking truth is covered over. All is not well when we pretend.
POEM FOR AN UNKNOWN GIRL
Who can soar with my
spirit
to dreamy imagined heights
Yet also crawl with me
through the dark dirt
of despair and
degradation?
I almost glimpse her from
afar
And as I approach
she recedes towards me
all too real to be my
fantasy.
By day I scheme in bursts
of simple patterns.
By night I float through
a hazy maze bemused
Lost less anxiously than
before,
I still wonder
Will I ever drift up on
her shore?
Me, the castaway, with
little direction
who wastes his love on
ghosts and dreams
And you, the great Artist
that combines beauty and
pity,
the healer who for some
reason
wishes to be adored
by her slowly
strengthening patient
who lives on through
transfusions of her mere presence
I'll forgive you evils,
vanity, stupidity even
If for some reason you let
me
back into that magical
world
of sharp jokes, shared
smiles
and silliness,
If we can be
co-conspirators,
I will scheme desperately
in the attempt
to stop the worlds cruel
march
from trampling our secret garden
WHAT WAS LOST?
I used to search for
significance,
seeing symbols everywhere
pointing the way on some
poetical quest.
But the almost and not
quite
Slowly ate away at my
vision
Leaving me just another
blind wanderer
worshipping the emptiness
he cant quite see.
Trundling between
scholarly castles
slipping between stern
buildings
feet sliding on the wet
snow,
or standing by the old
school,
smoking joints with the
boys,
we get high and play,
pass the day
till days are done,
it was fun
when a warm breeze brushes
your flushed face,
and you feel a bit of heat
from the sun,
you bounce your ball
happily,
then sit in the grass
pretending to be a poet
just letting things pass
Through this world I went
quietly,
smiling and nodding to
those
who smiled and nodded to
me,
And sometimes I cannot
help but feel
sick disgust simmering on
my inner stove
ASEXUAL REPRODUCTION
Like a plant
I sit rooted in place,
with tendrils extended
deep into the earthy soil
of pages and pages of dead
lives
and forgotten stories.
A strange and twisted
stalk
bursts from the ground
straining towards a sky
it will never reach.
Arms wave and legs curl
Yet I never leave my spot,
my destiny, which flows
Around me unbidden
While I look on amazed.
Water rains down, new
thoughts
that I thirstily drink
down.
The golden warmth of the
sun
flows into me and feeds
my starving spirit.
I grow and must give,
I feel ripe with life,
drunk on intoxicating
ideas
nurtured by the shining
good
and rooted in all that
came before.
I must overflow like
Zarathustra,
So I reproduce myself a
thousand times,
and send these spirit
seedlings
adrift on the wind,
wishing
dearly that they find
their way
to you, my love.
I cannot take you and have
you,
Cannot rip myself free of
what I am,
but can I make you laugh,
make that sweetest smile
sparkle in your eyes for
an instant
as a part of me floats past?
ROOT BEER THOUGHTS
Root beer thoughts
burst forth, bubbles of
joy
spontaneous visions of
fine success,
I am adored for my
singular brilliance,
showered with money, my
chest puffs,
my eyes dart haughtily,
I strut across the stage
and bow.
Time to buy that villa
on the cliffs overlooking
the ocean
And furnish it with a
shade
an automaton statue
of a girl I used to love.
Press some buttons and she
smiles and laughs
how could she have doubted
me?
I already forgive her.
Now I can caress cold
metal
locks of shining brown
hair
as we lay on persian rugs
In a high-roofed room
ablaze with crystal light.
magnanimous monarch
of my stupid dream
kingdom.
Parading through the
streets
My mind wanders,
I step off the path
with a wayward golden
shoe.
A puddle of melted candy
cane
was deeper than expected,
the sweet glue sticky,
I started to sink.
My subjects clapped,
smiling
and laughing with solemn
eyes
I struggled, only sinking
deeper,
tasting a horrible
deliciousness
as I choke and cry for
help
drowning in my own
disgusting dreams
DOOMED
Arms akimbo
Painted on smile
the buffoon ambles about
and leaps about flailing
for your grudging
admiration
Your laughter mixed with
private sorrow
For you too jump about,
stretched and contorted
to the sound of gasps and
giggles,
You too perform a
heartfelt dance
of absurd blunders, always
almost understood.
