Word Verification

I don't know about you but I've found the nonsense words on Word Verification for post comments interesting.  Some of them almost seem as if they might make some profound sense.  So, following an idea I've been thinking of a while I thought I'd write a poem using some.  Be prepared.  It's really effed up.

*****

The Mutwar thinned the herd

And made us purer. I feel my blood

Rejuvenated as the filth is gone.

My heart, however, feels the toll;

I feel it twerse for having had

So many friends now dead.

Ralloco ground them into

Fertilizer; Scessi sleeps

Beneath the pumpkin patch.

I still hear her screams at night;

She was a bliede, drenching the

Landscape in her blood; tearing me

Apart, perhaps a little more than her,

As I caress my Unsul; that void where

Life and love had lived with laughter.

But now will pine and mourn

For what I’ve done and can’t undo.

Catharsis

I'm of the opinion you can write until you feel better.  Note, of the opinion.  I'm not sure if it's true.  I tried it tonight.  It's nice to get the feelings out.  As always, as grizzly as they get, I'll share them here, because you're all supportive and lovely like that.

*****

I’m fresh out of metaphor;

Eat my shit. Just let me be.

There’s nothing left and

It seems as if there never was.

Damn. Goddamn it all.

I’ll sin my heart out;

I’m in hell already.

A bullet to the brain

Can only bring me back.

What options do I have?

Listen to the endless drone of platitudes

Or drown myself in alcohol?

Fuck my heart and

Fuck my soul; already raped,

Torn, discarded, left to die.

I need a minute, month or decade,

Can’t be sure. Time will only scar;

A poor excuse for healing; yet all

That I look forward to.

Because I'm a Fuck-up

This poem is featured in Ben Ditmars' chapbook of poetry, Night Poems. Available on Amazon for Kindle and Print.

The words aren’t right.

They never could be.

Because I’m a fuck-up.

It all seems insincere.

I try to back-track.

Can’t convey.

It’s all the truth;

It seems a lie.

Because I’m a fuck-up.

My laugh is hollow;

Echoes off your face,

Retracts, jams down my throat

To choke me as I gasp, you watch,

Considering your next move; to save,

Or let me die.  But you know the latter

Has more solace in the end for me.

Because I’m a fuck-up.

The Vote!

I've set up a poll to vote for our Blogger Book Club's book.  I was thinking we could start in November and have a month to read.  I added a book by Toni Morrison I didn't put in the original list with a description so I hope that's okay.  No hard feelings?  Really?  I tried so hard!  Just kidding.  Have fun voting!  The polls close Midnight on November 1.  So the night of October 31st.

The Day Hope Died

Note: I don't really like this poem, so I don't really expect you to either.  If you could try and just not hate it though, I'd feel pretty good.

*****

July 27, 2003–

The day Hope died,

Left us with a quiet frown,

Trickles of slight tears

To know the end had come

Expectedly yet suddenly.

We were raised on Hope,

Singing, laughing as the world

Began to take more than it returned;

An empty ended hourglass where we

Could see the sand and almost touch

But never quite as we believed in Hope;

Somewhere now the dream’s alive,

Unburied, still performing for the ones

That need it most to take another step.

In Dedication to Mr. Roberts

I first met the acquaintance of Mr. Percival Roberts on the dreariest of dreary April days. His long tailed coat was, as always, immaculate; far superior to rags which, I’m not ashamed to say, I wore to the occasion. The first words he and I would ever speak were not most pleasant. I was a famished, sickly, meager soul who saw a beacon shining through my misery. “Mr. Roberts,” I began, begging at his feet, “Might you help a poor man eat today?” His face showed immeasurable contempt. “Be gone, filth!” he spat, pushing me to the ground and going on his not-so-merry way. I never forgot the occasion. Nor would I remain as destitute. Through perseverance and a little luck, I fought my way to higher ranks. It came to be in time, my standing equaled Mr. Roberts even. Thus, when he passed away the local gazette asked if I might dedicate a word or two to the late, departed industrialist. I looked deep and gave them three: fuck that guy.

100 Word Prose Poem on My Dancing Friend

He shows up once a year. To dance. He doesn’t talk. He doesn’t think. He moves. His body speaks the poignant words his lips can never manage. Passion manifests itself in snap and groove. Love is made; hearts are broke, each step by step. Sleepless nights and days in bed get told through his eyes; the angle of bent hips. Hair becomes the breeze; shoes an ancient rhythm as common as the birds that sing; he’s been doing it as long. A groove to come and go each Spring; immortal like the sky. Constant, fleeting, footwork past the February cold.*

*Yup. A Spring poem in Fall.

Coffee

They put sugar in my coffee,

Unasked, unwantedly

And dulled the flavor.

Suddenly my tongue’s confused;

Having had one love and now another.

My buds are screaming to confess to bean,

This love affair with sugar cane.

I didn’t enjoy it; it was hell, I thought

Of you in ecstasy; I really did,

If only just a moment as I came

Saliva and embraced a mess

And residue so sweet to stick

Beyond my mouth.

Blogger Book Club Suggestions

I've found some interesting books to suggest for our book club.  If any one else knows a good one I'll add it to the list as well :-)


Maurice by E.M. Forster: A tale of homosexual love in early 20th century England, following Maurice Hall from his schooldays, through university and beyond.

Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski: Written in Bukowski’s characteristically straightforward prose, the novel tells of his coming-of-age in Los Angeles during the Great Depression.

Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut: The major plot event concerns a prison break in a small New York village, located directly across from a prominent university. The protagonist's life revolves heavily around both the prison and the university, and the community that must accommodate both.The main character is Eugene Debs Hartke, a Vietnam War veteran and college professor, who realizes that he has killed exactly as many people as the number of women he has had sex with.

