Sullen Oblations at Alien Altars

April 2011 Poem-a-day 1: Narcotic Democracy

2011-04-02T19:56:00.003-05:00

*sigh* I was going to start my April poem-a-day yesterday but I didn't really get to it. And today's poem is rather less-than-good, disjointed and jagged. This is an inauspicious beginning. As the saying goes: I've suffered for my art; now it's your turn.

Narcotic Democracy

Fugitive curs of action,
evading sunshine,
dozing by dumpsters.

When the sneers appear
mocking activity,
we refuse to care.

This legacy of uncivil dialog
leads to dull and insensate
couchlock, an inability
to move, to speak, to envision.

Thus our dreams turn
nightmarish and creepy,
our hopes ashen and lifeless.

Broken by anger, listless
as voices tell and sell
frames, stories, fictions:
winners and losers only.

Unease and unrest
force sleep, insensate
to oligarchic pressure.

Lay the blame
and faint.

© 2011

April Poem-A-Day 25-30: The Goldberg Variations

2009-05-01T23:44:00.003-05:00

(It became obvious that I wasn't going to meet the quota of 30 poems for April so I'm just blatantly cheating and rolling all of the remaining numbers into this one. I considered doing a five part poem as a slightly more honest cheat but this is what came instead. I can't fight the muse.)

The Goldberg Variations

Exordium:
These scenes linked by notes,
inverted melodies,
progressive transposition,
and restated themes.

Primus:
Shaking all over,
tremors of pleasure
shiver us all night.

Secundus:
Rush of novel sensorium
pulling joyous tears
without thought from them.

Tertius:
Cautious signifier
creates distanced retrospect,
separate memories.

Quartus:
Different cities,
several lovers later,
tragic longing hearts.

Quintus:
Bemoaned emotive callus,
raised and broken in
very specific ways.

Sextus:
Recapitulated over
and over, never the same
despite the urgency.

Septimus:
Unexpected whiff of lavender
releases the flood, the sense memory,
the embrace of ranked years.

Octavus:
These substitutions of us,
kindred connected through
proxy ties and alumni bonds.

Nonus:
Contemplation from bridges,
measuring blank distances
from the past to the present.

Decimus:
We no longer live within
reach, the events receding
the details fading slowly.

Undecimus:
I am stuck in emotional
drydock, yearning to see you one
more time among mauve hyacinths.

Duodecimus:
Mementos kept in storage boxes,
decaying shared crumbs left behind,
losing meaning, losing context.

Tertius decimus – Undetriginta:
Et cetera, mon amour.

Triginta:
Regal mishagosh
celebrates analog Isabella.
Attribute community
Gerontion of the eastern gate,
African salvation now.
Liberty devoured by God,
collapse of the western gate.
Gone west, gone west.

Mutans Aria:
Hannibal Lector killed two guards
while the Variations played
in the background.
Are we like him in some way?
Have we murdered our guardians?
Have we escaped yet?
I don’t think we will
until the west light fails.

© 2009, php

----------------
Listening to: 801 - You Really Got Me

April Poem-A-Day 24: Abridged by Bowdler

2009-04-29T23:32:00.002-05:00

Abridged by Bowdler

Marcel said…
…soft incense…
…fall…bright…
roar…calculated.

…assuage you,
…massage you.

…cold from…
seeping…
…rough sighs…

Finally…creep,
…bed of fire…
the…you.

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 23: The monster in retrospect

2009-04-28T19:14:00.004-05:00

This is desperately in need of being edited down to half the size but I've been poking at it for days and I'm a bit sick of it. Too many cutesy alliterations litter it and they should be severely purged. And it loses focus in the last quarter, meandering to a weak end. This illustrates that you can make me write daily poems but you can't make me write well.

The monster in retrospect
Could not stand to fight.

This desire to club him
in the orchard rows
rises from fertile ashes,
the fragrant fruit
bearing sad witness,

There is no romanticizing
this vicious beast ravening:
he lusts for blood,
he brings only pain.
His only goal clear:
a feast of you.

Never let illusion
delude you, blur your
bounds of safe haven.
Never attempt to tame
a fulltime hunter:
he will devour you,
he will consume you whole.

Yet here be a mystery:
unbidden within you,
the dark primordial destroyer
throws off hibernating sleep,
discards the anesthetic cocoon.
Ancestral instinct, inchoate and strong,
bares red teeth, shoulders aside
the civil veneer and does not bide
with endless patience or vain hope.

Facing the monster calls forth
indwelling strands of strength:
forged from generations,
descended through warriors,
crafted by countless survivors.

This transformation,
so resolute, so complete, so awful,
confounds the monster:
prey should never resist,
never turn to face the pursuer,
never turn to act like a hunter.

Then he begins to feel fear
eating into him from the edges,
eating out from his chill grey heart,
melting his cocked confidence,
the vampyr in sunlight.

In that preternatural moment,
his abilities fail,
his power falls away,
his nightmare bounds free.
Chained by surprise,
drained of momentum,
a weak and quaking coward,
toothless and de-clawed.

Now mewling and puling,
the monster abject in defeat,
as if he deserved mercy,
as if he had ever granted mercy.

This is now so clear:
his cravenness was hidden,
his strength an illusion,
a thin façade, scrim sheer.

Now he will gutter,
shunned by stray dogs
repelled by his craven scent.

No longer a strong monster,
merely a pathetic poser
bereft of respect and alone,
surrounded by cannibals.

Monsters make good eating.

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 22: Phantom Tablatures of Rachmaninoff

2009-04-28T01:15:00.003-05:00

Phantom Tablatures of Rachmaninoff

When everything is complicated,
I simplify, diminish, reduce my presence.

Complexity perplexes,
mystifies my simpleton mind.
I struggle to comprehend,
to fit the puzzle together
but I’m left gape-mouthed,
a hint of drool setting off
my vacuous blank eyes.

Sometimes the brain stain
overwhelms me and I strain
to pattern, recapitulating
all the corruptible facets
into child-friendly concepts.

I boggle playfully,
renouncing my soi-disant
haughtiness and expertise
for cool clarity and peace.

When recovered, I build up
my tolerance with slow frenzy
until I revolve and rev furiously,
until the revolution completes
another time, another cycle.

Please use small words,
I am confused.

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 21: Bête Noire

2009-04-25T22:11:00.000-05:00

Who can resist this bête noire?
He shines among us with confidence,
dripping an almost visible ectoplasm
scattered wide in his wake.

Everyone loves him in the moment
and when he leaves, tragedy flowers.
We make plans of resistance,
behind his back, out of his presence,
but the plots dissolve like sugar in hot coffee
when he comes around radiating.

Charisma is a glamour, an infection,
a powerful dumbfounding poison.
The carrier is immune,
the toxin weakening everyone else
the longer they are exposed to it.

Perhaps the time of assassination
draws near, a solemn solution.
We are weak and enthralled,
our eyes empty and cauled,
unable to muster strong will
or determined forward action.

So we admire ourselves to death,
brought low by gleeful glances,
props and promises of per diem wages.
The beast is within us tonight.

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 20: Noam Titus Dawson

2009-04-24T20:48:00.003-05:00

Noam Titus Dawson

You're out on the streets drunk
and pulling around a shopping cart.
Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,
Here grow no damned drugs, here are no storms,
No noise, but silence and eternal sleep…
I don't think anything could be further from the truth.