We entertain each other,
scheming up plots
that translate into roles
and scripts,
collecting trinkets and
applause,
awe and admiration even,
for those forced into
tremendous feats.
Curious, we read of them
soldiers storming onwards
courageous, facing bullets
and death
their feet march ever
forwards
with indomitable wills
they command it
All the way forward, to
the sewers of Stalingrad,
starving, dying slowly in
the dark
with the groans of your
comrades around you.
We robbed a grave to eat
fresh dead foetuses to
stay alive in the shadows
while endless gunfire
drones above
freezing cold, what can we
say to you
Who read about us for
entertainment?
Who play our part in
little games
Where it is 10 points for
a kill
and 100 for a killing
spree?
Something more than time
and space
lies between
the spirit splits and
twists
and our little categories
fall away.
Our senses fail
Our minds go blank.
What am I trying to catch?
The monster shreds my
little nets,
tramples my traps and runs
wild.
Disgustingly fat with
swines eyes,
with a million arms and
legs it writhes,
emitting gas chamber death
cries.
With mouths and mouths of
filthy teeth
it rips and sucks at
itself,
rolls about in agony and
erotic ecstasy
secreting the puss and
ooze of
senselessly slaughtered
souls.
Enveloping the earth and
ageless,
I caught a glimpse in my
mirrored shield,
But no hero, I threw down
arms and fled,
to my garden of little
delights,
filled my belly, and
forgot what I saw.
SATED
Belly bursting with beauty
I gobbled down with eyes
ears and mouth
overfed we fatten and grow
greedy,
even sickened by elegant
artifice.
What was that taste
unsweetened?
Never think to ask,
waddle back to the buffet
eat shit and grasp
fierce eyes and cunning
cheeks
as common as everyday
worthless peoples
marvellous feats,
miracles,
performed nightly, they
begin to look the same
I stifle a yawn and
compare resemblances
and lazily wave at my
thoughts
to take form in a concrete
want
so it can be instantly
fulfilled.
Unsatisfied I sip my
ordered drink
It tasted better when I
thought of it.
perhaps a fine
dessert......
LAUGHTER
Friend, I must share
the great gift that has been given back to me
forgotten and now remembered
abandoned and now retrieved
out of no where
out of a skinny man lifting weights and strutting about
out of a shy wanderer walking with lowered eyes
out of the dreams of a hungry poet
popped my old love, with impish face and shining eyes
cackling madly, she gave me a slobbering kiss
I pulled back astounded
and a spasm passed over my forlorn face
I laughed and laughed
doubled over with delight
and in my mind sparkled a holy jewel so bright
the comedy, the joke,
the reverberating glee of it all
the eternal prank, the mocker of the spirit of gravity
the ever giving gift
the inexhaustible subtle and obvious spring
the layers of ridiculousness, the joy
of realizing how hilarious it all is
how epically comical, in every way
See all my sadness
A joke I played on myself
all my silly striving and self sabotage
side splitting
All the people, the puffed up and the self aware
cracking jokes and falling victim
to another's grand wit
the poor laughing at the pompous rich
the rich laughing at the sloppy paupers
the wise mocking fools
and the fools of course responding happily
girls, girls, all dressed up
with looks so grave one wants
to chuck their chin and pat them atop the head
great men so full of pride
destined for the worms
and sick men so full of spite and hate
they look positively reptilian
and above us the Gods
with their intrigues and games and favoured fools
So measure not your money
your strength or your power
but remember all the times you spent
full of mirth, secret and shared
all those times you played a joke on yourself
jokes lasting years
the joke of your birth and death
the joke of your foolish fate
with millions of misunderstandings in between
the joke of forgetting this
and becoming sad again
the joke of writing all this down
as if the page can contain
all the ridiculousness
every moment flowing out of me
suffering always waits
but oh look above
and a paradise opens its gates
