Last night I went
to the local open-mike I knew a lot of the regular faces there One after the next poets read their hearts out upon the stage One after the next people were cheering clicking fingers clapping when the poem ended Then my turn came I was called up to the stage A silence deafening shot through the venue This was it This was my turn I stood up there thumbed through my book for the perfect poem Found it I read it as was rehearsed time & time again and then I came to the end No one clapped No one snapped No one cheered at all only their eyes were aghast jaws hanging A few beats passed The maddening tension pursued They were all so shocked Did I hit a nerve? Say something that resonated But then the laughter so loud the way it resounded from wall to wall boxing me in I felt confined by it Claustrophobic They were all pointing and laughing That’s when I noticed I was naked stark naked Like I was a kid again going to school only to realize I was naked in class in front of all my laughing peers But then I didn’t care anymore This was who I was If you didn’t like it, I didn’t care because this was me in my fullest This was what poetry meant to me Getting up there and revealing my deepest darkest self I closed the book and strolled through the volley of laughter For once I was satisfied For once I was okay with who I was For once I woke up and realized it was only a dream
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Starting fights
Spitting in their faces I thought I was the fun guy the life of the party always good for a crazy misadventure Throwing up on their brand-new sneakers Pissing on the floor of their parents’ basement I thought I was a riot a real running riot So I ask you: Why could anyone possibly be my friend I’m just a loser And then you say: Gee, you’re not a loser People like you because you’re always up for a crazy adventure Hit the gas We do donuts around our next-door neighbor’s house Sometimes
it doesn’t seem real the way time shapes our lives All the anticipation the anxiety the excitement & ambivalence and then you’re facing the moment, stuck in your own head working out these existential thoughts that crush joy like a hammer I stare down the narrow cabin as my feet float and I’m watching as yesterday’s troubles ebb and tomorrow’s well tomorrow is a brand-new adventure that is waiting to become the past I watch the black sky through the tiniest window Now the sun crystalizes the world I’m glittering as the pain from yesterday explodes and my tunnel vision brings me existential flashbacks causing me to backtrack The new day is a new vigor to explore/// I pick the pieces
of concrete out of my skull Your silence feels so confining I scratch the earth with my teeth Bleed green grass from my aching eyeballs Now that you mention it I’m satisfied with your laughter I laugh too in solitude It feels so deafening the way your dicers slice into my eardrums I lick the gratitude find a way to defy it but the whys are just so haunting We wander a damaged plane of existence The world has left me a place at the dinner table The menu feels like betrayal Surrounded by
white walls a window’s view of grass so green I melt beneath the sun My hair on fire My legs ache I wait for darkness to come It’s much more fun when the lights go out Broken glass & cheerful drunks bumming around the beach with scowls on their faces and drinks in their hands I’m leering at the obnoxious sounds It’s so loud my ears burn I’m so irate Little kids in their little droves run around screaming past the pool This is why I wait for the nighttime to come cuz it’s so much more fun when everyone goes to sleep and drunken zombies roam the beat I watch the scene with hungry eyes It’s so much different when the sky no longer exists I sit here
in the dark listening to the roar of the faraway ocean I feel like something’s missing like I’m yearning for that ache in the bottom of my stomach to dissipate Forever foreboding it’s a youthful silence corroborated by the day before last Prior to this I crammed myself into a tunnel as the black sky cried I flew for once in a while The turbulence sang a delicate lullaby The fat man leered He seemed comfortable crushed into a gaping cube I remember a day when the turbulence of the sky felt like surfing a rainbow so unpredictable I thought about terror and spoke of violence to a crowd that lacked sensibility This is why the daily party with a theme of a shooting star a power like mania and a rod of angst I became one with a vile-like tantrum I’m bored while Michelle sleeps It’s not usually this way She’s usually the one with wide-eyed confidence that comes to extremes after the roosters hit the hay And I’ll be damned if I don’t snore like a chainsaw while her resentments grow fierce Tonight I sit alone beneath a fizzy delusion that makes my eyes water and my stomach ache I search for one final reason as to why it is in being alone I feel so much pain I dread the usual solitude of a tormented writer In my recollection I swing like an ape my arms bulge out and my stomach draws a little oh that shows in my eyes I’m so annoyed that I’m not surfing a rainbow or swimming with piranhas But I’ll tell you I miss it all the wasted days when I cocked the bow and shot the arrows through several lanes of desire Hit the target dead-on I was so wasted then 20 years ago I was here I had no fears And I watched as my normal inhibitions lay down their barriers and let me indulge Freaked out by life
Everything cuts like a knife You can run but you can’t hide Yesterday another one died Panting as sweat glands pour See me now cuz now I’m yours I’m ripping out my drawers Running from the spirits beneath my floor Every instance stricken with fear Watch out for the haunting leer The twisting truth is too dire to hear This life is just too much to bear Fun times fade as bad times come They hurry after me as I try to run Escape is futile you’re the murderous one But now it’s me I’m the petrified runt |
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