Unless you've had your heart set on watching Dumbo.

"Tough love" is just the right phrase:
love for the rich and privileged,
tough for everyone else.

And I have been
your sidekick,
your confidant,
your other half
for so long and
that's how our relationship works.

If you quietly accept and go along
no matter what your feelings are,
ultimately you internalize what you're saying,
because it's too hard to believe one thing
and say another.
Because I can not understand
why anyone would choose that kind of life.

I'll find a day to massacre them all,
And raze their faction and their family…

Their moral values are very explicit:
shine the boots of the rich and the powerful,
kick everybody else in the face,
and let your grandchildren pay for it.

You are definitely a mystery.
All this verbal sparring…
is getting a little dangerous.
So we should just go on a date
before someone gets hurt.

Because let me tell you,
they may all live in fear of you,
but I don't.

© 2009, php

The above is not written by me. I merely assembled it. It's a mashup of quotes from Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, Noam Chomsky, and the TV show Dawson's Creek. I drew from the above linked Wikiquote pages the phrases I thought interesting and arranged them with a few line breaks here and there.

I see why people like doing mashups: it requires remarkably little creative talent or inspiration. It's kind of fun though.

April Poem-A-Day 19: Incoherent Notes Towards a Deconstructed Poetic Theory

2009-04-23T19:03:00.001-05:00

Incoherent Notes Towards a Deconstructed Poetic Theory

4: Parallel/pair reality/metaphor
4a: Individual or serial similes

8: Cyclic rhythm through rhyme
8a: Repetition
8b: Syllabic cadence
8c: Breath cadence

15: Internalized personal experience
15a: Character experience

16: Empathic connection
16a: Disconnection
16b: Social juxtaposition
16c: Misanthropy

23: Betrayal and hostility
23a: Self-betrayal

42: Putative redemption
42a: Refusing redemption
42b: Aggressive alienation
42c: Redemptive alienation
42d: Redemption through surrender
42e: Symbolic redemption

NB: Many sections are missing or lost.

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 18: Contractual Obligation Poem

2009-04-23T00:47:00.001-05:00

Contractual Obligation Poem

I made a vow to create/spew
at least a poem a day for April.
(“vow” might be a tad strong
to describe my intent toward
this spastic poetic slaughter.)

I’m dragging behind and
I’m feeling word blind.

No ripe phrases fall
in autumnal waves
from my dry pen.

Be glad I don’t yearn
to create a verbal
Metal Machine Music
on 8-track tape.

I am not a monster.
Not yet at least.

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 17: The Tongue of St. Sister Ray

2009-04-21T21:47:00.002-05:00

The Tongue of St. Sister Ray

A droning electric guitar
soundtracks our grope
in a dark corner booth,
burgundy leatherette under us.
(Ian Curtis should begin stuttering soon.)

I never caught your name
so I call you Sister Ray.

We are twin swales, fogbound
as we share our damp,
subsonic bass riffs.

You pat my cheek
as we part,
call me “sweet”
as smoke cloaks you
in shadow.

Come back, Sister Ray:
we can have another
really good time next Friday.

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 16: In my mind, I write wondrous novels

2009-04-20T23:10:00.001-05:00

In my mind, I write wondrous novels,
complex plots and insightful characters
woven with a sure, deft touch,
polished as old scrimshaw.

In reality, my crude attempts are flawed,
dull, derivative, sloppy, ill-focused.

I sigh with resignation, knowing
I may never gain the ability to overcome
my amateurish and clumsy mauling
of long form tale telling.

So I write poetry:
stories severely abbreviated,
distilled to strobed flashes
of ciphered allusion and image.

Still, I t’aint much of a poet,
more rough, clumsy versifier.
I’m erratic of rhyme and rhythm,
predicable of theme and symbol,
overly obvious of simile,
repetitive of imagery.

Yet I have some skill with words,
informed by a sly wicked humor,
a penchant for self-deprecation
and an eccentric vocabulary.

And I know how to ruthlessly
rip off my literary elders.
Or I ape them with clumsy abandon
might be the more apt description.
(although this surely slights simians,
this comparison to my blunt hackery.)

I sigh, wistful and pensive,
dreaming of epics.

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 15: Wait for me by the river

2009-04-20T15:45:00.001-05:00

Wait for me by the river.

We’ll strip naked and dive
into the powerful waters
to explore and plumb
the secret currents together.

In the eddies we will laugh
at danger while we come down
from the fear adrenaline
ebbing in our shared blood.

I call to you
from the edge of the flood:
Wait for me by the river
so we can swim together.

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 14: The tally complete, her hair down

2009-04-18T20:56:00.004-05:00

The tally complete, her hair down,
She sails no more upon life’s river.

No longer shall she long for love,
Or pine for peace within her head.

These human worries of the flesh,
Now dwell in silence unbroken.

When last seen wandering the shore,
Her smile was radiant and bright.
Her demeanor of calm surety
Spoke of deep contentment and right
Alignment with life’s told purpose,
Little showing her want for more.

Weep not for her, shed no hot tears:
Her sleep is well-deserved and blessed.

© 2009, php

Originally I was going to attempt a speed-written poem, starting with random quote. The following quote came up:

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Shakespeare, Cymbeline, IV.ii.258

The quote reminded me of Ophelia from Hamlet and I immediately discarded the whole speed aspect to focus on the Shakespearean poetic form and style. I didn't end up with perfect execution of the style but it does have some of the flavor of the language and phrasing. Sort of. I'm not much of a classical formalist when it comes to poetry and it shows in the few almost afterthought rhymes. What do you expect? I spent all of 30 minutes on it.

April Poem-A-Day 13: Queequeg ages

2009-04-18T12:54:00.000-05:00

Queequeg ages,
his harpoon bent
his eyes poor
his arm weak.

Something fatal,
something mocking
calls from the deep sea,
searching for his life.

We corrode with him,
dwindling down days
without requite,
alone in our gloaming.

Yet Queequeg lives:
augment to myth,
strong in memory,
touched by love.

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 12: Maledicta

2009-04-17T23:23:00.000-05:00

imprecate, wreak foul language upon heads,
multifarious variations themed, expressed so:

sexuality, incest, gender confusion,
physical inadequacies, sexual dysfunction,
deity, blasphemy, religious contempt, curses,
hygiene, STDs, disease, body parts/wastes,
subnormal intelligence, low social position.

myriad misanthropic topics immediately
resolve into personal insults generally.

(I didn’t mean to say it…
not to your face at least…)

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 11: fragments of her

2009-04-17T20:09:00.001-05:00

fragments of her
lodge near my heart
cocooned in pearlescence
formed and forged
by time tears
of geologic force

wake me

when spring returns
we will dream
innocent again
gentle laughter
shared in the shade
of mausoleums

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 10: The garter snakes will return soon

2009-04-17T13:19:00.000-05:00

The garter snakes will return soon
to bask in the sun,
curled in the new grass.

The dogs are puzzled by
these reptilian creatures;
the serpents smell strange,
move in unmammalian ways.

So I protect the snakes,
shooing the dogs away,
allowing cold blood to warm
as they doze silently.

My blood warms too
in the spring.

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 9: Balls of sound

2009-04-17T00:06:00.001-05:00

Balls of sound
tumble ‘round
my bad brain.

