America, the beautiful
Home of the brave
Or so it used to be
Before it became
Home of the selfish and lazy
From sea to shining sea
Once a cape of good hope
Until the tidal patterns shifted
And eroded the shores
Of her dignity
Born American, patriot by choice
Is how the saying goes
But what's a patriot really
If patriotism is measured
By the size of one's collection of faded bumper stickers
(As if bumper stickers would revive us)
Land of the pilgrim's pride
But on this trajectory
We'll soon be
Land of the pilgrim's regret
From every mountainside, let ignorance ring
I cringe to think of what we're reduced to
A hollow shell
Made of fashion and fake money
Nothing keeping us truly alive
Each generation weaker than the one before
Please, no more.
Someone speak for all that's good
Do what our leaders never could
My country, 'tis of thee I plead,
Awaken, open your eyes, and see.
Day three of my A Poem A Day project. Written 5/16/2013.
A smile is such a mixed display
Of honesty and deceit.
Even the keenest are led astray
When that smile isn’t sweet.
With that smile a façade is built
Hiding one’s wants and true emotions.
A pearly white mask of fear and guilt
Outshines the truth with hollow notions.
But there lies the occasional shine,
Tearing down the walls and blockades.
Joy resounds from your soul to mine,
Hope flows from your grin in cascades.
Carry that flash of pleasantness and guile
And, to all, let it grow and accrue.
For when I bore witness to your loving smile
My heart leapt and I knew it was true.
April 19, 2009
©MDC
(If I were writing this to anyone else, especially and most probably a woman,
it would go something like this:
I would like to unfold you one layer at a time;
I will peel off clothing
until I hit bottom
until there is nothing between
my hand and your drumming heart
except trembling skin.
But writing you right now is different; those soft words would feel forced, fake, hollow and pretty and attractive and wrong. I can’t tell you why but I know my heart has a song of its own
for you and if I get it wrong you know you can laugh at it.)
Do you know how overpowering you can be?
Do you know what it is to draw a breath,
one tiny insignificant breath,
and feel my entire body throb to
touch you?
To run my fingertips across your skin
(not necessarily gently)
to press my hands into your skin until the impress -
like a flower pressed in a book -
remains.
I don’t want to peel your clothes away from you,
slow and confident and assured, (not right now).
There isn’t always confidence in want, is there?
I’d rather tear them away from you,
quest for your beating heart and the shape of
your hip and the long line of your spine attempt,
with my lips on yours,
to take your breath and make it ours.
My hands are hungry;
they feel empty, grasping, needful.
My lips are wet.
I love you.
(I ask what I am saying and I wonder if this is weak: I want your body against mine.)
In the days filled with vacant eyes
Lost in the timid nature of hollow lies
A man was left too corrupt to realize
The exact root of his own demise
Blanketed in the emotions of doom
He forges his self made tomb
Leaving behind a dimly lit room
And the portrait of a family cartoon
Don’t take it personally
If I’m hungover by 6:40
I’m just a seventeen year old boy
Who’s depressive world is self-imposed
I wallow and weep in my fabricated sorrow
I’m the reason why I feel so hollow
It’s been a long time
And now my fabricated world wants me to die
I have one question to ask
A concept I’m still struggling to grasp
All these nights I’ve stayed up and wept
Have I become Bukowski Yet?
Hard to imagine that once was I
A soul so aimlessly floating through time
Half a heart laid in my chest
And half a mind sat in my head
My happiness was held at half mast
Out of a hollow mold my body was cast
Aware I was not of my loneliness
So I continued on about my quest
Blindly walking through days half complete
Until I found the one I've been waiting to meet
My body, my heart, my mind, my soul
Have found their other half to become a whole
your heart will not break
when it impacts your frail chest
your skeletal frame shatters
fragments upon fragments
they will litter your surrounding organs
drawing blood and aching
your skin will lose its warmth
the glow of your cheeks no longer there
every inch of your body will sob
your heart will remain whole
regardless of tragedy
it is the rest of you that will decay.