The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald: It tells the story of Anthony Patch (a 1920s socialite and presumptive heir to a tycoon's fortune), his relationship with his wife Gloria, his service in the army, and alcoholism.

Brazil by John Updike: Tristão Raposo, a nineteen –year-old black child of the Rio slums, spies Isabel Leme, an eighteen-year-old upper-class white girl, across the hot sands of Copacabana Beach, and presents her with a ring. Their flight into marriage takes them from urban banality to the farthest reaches of Brazil’s wild west, where magic still rules.

S by John Updike: The eponymous S. is Sarah Worth, Boston bred, upper-class WASP, and when we meet her in this epistolary narrative, she is on an airplane, writing to tell her doctor husband she is leaving him to join her guru on an Arizona religious commune. In a whimsical twist, Updike makes Sarah a Hawthornian counterpart to Roger in Roger's Version: one of her ancestors was a Prynne; her daughter's name is Pearl (Publishers Weekly).

Late-Night Riff

I was thinking over how one

Makes another care. Not just glance,

Or nod but really care in some

Spiritually transcending way.

I realized the answer went

Beyond the store or simple

Marketing.  A TV ad for soap

Will seldom bring epiphanies

That change a life’s direction.

Passion’s not a manufactured good

That you create and sell.  It’s

Something that was always there

Beneath the surface.

The artist is a miner

For feelings and lost goals,

Dreams all but given up

But not forgotten.

From the safety of their chair

And the terror of their minds

They must battle cave-ins

Not so different from those

Poor souls who sacrifice their lungs

For meager wages.

In Paradise

Stevie Wonder sees again

In paradise. And we see him.

The grass is greener on

Both this side and the other.

We can’t remember why

We hated, sought to bring

Each other down. It’s all

A faint and laughing memory;

Tickling, not festering the

Bottoms of our feet.

Our tears are tears of joy

And nothing less.

Too Late

Up too late
to write this poem
or rhyme for you.

Up too late
to punctuate
my love for you
with hearts, colon
dash and asterisk.

Up too late
to see a solid shape
for what it is. It could
be you or me, or
merely nothing.

Up too late
to feel your touch
and know that I'm
not dreaming.

Up too late
to taste a taste
to smell perfume
and lose myself.

For Steve

Steve Jobs, the former CEO of Apple died tonight after a battle with cancer.  I wrote of it on Facebook "A man who had his hands in Pixar, Atari, Apple and every facet of innovation in pop culture, a college dropout who slept on floors and went on to change the world has died too young, too soon."  I had really never stopped to think of the ways this one man had influenced my own and countless other lives.  The movies, games I saw and played with family, growing up that were in large part a product of his work.  A song on the go that picked me up when I was down.  I wish I had took more time to appreciate the remarkable man behind so much inspiration.  I don't know how many poems I've wrote after listening to an ipod, or later from itunes on my Android, but I know it's been a lot.  And I know a man who fought adversity and poverty succumbed to a disease no one should ever have to suffer through.  But I take solace in the fact he did the most anyone could ever dream of doing with the time that he had.

Heaven & Hell

HE had two daughters;

one named Heaven

one named Hell.

The first was blonde

and full of light;

the second dark

and brooding.

Heaven swam through life,

her head up in the clouds;

hell more down to earth,

fixed within reality.

In truth Heaven was

the favored one.

Hell misunderstood,

impossible to reach.

But that was just her way,

the shut in intellectual

to contrast with her sister’s

beauty pageants.

They were different,

largely opposites

of light and dark,

both breeze and fire.

But as the years went by

Heaven saw herself in flames

as Hell was pulled in by the light.

Both had lived through different lives

yet were the same.

Ghost Thoughts

A family recently moved into an old, long abandoned house.  Using the latest in paranormal technology we have recorded the thoughts of the spirit that drove away these new inhabitants.

Ghost: Hello and welcome to my humble abode.  Is there anything I can help you with?

Mother: This place sure is shabby.  It’s going to need a lot of work.

Ghost: That’s a bit obtuse, don’t you think?  I’ve done my best with it.

Daughter: I’m scared.

Mother:  It will feel just like home once we renovate.

Ghost: It already feels like home you shortsighted twit!

Mother: Do you want ice cream?  I bought some groceries last time I was here.

Daughter: Okay.

Ghost: I’ll take a mint gelato.

Mother: Here you go, Karen.

Ghost: Why are you leaving?  Hey, you forgot the gelato!  If you take one more step I swear… we won’t be BFF’s anymore!

Mother: Karen, go upstairs.  I’m going to do some work on these walls.

Daughter: Okay.

Mother: Now, if I just hack through this part…

Ghost: Why are you hacking apart my house!?

Mother: Hey, something pushed me.  It must be evil!

Ghost: Yeah, you break into my house, don’t get me my gelato, and I’m the evil one.

Mother: I’m a bit frightened now, but why not fondle some of these personal objects?

Ghost: Hey, that’s my blue ribbon for the second best squash! You’ll smudge it all up!

Mother: Oh my word, that ribbon was knocked right out of my hand!

Daughter: I might as well go exploring by myself now.  That scary door surely can’t be dangerous!  I’ll just open it a bit…

Ghost: Hello, nice seeing you here.  I’ve got the loveliest hat to match your blouse.  I’ll go and get it for you.

Daughter: It’s breathing down my neck!

Ghost: There’s just no pleasing the living!

Daughter: Mom, let’s get out of here!

Mother: We’ve put a lot of money in this place, but the minor inconveniences are simply too much!  Leave your things and run with me!

Ghost: I was just kidding. We can still be BFF’s!