You should not
beat that pot
in my mind.

Terpsichore
glares, in poor
mood tonight.

Take this blight
from my sight
and ears now.

Tongue out taunt.
O, my bad brain.

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 8: Words rarely travel alone

2009-04-15T23:52:00.000-05:00

Words rarely travel alone.

Gangs of them gather:
haughty and sly,
reprobate and coy.

Heed their call,
mingle with rare
sweet etyma,
a revel divine.

Savory mouthfeel
and textural pension
frame and then define.

Tenebrous satiation
lingers betwixt
Greek and Latin forms,
odd linguistic mules
slide into pop culture.

This hard bop riff,
this cool improv,
hot shreds musing.

Sing, slung slang!
Roar, raring rara!
Clap, clear claque!

Word gangs rumble,
so watch your mouth.

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 7: Regret

2009-04-10T12:06:00.001-05:00

Regret
haunts
3am.

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 6: The gift of vengeance

2009-04-08T23:12:00.002-05:00

This is totally unfinished and rough. I found it difficult to stop writing because verses kept tumbling out. I decided to just put it up "as is" despite the flaws since I'm already behind on the poem-a-day thing. Wicked, wicked am I.

The gift of vengeance
flows from her,
a bright burning
touch of art.

Her invisible chord vibrates,
a tremor of Pathos’ lifeline,
and circumstances become
Fateful and malign.

Scales of justice
seek balance,
seek redress,
seed madness.

The fierce itch in him
defies all soothing,
leaves him a wild-eyed
monster for all to see.

Sometimes Vengeance
weaves on the loom
of Justice a pattern,
a cloak of destruction.

Gifted by dreams but
plagued by nightmares,
he can not escape
this certain retribution.

Unmasked tribulation
reaves his soul,
strips his comforts,
repossesses his power.

Her name is terrible and
she is the unflinching mirror
burning with truth,
consuming deception and lies.

Thus he becomes outcast,
banished from civil society,
beset by crows,
deranged by guilt.

Thus consumed from within,
he roils with conflict,
rots from core to skin,
suffers unceasing blight.

This wretch, this violator
of women and children
fragments into madness,
sinks deep into the abyss.

She pursues relentlessly and
nevermore does he find
shelter or refuge,
safe haven or peace.

For his actions and crimes,
he deserves no pity,
no succor and no friends:
loneliness shall consume him.

Her work finished,
he disintegrates,
within and without,
body and spirit.

Her gift is vengeance,
her craft is honed fine.

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 5: The story of Harvey Milk!

2009-04-08T20:10:00.000-05:00

The story of Harvey Milk!
Now without all the nasty rage!

I’m watching Milk
remove anger,
subtract outrage,
reduce community
to a bandwagon
hitched to his star.

It’s as if the “White Nights”
never happened,
as if rioting never bloomed
after Dan White was sentenced
to only seven years
for murdering two people.

(White’s lawyers used
the “Twinkie Defense,”
claiming he had
“diminished capacity”
from eating too much junk food.)

The movie leaves me with
an earnest, almost sexless, man
who single-handedly rallied
apathetic and uninvolved voters
by appealing to Democratic ideals.

This is the mainstream Amerikan
version, a cult of personality biopic
which conveniently leaves out
a decade of community organizing.

Tame the scary homosexuals,
defang the radicals,
pasteurize the milieu
until it’s safe and unthreatening.

Raging queens and dykes
still wait for justice.
Don’t be surprised if
a brick in a handbag
is a stylish accessory
when fighting begins.

Depend on it.

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 4: alliterative theme

2009-04-04T13:23:00.001-05:00

alliterative theme
situational description
sibilant adverb/noun combo
allusive image
alliterative theme rhyme

simple chorus

restate theme
crisis

complex chorus

resolution

ironic coda/close

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 3: We mark these searing days

2009-04-03T17:26:00.002-05:00

After starting a day late, I had to add another poem to bring me up to day three. I'm finding it interesting how much I've forgotten about writing poetry. And each poem is like a newly discovered piece of myself, waiting and wanting. It's fun.

We mark these searing days
with water spilled, dripping
from soaked t-shirts,
freshlets spidering
thighs and ankles.

Dawn finds us
daring the world,
epipens abandoned
as if we no longer needed them.

Burning grass smoke
hazed vision,
slipped between the trees,
faintly scenting our hair.

The dogs are quiet now.

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 2: crack crack Miribelle

2009-04-03T12:27:00.001-05:00

crack crack Miribelle
return happy days
again

potent portents
foretell sorrow
(cf auto da fé)
in spades

here mockers
demean your past
revisit your flaws

strong strong Miribelle
let these incidentals
slide away

© 2009, php

April Poem-A-Day 1: Moribund

2009-04-02T21:43:00.006-05:00

Late to the party as usual, I guess April is National Poetry Writing Month and some people are writing a poem a day for the month. I might do this but I have lots of other things to do. Well, here's one with a cheery theme.

Moribund

Artifice styles itself primary,
a clever disguise fooling many,
cloaking social decay;
the reek masked by perfume.

We buy the modernity,
the speed and the adrenaline
dazzling us with junkie passion,
while we devolve in ecstasy.

When the fire consumes,
when the sensual burn numbs,
what misshapen beast slouches
from shadows to bleat in confusion?

Blinded by bling,
halt by blows,
dumb by babble.

No sanctuary can hide,
no shield can hold at bay
these rending forces,
whirling and ravenous.

Sound and fury
signifying
signs of the times,
and soft ground.

These are the demands,
these are the mouths
gathering ‘round, hunger
plain and naked.

This is our social contract:
serve as a serf,
a polite whip poised and
a plastic carrot dangled.

This is our cannibal contract:
devouring each other
at the behest of secret kings,
never sated, never sated.

© 2009, php

Revisions of Terror

2006-02-04T23:18:00.000-05:00

[A current little ditty from tonight. Sometimes a phrase will spring into my mind with unshakeable persistence. Thank whatever dieties it isn't an advertising jingle. The obvious interpretation, for me, is the political uses of terrorism by those in power, capitalizing on the fear of it. Most amusing phrase to me: Manifestos of destiny, a heavy play on "manifest destiny." I'm not always smart but I entertain myself by trying to be clever.]

Revisions of Terror

Revisions of terror
Push us, proclamations
Use us, a political
Declaration neverending.

Manifestos of destiny
Given to rally crowds,
Party favors in favor.

Restricted grounds today,
Constricted by dictate.

Slow reveal, of prison
Façade, of fallen liberty.

This dark corrosion
Sustains darker impulses.

February 4, 2006

© 2006, wordlackey for php

Attrition

2006-01-31T23:22:00.000-05:00

Another angst-ridden poem about flawed relationships. Tiring, isn't it? The details change but the essence stays basically the same. New metaphor, same old shit. Why post it? Because I'm bored tonight and not up to writing something original. Although I have to say, if something like this is going to be part of my oeuvre, it's certainly a goad and motivation to write something better. I mean, four years out of high school and this is what I considered worth polishing up for publication? As the saying goes, it has a certain naive charm... But, really.