the corner of my fetal
mind paste
what about the skin of demons
the shadow that turns away
a slow placid individual
hollow from everywhere the caution of snow-wheels
cling to manifest
the picture burning inside an apartment for rent
outside walls carried memory of days
eyes and bones demand face
what if nobody’s here
the idea
myself as sunshine with so much to offer easier
what is the difference
the sentence that defines
unbelief the chain
breaks I wish
dilate the never-belief
wondering effect paste my semen on your voice
an animal feel i cannot deal with your sense
an unborn skull
the wallowing feet under cypress
skies of fleece and miniature dogmas
slices of fragments red purple green crows sound
the deep drum beat i accept
where i fall
a flashing voice collapsing towards the inside
throwing punishment the idea that i am foliage
corresponding thought process that machines never
agree
pale doledrum insomnia my hands
the lines of another car
the breath of being manipulated
killing instant
the shoehorn a new salt visiting magnolia
a knee high minute falling upside
my carpe diem fuck fist theory
and all day i plead for the corrosion to move within you
the system eating itself into oblivion
i announce it when ears are in rooted to the floor
i had a dream of a jesus picture on a fanbelt
curved penis shit on the outside
apocalypse on my lips
fumes down on the floor
a few hours’ days
gone
i am stripped
speechless walking home
for me
can this be your silence pregnant with strange
looseness in its belly
stars fragile your arms
pins forced into throat calming
touch faking the vomit sounds of avocado
thursday lust
driven into soiled ground
crumbling face in another room they lay your hands on
me
a fragrance of wings missing
an unexplained
dense and unchanged
kind of melting from you
i give in
the shoulder manufactures what is real to the sound
life is liveable
nothing accepted when offered
the thought process of engines
an angry naked shout
the underbelly of hanging
to what i show you
baking soda explosives
cake walk fixations on the vaginas of modern andromeda
i hope to never be lost with your sanctuary
dog sized emotions
a world punching out its timecard from the slot
a season for betrayals
the mantra of your dreams
dead enough to explain myself
a sunken cheek caring for the sun
a sweet lullaby placing of hand
the round syndrome between the
whores thighs
the strings attached are anything but labeled
upstairs is another passenger
first name last name
instead
mute all that is here
ashes
unnecessary you
the collective harm of all those images which if excluded contain
the replacement address of my kidney being
molested
or is it the usage of hiding
anything
dove’s postage junk mail
what you’ve seen before
the cost of being asked two days late
my fluorescent teeth the talk of spit blood
and shit
magnification of insects
the body moves
fondled colors blend
a nipple
the cervix the cortex of beethoven
no answer yet
on the verge of letting
go
wall of trees
a crowd of tongues the simple denial of light
my envelope seed
in cornucopia grinding
teeth machine a pullover switchblade
wake up from me
given the distant sun wrapped in
pissed on clothes my miracle
tomorrow
your fingers in me contemplating the ounces
of an inch thick sore
calmly anything in surrounding
distortion a weight of idle hands
needles
the acid belly
fortress within
your tourniquet
the victim of my believing in you
silent dead motionless
butterflies cradle the eyes
in the slit of dawn’s early malice
complacent and mind full
the choke hold is apparent in you
i wanted it
heart and throat convulsions the situation derives in itself
the wondering thought
your sickness dives among our pussy oiled mouths
spread like a homeless saint
save your self from the outside of me
as i look up you dissolve
the undeniable number of times
i spent inside you
it beats on
one short felt breath
my time is gone
everything’s alright
on my back
seeing unreal reasons for wanting
a crawling thought a
slip off the hand
grinding small animals the
door opens still life asphyxiation
the roundness of my echo
inside this explosion I ask for
blind allegiance to your vomit
the simple duration of lust and gasping
acquaintances I have had
but all in tiny dreams that
eat away at my intestines
and rows or birds wait for their turn at me
for empty boxes cold whispers
and dead words
are what is left
I am hollow like the fragile bones
of birds soaring through the sky
I am numb as the anesthetics used in a surgery
I am quiet yet loud
I contradict myself
from my words and my thoughts
will you still love me when I break
time and time again
will you still kiss my lips
when I retreat into myself
to escape the pain I have seen
the pain I have experienced
I put my thoughts to paper
because my mind is to cluttered to hold them
thoughts spill out in a furious waterfall
of unspoken words
from my closed mouth
will you
will you
see the world as I see it
sit back and observe
the complex emotions, stories, lives
of human creatures
my mind never stops
rambling
I go on and on
I have nothing to say
I have said to much
I am not perfect
I am flawed and misused
I wish to inspire brilliance
but I do not know what to say
take my words away from me
do not do so
I may suffocate and die
I do not know what to say
have I said to much
of pointless things
I have said to little
I like to question the universe
rambling on
will you still care for me
with the burgundy notches
on my hips
and the invisible tear tracks
on my cheeks
or my uneven teeth
and my eyes that are to large
or do you even exist
will you care for me if you
are not real
this is it
I have lost my mind
bury me with patchwork canvases
of art from long lost lovers
this makes no sense
I make no sense
common sense is creeping into
my raging brain
I need to go to sleep
We are such opposites, you and I
Yet somehow we've woven ourselves into this web
You are a tsunami
Yet I am simply the ebb
Differences so evident, it's almost insulting
Your ink-stained arms push up against my bare, ivory chest
You are so clearly you
While I am only somewhat me, at best
So many places you've been
While I've been sitting here all the while
Circumstances should have told us both "No!"
But that word disappears completely as you smile
So much knowledge I've gained
While you don't bother with reading
You are always content with the simplest things
But I yearn immensely for things I'm not really needing
Your smoke-filled room meets my untouched lungs
Your devilish ways engulf my virgin essence
We can only meet briefly, and so rarely it feels
Your absence is like Christmas without presents
I snicker when you sigh, laugh when you cry
I'm through with rest, yet you sit as I stand
I lay myself down just as you rise
My ghostly form next to your harsh skin, perfectly tanned
Your breast was hollow once
Long before me and you, we, became us
But mine was overflowing with love
That the Heavens knew was meant for you, I undoubtedly trust
They, all of them out there, may not understand
Your roughness and ruggedness holding my soft and clean hands
But I do not care about their worries or remarks
Because we are separate people, but one in our hearts