Attrition

we never showed the slightest discomfort
about the way things went wrong at the end.
no one really believed our straight faces.

we read the book together but when we neared
the end of the story, you sped up because you
were the faster reader and i lost the joy
of the plot as it reached a climax.

a matter of time:
the pages full of words i
needed to look up, but you
didn't have time for that.
you shed no tears:
after the heroine died upon reaching
her heart's desire, you sneered
openly at the blatant fiction.
no second chance:
you knew it was all a lie and
no woman lives in a perfect world
where she reaches an ultimate goal.
only too well:
the cards were marked from the
beginning, and only some know how
to read them and their secrets.

my heart fractured but you had set yours
in concrete to save it from sledgehammers.
you never felt the feather's touch.

August, 1980

©2006, wordlackey for php

The Mutant Shrine

2006-01-26T00:52:00.000-05:00

An attempt to describe a punkish attitude. Despite what it sounds like, I did not intend "fire that burns coldly in hard veins" to refer to heroin or any drug. I was trying to contrast the celebratory and worshipful inebriation of ancient bacchanals with a quite different kind of modern worship. (We'll leave the whole somewhat related "Dionysus and the Maenads who tear him to pieces" thing aside.)

I regret not working harder with the cadences and rhythms within the lines of the poem. Pity. However I adore the last two lines and they way they distill (sorry) what I was getting at. They aren't perfect but I like them. Note my affected and conscious use of the spelling of "compleatly." Funny, huh? Even funnier is the anachronistic use of hogsheads to describe where the bacchanals got their wine. In Greece during that time, I believe they would have used amphorae to store wine. Let's just chalk it up to artistic license rather than ignorance, OK? "Dammit, Jim! I'm a poet, not a historian!"

The Mutant Shrine

The youth eternally within drunken awareness,
happily singing with the grape vines
Growing in abundance and hogsheads that never
entirely empty, never compleatly drain.

In the hills of Naxos, Bacchus reveled
with the ardent followers of his creed,
Celebrating fervently the coming of the full moon,
toasting happily with worldly certainty.

In the streets and alleys of the city, young
bacchanals perform different rites;
Death in their eyes, they imbibe not of wine
but of fire that burns coldly in hard veins.

No laughter echoes in the darkness of the alley
encasing the votaries who have forgotten
The name of their deity, and they hiss loudly
in the silence surrounding them.

They chant: All the gods are mutants,
deviants howling and hawking their wares;
We are the defiant and the hating,
and our love can kill the gods.

March, 1979

©2006, wordlacky for php

Reflections in a Fun House Mirror

2006-01-24T23:57:00.000-05:00

[An example of my stream of consciousness prose/poetry. At the time, I would often use this writing style as a Rorschach to find out what was bubbling under the surface of my mind. Sort of a psychological diagnostic I did on myself. On occasion, it became less an inner roadmap and more a cohesive (in my subjective opinion) stand alone piece. This was one such.

I’m amused to note my early media criticism woven into this as well. The tone of cynical idealism is ill-fitting but, hey, I've never claimed perfection of vision or execution for my poetry. I was just trying to express something almost nonverbal so I tried to bend the language and form to suit the attempt. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

As may be obvious, not everything I'm posting here I would consider my best work. I decided to scan in some of my old "finished" poetry and, as the spirit moves me, I post a piece with some commentary. I feel even my failures are worth at least a cursory dissection and analysis from my vantage point decades later.

So why do it in public? Do I crave humiliation and brickbats? Am I looking for applause and admiration? I don't think any of those apply but I'm not certain. I note that I'm doing more of this while at the same time letting my more political blog DemiOrator relax a little. The rigors of critical thought are often tiring for me. Poetry, even just reading and posting it, engages other parts of my mind. Even though it is language, in my poetic process I use rhythm, visual and auditory maps, pattern creation, et cetera. It's relaxing for me. I feel at ease with creating and processing these verbal constructs, much more so than strictly linear writing and thought. It's a hobby, my fun and games. I'm sharing it here because I find it amusing and hope someone else might find it so.

And if you're offended by some of my words, I might suggest you look elsewhere for your Hallmark Moments™. I am unlikely to describe them here.]

Reflections in a Fun House Mirror
(or: civilization as a sadosexual oral fixation)

jacked off/up revved up motor/morals revolving rotating faster faster shift into another gear into another level of status pyramid levels building higher and higher (the fourth estate watches) clinging to a vision of the right world of a utopian reality badlands never see daylight (the fourth estate knows) kept hidden on darkroom floors they (the dystopian badlands) are limited to real victims not the cameras microphones and subtle editing room mechanics (society erodes and i only laugh) who do not want to see bodies pumped full of bullets or the insides of jail cells or raped women (out of sight out of mind) tasting the real world and excising nauseous parts to make it more palatable/bland and lacking exciting tastes repetition dulling visions/dreams (forgetting) the savoury tang from licking idealistic cunts and cocks (forgotten) the liquor of regeneration...

...i swallowed my pureblood purebred visions some time ago not being able to take the schism created with reality but it didn't seem to change anything (the heartless still chew on the skin and bones of the helpless and vampyrize my soul...)

(...thrust rip skip-to-my-lou darling dangling jugular)(waiting for attachment...)

waiting,

inarticulate screaming;

can you understand the wordless sound?
did you even hear it?

(people are dying of starvation,
(right now, close to where you live
(and all over the world...)

why don't you eat them?
everyone else seems to...

June, 1978

© 2006, wordlackey for php

Mystery Achievements in Conversation

2006-01-17T14:14:00.000-05:00

[This poem traveled a different path than many of my poems. Generally, my poetry is written in a single session. Oh, I revise them and clean them up later but major re-writing is rare for me. Usually revision is mostly adjusting lines, punctuation, changing phrasing, eliminating words, etc. This poem started out about a third the finished size below and was originally titled "When We Talked" in January, 1980. Somehow in the course of revision it grew substantially.

The use of short phrases to introduce several lines of related imagery was typical of my poem structure of the time. Although I understood more traditional poetry forms and structures at the time, I had little patience for using them. I preferred to essentially create forms for the individual poems that represented (to my mind) something specific about the content or subject. There were some self-constructed forms I reused often. Sometimes the form was not in the physical construction or placement of lines but internal rhythms and sounds within the wording and phrasing itself. Sometimes this would take the form of internal rhymes but more often it was patterned sounds within the text. Note also my use of the British spelling of "colour." I have these affectations...

As I've mentioned often here, the printed version of the poem in this blog does not contain the original indents or form. The scan above, while difficult to read, at least gives an idea of the original format. I'm resigned to the fact I won't be able to reproduce some of my more visually complex poems here. I haven't even made the rudimentary effort on the poem below because it's just such a compromise, I'd rather leave it plain and simple. ]

Mystery Achievements in Conversation

let them go:
the private lies twitching in the dark
of deepshaded thoughts in candlelit
cafes along the serpentine river.
the retribution:
feeding on society's garbage to find
that even burning bushes burn to cinders.
the dawning realization:
of hidden traumas coming to a
blackwhite surface in soft style.
give it to me:
the plane flying close to the tops
of waves cresting in the middle of
the pacific ocean, and we watch.
all leaders will be tall and brave:
better start thinking of alternatives
since the yellow pictures we hold of each
other are fading fast in the light.
dream all night long:
the stars shining down on
the flaming towers along the
turnpike, the nightland showing
its scarred and longing face.
can you hear me:
the car flaming as it hits the gas pumps
billowing flames blowing across the black
night sky, blotting out the stars.
laughing goals:
dreams just like everyone else here,
but they are so out of reach when
the daylight glare evaporates them.
they were such small lies:
the telling of false accomplishments
and singular encounters with bare
luminaries and incandescent suns.
could we speak:
only in tongues incomprehensible
to one another, using reference points
invisible to our individual cultures.
we knew nothing of each other:
only the victorian facades presented
in colours of our halcyon days muted by
the present and shuttered very tightly.
smooth wonderment:
mysterious communication of senseless
bodies beginning to feel and search out
the vaguely perceived achievement.
could we walk across the water:
the oil hot and consuming between us
claiming the right of holding us apart
but once, once we talked about it.
i hear the call:
quavering and faint across
the waters deep and inhabited by
creatures who understand the urge,
and they are silent when we swim.

January, 1980
©2006 wordlackey for php

Early Morning Credo

2006-01-16T15:11:00.000-05:00

[A moody little piece of poetry, it seems more like an attempt at creating atmosphere than anything else. This also came out of the same romantic explosion/disaster mentioned in other posts, notably Broken Utterly (e.g., self-pity) and Napoleon's Russian Offensive. While those two poems reek of personal chaos and wild emotional thrashing, this one is calm and meditative by comparison.]

Early Morning: Credo
(or: Magic is not Enough)

i was talking with you again after all
the bars had closed down for the silken night
the words shooting splinters between us
the philtre type words i tried to use
had no power and fell behind us

strange chords vibrated in the air
eked out on the wall in #2 pencil
as we continued our beloved dialectic
on emotional definition and the meaning
of heartblood pumping strongly

dead poppies on the corner as we
slide past our conversation halted
in reverence the moment of silence
extending for five blocks as we
inhale the fragrance of their essence

all the centuries call out like
ophelia from the slick river surface
speaking to us on the length of
endurance magnified by the present
dead and just flotsam on the top

i believed talking could alleviate
the triphammer tension mounting in
our souls but only fools count on
anything and i should have known
we were in deep up to our weak necks

you wouldn't look into my face
and my hands twisted mindlessly
as we strode making their own
eloquent statements very querulously
telling of the yearning of the heart

our dreams lost in the first sunrays
as we come to the front door of the apartment
we enter and the sun blinds us through
the picture window looking over the city
we gaze at each other for a moment quietly

we retire still not understanding

March, 1980
©2006 wordlackey for php

City Night

2006-01-14T23:33:00.000-05:00

An early example (1977) of my stream of consciousness poetry. And, no, I have no idea what the hell I was doing with the punctuation in this. Perhaps I was using them in the older fashion, as pauses for reading aloud. I just don't remember but it's kinda strange.

I was rather enamoured with using slashes to combine words in odd ways. "Para/fables" is, I think, a grafting of parable and fables with the additional use of para meaning to the side of or along side of.

When I look at it now, it reminds me of a rap lyric. Not when I wrote it but there are flowing rhymes and rhythms throughout and a bit of lyrical sensibility. Obviously neither the content nor the vocabulary is "rap" as we know it today. And I have the fairly widespread white boy musical disability: total lack of musical rhythm. But word rhythm is something else, I can do that. When I read it aloud, even I, beat deaf cripple that I am, can find a pulse to it.

City Night

High pressure elation shooting

from the tips of pain-encrusted

nerves toward the silent and endless,

(mouthing syllables of lost distance)

emerging from para/fables

crooning their own versions of night

in a lustful craze that burns,

burns elves as if they were fagots

distilled from a different substance

(apollo in antitonal) visions seems

mirthless and without poesy...

sigh draws nigh unto completion

encased in competition,

enclosed in a deep dark city sensation,

pins stab in flickering neon,

irresistible flow of millions as one

rarefied and diversified entity

pushpulling pleasure and pain thru sieves;

gyrating madly and noisily there,

here in a/the centre of far flung sadness,

happiness yet floats a banner:

singles, couples, groups, the whole: kinship

of one for another, miracle rated (ranted),

communicationslanted, bantered offhandedly,

horror binds/winds fear/intoxication,

discounted hopes on sale (by mail),

scandals prattle everywhere in scores,

outraged public mores (they cry: more!),

too downed out to listen (vitamin-Q),

too upped to stop (caffeine on the brain),

(question: what/when/how is sane

relative to anthill city life?)

the hill is a razor sharp knife;

not occam's razor, for how do

you define these variables?

(the razor has serrated edges.)

October 1977
©2006 wordlackey for php

Broken Utterly (e.g., self-pity)

2006-01-13T18:25:00.001-05:00

[Just another in a seemingly endless series of poems during the period about heartbreak and self-recrimination. A redeeming feature in this example, in my mind, is there seems to be more than a hint of humor and an awareness of how these feelings are very commonplace as relationships end. As the saying goes, I got over it.

Once again I run up against the formatting limitations of Blogger. Lines of the third verse were indented somewhat differently in the original. These difficulties in reproducing the form I originally envisioned is affecting my choices of which poems I'm putting here. I'm tending to avoid those with complex levels of indenting. I think that's a shame because some of those poems are also more complex in structure because of these visual cues. That's my opinion.]

Broken Utterly (e.g., self-pity)

tell me once again
can't hear you
the bloody movement of hands
deep in warm entrails
savage glee, the talons rip
thrust thru the surface of
the best things in the world
things you can’t find
in darkness
want to be kind
snarl out the syllables
in mean violet tones of pain
maddened creature struggling

tell me once again
i'11 shout it out
without any thought
sad confusion
never wanted to love
never asked for this
it comes demonshape spastic
flailing limbs of victims
such a scandal
such an event
so nothing
all zeros drawn on
a deepblue backdrop
more pain
more dogs

torn out the heart beats slowly pulsing

game of catch as catch can played very intensely

dropped cold in the grey dust

shiny shoes step lightly on dead muscle

with no strength left to contract

tell me once again
intimacy can kill
maybe i'll believe you
this time
the fragments of antipersonnel
weapons screaming in the air
filling walking forms
to the brim
trapped by the situation
the buzzing combat flies
barred from the continuum
a real flair
for this destiny
a triumph of some weakness
taken in years ago
on voyages without number
to lands without names
it could happen to you

March, 1980
©2006 wordlackey for php

Scopolamine Lecture: Prolix

2006-01-11T22:48:00.000-05:00

[I seem to be annotating these poems as I'm posting them. A little context, a little storytelling help me feel like this isn't just an exercise of living in the past. I also think it's the nervous chatter of embarrassment.

As I've said before, many of these older poems are emotionally strange for me now. I admit I have trouble telling how meaningful they might be to other people. I see the patterns, the underlying references, but I don't know if other people can see them. The problem with my poetry is that I'm often busy expounding on my personal mythology and touchstones, rather than attempting to adjust to the sensibility of the outside reader. Like dreams, my poetry has often functioned as my way of sorting out my thoughts and emotions. I suspect much of it comes across as quite cryptic and/or shockingly graphic.

I advise readers to approach my poems like bits of fiction. I often write about situations and characters which are completely imaginary and often surreal. It would be a mistake to read too much of my personality into them.

This brings me to the following poem. I'm a little unsure of the date but probably 1981-82. The tone may come across as callous yet strangely light. Often the key to my poems is the title. The title will provide a setup. Another way to look at it is the poem is a dictionary entry. The title will be the word entry of a dictionary and the poem as a whole will be the definition. Or maybe that's bull.

There's a saying that writers are liars. I talk about getting to some underlying truth but mostly I puts the pretty words together. Shiny, shiny! Oh, sad! Angry! All of this and more. (grin)]

Scopolamine Lecture: Prolix

laughing as we found you broken on the beach
like an unstuffed doll, spewing forth ocean smells
with a slight whiff of rancid grease on your breasts.
you were such a good dancer at one time,
connecting discontinuous images into stories
hewn like almost-forever in our memories.

i once felt your hot touch on my neck when
we were both warm bodies in the sunshine.
the picnic had been finished for some time
as we read sections from giraudoux's electra
while sipping wine with a very full body.
we might have made love that afternoon
but for our talking about it.

there is a gnarled tree overhanging the gully
where a stream sometimes flows and you once sat.
the ravine was dry the day we all went
to visit it in honour of your viscous memory.
we stood next to the tree recalling your face and,
giggling gleefully, we pushed it into the gully.

i remember asking you one evening why you
had never blown dandelions across the fields.
you looked at me with eyes mascara dark and
said: 'who am i to preempt the blowing winds?
they have their uses as i have my own.'
i asked you what function you fulfilled and
your eyes left me, fleeing into the green distance.

we couldn't help applauding when
you finally resurrected, taking
half bows with a curious smile.
i saw deep in your eyes
a gleam of faraway lands i
was destined never to see,
and my heart shattered.

© 2006 wordlackey for php

Thyestean (or, how I named this blog)

2006-01-10T00:26:00.000-05:00

[I named this blog after the last lines of this poem. Thyestean means cannibal. Some cultures speak of the "divine madness" of poets. This poem is reflective of that tradition. Or perhaps it's a piece of "performance art." You decide.

In the early 1980s, I actually put together a poetry manuscript under the title "Sullen Oblations at Alien Altars". It never really went anywhere. Oh, I think I submitted it to the "Alice James" (?) poetry award but it was unsuited to their needs. It's been gathering dust since. Putting some of those poems up here is my way of reclaiming them and trying to reconnect with my somewhat stunted creative energies. Many of them are flawed from my current perspective but I'm putting them up without editing. It's embarrassing but very interesting to me to see how my mind worked at the time.

I always wanted to write fiction but lacked the discipline or skill to adequately flesh out a story. In my poetry of this time, I see character sketches and suggestions of fuller stories. I'm starting to look at those aspects as a positive thing rather than a failure of my fiction writing. Whatever.]

Thyestean

never knew whence came the word
thurl served with flourishes
and sly smiles cast knowingly.

new mad poets throw their
newest creations out the window,
constructs of possible paths
leading from the crux splaying out
spiderthread trails through their minds.

One particular word toyer took
the poems from his typewriter
and ate them, phrase by phrase,
as soon as they were finished,
the tastes satiating him alone.

the feast done,
no dieties castigated him
as he performed yet
another sullen oblation
at their alien altars.

November, 1981
© 2006, wordlackey for php

The Gone World Being Really Gone

2006-01-09T23:46:00.000-05:00

[A rather less-than-impressive meditation on the influence of the Beat poets on Punk Rock with slight reference to the 1960s counterculture. I consider this an interesting failure. The last line is obviously and embarrassingly ripped off from a Harlan Ellison short story named "Croatoan". And, of course, the blatant use of the beginning of Ginsberg's "Howl" in the third verse. It's not plagarism, it's an homage. Right. I did this sort of thing fairly often in my poems of this period. If you think you recognize fragments of music lyrics in other poems here, you're probably right. I like to think these are referential rather than plagarism. I rarely used more than a few words or a phrase at a time so I think I'm safe from being sued. I think.]

The Gone World Being Really Gone

pictures of the gone world by lawrence ferlinghetti
was once within my grasp, my caressing possession
the fleeting flutter of beat beat beat images
drifting singing thru my pores and becoming
passion in union with my lazy flesh holding
conference with floating matrices of my mind

soon i will sell even allen ginsberg's empty mirror
and it will be gone gone gone into the past and shot
apart by infidels who cannot dig the importance
of eating to the beat beat beat language of poets
who understood and practiced another modal scale

i saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging their
fear-ridden bodies through alleys ill-lit in search
of love lost ten years ago before they even knew
what they were looking for with their angry minds

too precious for words and savaged by thoughts of
selling their bodies just to make the bread to buy
a meal on the neon streets in some burgerking or
another allnite joint selling an american dream
very cheaply to satisfy a grasping hand reaching

sweetheart, have you seen them running wild as
they pushed safetypins into already bloodshot eyes
to show how little they care for the world they
love so strongly they must take downs to insulate
them from the ironhard embrace it offers seductively

space invaders and punks reeling in the streets
in the hope of realization of the glory of it all
waiting for something clean to come their strange way
hurting and hungry as they reach for the throats
of the controllers manipulating them in pure wonder

who sneered with passion at all who showed any
passion and ripped their guts out in bars to
spill the heavy beat emotion out in a form real
and solid in the silence encased in the city
in waves of pristine feeling and ultimate understanding

can you hear them full of grace in the nighthome
beat beat beating drums and hearts full of cynical
thought because of the dreams forced upon them
with many complications and neverelevant decisions
do you hear them lawrence they call you father

February, 1980
© 2006, wordlackey for php

Whine of the Wordlackey

2006-01-09T22:14:00.000-05:00

If I had better CSS skills, I'm sure I could adjust the indenting. I'm having a little trouble figuring out which paragraph bits apply to the blockquotes and which to the main paragraph styles. There's definitely a "margin" setting I'm missing somewhere. I'm just pissed that there's no easy or obvious method of creating a poetry format I can use. It severely limits my ability to reproduce the poems in their original form. Bah!

If you have any tips for solving this quandry, please leave me a comment.

Napoleon's Russian Offensive

2006-01-09T19:48:00.000-05:00

[The following is undated but was probably originally written in the spring of 1980. A cheery little thing about miscommunication between lovers. It's certainly not based on personal experience and my two and a half years of celibacy following ~~the alleged incident~~, uh, the writing of the poem is purely coincidental.

Once again, I am unable to reproduce the formatting of the original. When I orginally composed on an electric typewriter, the visual impression of the indents for different lines in relation to each other was an integral part of the poem. I tried putting in repeated &nbs-p (without the hyphen) to approximate the tabular effect but apparently Blogger doesn't really like that and gets rid of them. It could be that Blogger just doesn't like the form of my poetry unless I alter the basic template in some way. I'll poke around to see if there is something I can do about it.]

[Update: I've managed to jigger the blockquote to work to indent lines without it looking horrible. However I'm still left with the problem of needing to indent several different levels (approximately four) to satisfy my formatting requirements. The template pretty much only has two paragraph styles I can apply within a post: a normal paragraph and a blockquote paragraph. As far as I can tell, this is a limitation within Blogger's built-in editor. I've tried posting from MS Word (it's a little Blogger program) and the formatting worked briefly but then Blogger's editor stripped out the indents. 'tis a puzzlement. This is all maddenly kludgy. I may leave it alone for the moment.]

Napoleon's Russian Offensive

you wanna hear the objective view?
got a few weeks of spare time?'

transmission garbled by the negligent receiver
don't want to hear it coming
through cold air loud and clear
such a wretched action
hit by a truck, alone at the intersection
I’m just fucked over
and stuck with the groans evoked
veins bulging within my head
blackmailed by sad emotional movements
my honest travesty
the whine of self-castigation
half undressed and pitiful
in the darkness on my soul
i am that

watching for some form of self-respect
certainly not developing in the near future
don't whimper it again
i heard you before in feedback
kick back the hurt and stop sobbing
before i convulse with revulsion
there's no winning in this
parasitic situation growing strong
feeding on the feelings, tumorous
shut my eyes and lose all grace
as i lie to myself with
soapopera sentimental gestures
in guilt and negation of the previous
stupidity so contemptuous

i once called it trust but
it has changed to mere fumbling
in the dark, wanting to appear special
how trite we aspire to be
snowflakes fluttering
sleep in almost intimate happiness
only to become fools dreaming
of the stars in the sky
i don't want to see what you mean
because it oppresses me
when i grasp the actual meaning
I’ll never feel as if i know
exactly what you're saying
the night obscuring the winter brightness

I’m sickened in the violent moment,
consumed totally by the strict demands

© 2005, wordlackey for php

Juvenilia: Tyrannopolis

2005-04-20T21:38:00.000-05:00

[Ah, to be young and full of spunk! In the spring of 1978, I was living on Beacon Street in Boston's Back Bay and attempting to piece together a cohesive poem cycle on the living decay of large cities. I had fire but, alas, not so much focus. As much as I want to edit the hell out of it now, I'm just going to present it in its awful form from that time period. Actually I don't think editing would help. The wording, form, presentation, and the balls out, full steam ahead character of it would complicate editing. A re-write would probably just drain the life out of it. I think it could easily benefit by cutting half of it. Naw, I have to acknowledge it is a beast unto itself, a product of my early attempts to express something in a unique way. Unique, sure. Ha. There's a reason I'm calling this crap juvenilia. --wordlackey]

[Erg, having a little problem with the formatting here. Every other line starting with the second line should be indented. I was able to do this with the whole third section by using blockquote. For individual lines, not very viable. I'll work on it. My HTML skills are rudimentary.]
--------------------------------------------

Tyrannopolis: Hard Line

It starts with the word scream

in hell lost in self-screaming

and there is no possible way understanding

can open a path for screams

solidly frozen in space

never to hear/treasure anyone

on the path of one alone onealone

without the respite of reassurance and intimacy

needed for the psychical balm it gives

hypnotized by carresses allalone and sorry.

In its clutches

ripped off egofeelings

hope crushed and without faith

to have faith in humanity

is the repeating pattern silently rippingoff feelings

by society demands societydemands

and the whole world is black

nightblack engulfing smothering darkness

of notalk nocommunication nounderstanding

of one for another crying among society pylons

rebuffing the emaciated lovers of tenderness

and stressing the impersonal redlights

flashing in the perpetual emergency night

the state of the emergency art

meeting the deepshadowed one once again

while turning a fog shrouded corner

and the straining of tired heartstrings

separated from everything people can offer

and take terminal take ripoff of energy

hate taking from all...

(dragging through prismspectrum of hate/distrust

(all the same don't touch don't talk don't feel

(remorse do what youmust to survive to kill

(all threats against bodypsyche attack all pain

(fetter all bind all threats get away from me

(strike dead help hit help killhelp fright strike

(out blindly at all help egopowercentre shall

(kill threats blow away threats neverend sight

(sound of all coming for paranoia afraid stranger

(kill power over environment to fear all go away

(from me damn you asshole bumping me kill you

(bastard sonofabitchfaggotpissing threat to

(egopower shit son of mutated reptile offal

(touching me shit bash your face all over the

(ground you goddamn shitforbrains asshole...)

An ever crouching coward of tyrannopolis

society problem thing of a misbegotten hopefear

death and torture which we all have in common.

Part of you is dying in the city

for the hopes you once had

and now there is no compromise

you must meet the city on its own grounds

of hatefear gasp last breath on the steps

of this cathedral dedicated to death

dedicated to noescape from all the pain

in the cityhate comes the end of the revolution

and feeling helplessness creep over you

for the dearth of any gibbering sanity

straining hope spending itself in the citynight

deathnight of the city killing all in its path

reach out and tough cityskin hits you

with its callousness

the closer connection of hate breathing

through your pores selfdenial of all hope

for the nightblack city is only for the hopeless

try to understand hate and it destroys you

with the citysoul feeling of hate

strangling suffocating you in the night

and then performing a twisted act of mouthtomouth

resuscitation on the remaining husk

to create an artificial semblance of life

which is possessed and controlled by the night

and the night belongs to the city

breathing its hate into you.

There is nohope for survival intimacy here

drink to escape but it is there

in the shadows

in the morning too hating for words

too overt for forgetfulness

the deathdealing machine known as the city

breeding hatred for all enough hate for all

to share in egohate always

to share in the common tyranny

so hatelove it or leave it.

Sorrow in Gehenna

2005-04-16T22:04:00.000-05:00

Dark hot winds carress withering flesh,
Soul contortions across the map, breathless
From every breeze, from every atrocity.

Who saves countries from the failings of empire?
Who provides the crippled larks with healing shelter?
Who will slaughter the patriots, free the wage-slaves?

Not the wicked piper singing hosannahs between verses,
Not the eager whipwielder sharing a passion for pain,
Not the sly seller of dreams stripping still living bodies.

There’s a hero but he’s busy in an alley getting a handjob.
There’s a stalwart but he’s grown stout with soft living.
There’s a jerk who’s perfect, he doesn’t care at all.

It’s a new morning where late the sweet birds sang,
It’s a glory train going over a trembling trestle,
It’s a righteous blade, consecrated, thirsty, bare.

Half-lidded eyes devour sere fields without mercy,
Drinking in the sundew remaining on the stubble,
Sustaining on pain, fear and induced corruption.

Do not weep for the wounded heart of the body politic,
Do not loose anger randomly in frustrated bursts,
Do not harrow barren fields nor water the lifeless dust.

Stoke these fires, bank the embers, prepare the wood.
Turn the wheel and do not look away:
The mystery is not in what has been lost,
It is in what will grow in the empty places.

November 5, 2004
© 2005, wordlackey for php

Sheltering Sadness

2005-04-16T21:40:00.000-05:00

Calls running down the line from the past,
Epitomized, without eulogy, by the scent
Of dry grass summer days.

Cement so hot feet are burned through the
Thin soles of worn brown shoes padded out
With yesterday’s newspaper.

The framing of we in the country of silence,
A shared alliance against loneliness, a suture
In preparation for colonial imperialism.

Could we shy away? Would we prevaricate
In dulcet tomes? Should we read this sortie
As remedial or rectification? Reification?

There is a stamp of sad bemusement about us,
Stolen participation leaving voids of consent
Where we sing paeans to a false history.

Can we replace tear-filled byes with shock and paw?
A mauling we requested without knowledge, yet
Offering withered fruit on the vine in tribute.

Snarling anger lashes, contempt so present and
Palpable it’s a organism living beyond its origins,
Rising metaphor creating the new rhetor.

No shelter remains viable, the erosion of complacent
Idylls leaves only firebrands ascendant and joyous,
Renewed through blood and such special fire.

These flames are dark, birthplace of broken glass
On night sidewalks, torches refracted by shards in
Pools of liquid so black, cooling in the moonlight.

We were told and told and still we forgot:
Fascism isn’t the boot in your face;
It’s the boot in the face next to you.

August 18, 2004
© 2005, wordlackey

Gassing Temptation

2005-04-13T22:17:00.000-05:00

All right, there’s no control and no lead to believe in,
Au currant contagion could be the reason for seething
Emotional sparks spraying out from a shuttered room,
A collective stutter racks bodies of facile conviction.
Gone to weed, wild growth of clever entendre shot
Across select bows for cheap access to schemes
Unfilled, unstilled by manipulating fingers, probing all
With a ravenous and rapacious will to conquer.

Looking for condemnation and a sickly sense of history
Culling and calling us to submit to Oedipus and Franco,
Dictators of will and not, abrogating an abomination shared
For the warm feeling of emotional fascism brought forth.
All the care patriots take care, strangling the public discourse,
Drowning it like kittens in the self-polluted river we collectively
Piss into, barking our opinions loudly and braying laughter
Convulsively, almost faking at real need, almost really needing.

There’s a hulking father-figure adding it all up, doling out
Kicks and cuffs and limitations with indiscriminate passion,
Cashing the checks and checking every move for transgression,
Drooling with slack eyes drifting, looking for every bad son.

Suck up to the creep,
Let him f--k the sheep
If it’ll keep him busy,
Keep him stuck in a rut.
Don’t laugh at the clown
Who mercilessly kills souls,
Claiming higher ground
With snide sardonic simpers.

Karma doesn’t kick in fast enough to balance these crusted scales,
These night sweats of induced fear, a patriarchal legacy smothering,
Stealing even the shallow breaths from the silent son’s dreams,
This parade of failed revolutions, this required shroud of weeping.
Thus rage kicks in, a white hot need for justice pounding temples,
Bursting out hard and brilliant, no requiem sung for sorrows past.
Revenge is not always best served cold; sometimes the very heat
Of the moment can thaw a frozen core, releasing feelings at last.

August, 2004
© 2005, wordlackey

Griffin Smile

2005-04-13T21:54:00.000-05:00

This codex gives meaning to cryptomorphs hanging around
Selling their legacy for pocket change, hocking the future.
Chorus of damage claims uncertainty, reprehensible and wise
Beyond years in verse, successively victorious in deed.

Prattle down the years while sharing a ride back from the demo
In conversation, a thick intimacy, a pall of blue cigarette smoke
Hanging, these shrouding gestures part of covert operations
Between natural allies, a pact of fortunate suggestion indeed.

Hawkers of mythology garner excellent reviews.
Contused by grim reavers sweeping along the shore,
The revel celebrates slash and burn tactics,
Capturing a modest consent.

August, 2004
© 2005, wordlackey

How Do I Love Thee?: The Spam Answer Poem

2005-04-12T22:08:00.000-05:00

[I’m sure this exercise must have been done by now but it amused me to see certain patterns and put them together. Every line and word (sic) comes from a spam email subject line exactly as it appeared over five days. Capitalization and punctuation are all from the originals. Repeated lines are from separate messages. A few were split to separate lines for aesthetic (sic) reasons but these are not always the ones you might expect. Enjoy! (esp. since they’re not in your mailbox; no deleting necessary.)]

Everyone Need This Patrick
get drugs in your own privacy
Large thighs please go away
st0cks in P|ay
ready for the sex life you dreamed about?
bad wife boxwood
Re: All the different types of pain
[none]
[none]
[none]

Ain’t misbehaving, ain’t bothering
Annushka was arrested just
Help balance the mind and soul
Anxiety problems
medical essay: painfull liberty inside
It might be the answer for the question

Waiting for your reply…
fed up of pain issues
Protection against human viruses
No troublesome trip to Canada
Fight that awfull disease
IMPORTANT: Please read
IMPORTANT: Please read
IMPORTANT: Please read

Is The Time Right For This SmallCap?
The Next Grand Slam st0ck
Everyone Need This Crones
former’s burden of guilt
We are waiting for your nomination.
quickly. But only on

mothers looking for fun
said you’d be home
We Are the Best Moonstone
constituted a prelude to
No messing - the real thing
Re: while the rest went
It is a better alternative for u and me

make a smart choice
her suffering hurts
36 hours: for all your needs
This is what your girlfriend desires,
don’t make her wait!
Hey, let me know what’s going on
Time may be running out Rosalinda
Muscle Pain, depression, weight loss,
info for every man and more!
all phawrmacy for cheap
stomach in a frenzied
time, then hung on
mothers looking for fun
lady, and with her
When can we set this up?
IMPORTANT: Please read
[none]
[none]
[none]

Re: began peering into some
steaming StOck - it’s shO0ting
s0ft. ware runs on PC, for pe@ nuts
find me by december 30th

Make the most of your home Burt
Many Talk the Talk Isn’t you Time to Walk the Walk
For a happy start of the new year
Download clay and ruben -yyy 4007 s
Re: was these two bodies
Get relieved from the pressure and anxiety
We Are the Best Navarro
I definatley don’t smell good

January 7, 2005
© 2005, wordlackey

Burdens of St. Nick Cave

2005-04-12T20:58:00.000-05:00

Bastard son, how fare you?
I am plagued by crows,
contorted by misshapen creatures,
consumed from within by sickness,
pocked without by flesh eating disease.

Blessed son, how grows your heart?
It grows strong with my love,
weakens with the sum of all failure,
petrifies living within my tight chest,
sustains on the gleaming of hope.

Cursed son, how do you pay me?
I pay with the pain and misery,
measure for measure for my old childhood,
naming joys and suffering alike,
striking the anvil of resentment.

Fey son, who are you to me?
I am the sorrows of the storm,
rolling thunder surrounding you with panic,
the bearer of the ax used to right wrongs,
and keeper of the keys to the Kingdom.

Bitter son, what do you reap?
I reap the fields of blood,
harvest the crop sown with tears,
I thresh the grain and surrender to hands,
storing red memory against the winter winds.

Firstborn son, where lies your grave?
I shall be carried back to my homestead,
covered with the earth of my birth,
laying down my burden with glad heart,
feeding the flowers of ash and embers.

January 6, 2005
© 2005, wordlackey

Cutter's Moon

2005-04-12T20:25:00.000-05:00

Bleak landscape, washed by the bright full moon.
Firesight, blind in searching out to far reaches.
Likened wave standing, yet shimmering close
within bodyspace, within adoration distance.

freeshame idea certainly deserving
rhyme, demanding tundra certainty.

More or less fear-free, cunning and twisted by water,
Searing to find limits of burning, of destroyer’s love.
Voluptuously riding writing, mindful oblivion expressed
word word, line line, time time; lextortion vocation.

bane tauma, clickecting contation,
little miss destructo, towering inverso.

Martyred verse, spoken with injury by maddening poets,
Metered in Hell, cadenced by stripped gears grinding.
This, then, is the gift of a holy editor,
worshipping by the light of the Cutter’s Moon.

January 25, 2005
© 2005, wordlackey