andrew-marshall-alper
Was killed by subway and reborn a jerk. A young poet in the 2000's, published in periodicals and featured poet @ St. Mark's Church and other such venues in NYC. Less involved in the abc no rio "poetry slam" scene, having only won a single Wednesday slam, perhaps a pinch before his time. Nonmember Prime of NYC's subfamous Ismistic Nonismist Manifesto of the Month Club, central figure of same.
I have needs
and they are needy needs
They paw at my hands as I type
and lay upon the mouse.
The needs say your name to me while I try and spell "confabulated" and make it come out "infatuated" but I don't mind.
I don't mind anything any need any nudge any nosing the crook of my arm to pull it away from its assigned task.
The task is ******** and you are everything.
Aug 26, 2015
Aug 26, 2015 at 2:07 AM UTC
If you want to sing out
sink in
and if you want to be free
be tin
cause there's a million waves of bees
you know that there are
you, no, thee that argh
you oh, you know, you are there, where there are airs, where there are errors pushing out heirs.
Were are the children they said were the future, and yet we are already over with, and the ones they follow, claiming to be all new, look and act like the ones who came and went before we were born.
So what?
Should we sweat it?
Does it really make us to be called the best or the worst, last or first?
She was a girlish woman, a woman, who was past the voting age.
May 21, 2015
May 21, 2015 at 9:52 PM UTC
Just when you think you got this world licked.
Just when you think you got this world licked,
that's when you find your tongue is stickin' to the pole.
that's when you find it stickin'
to the pole.
Just when you think you got it licked, you stick,
and the air is thick through you hair. Are you aware
that you'll never ever be hot enough to warm it up
all the spit frozen to the pole of life
you gotta get a knife.
You got to get you gotta gotta get a knife.
You'll be fine, but you won't be licking no more.
Oh just when you think you got this world licked,
that's when you stick.
May 3, 2015
May 3, 2015 at 12:07 PM UTC
is et up by sumbuddy
when u weave it dere
or hide it
when u weally wuv it
even if you pretend to hate it
all dere is is crumbs left
May 3, 2015
May 3, 2015 at 11:58 AM UTC
Aching and drawn out.
Anticipation can become a central feature if you let it.
The air there is filled with other people's thoughts.
Something to worry about always manages to work it's way up to the top of your mind.
A letdown.
The unexpected opportunity or chance to shine never arrives, so don't bother waiting for it or else, should it arrive, things will have gotten so bad it will hardly even matter.
A lot of second guessing to the tenth power.
Ill defined down to it's smallest particle.
Too short to really enjoy and too long to simply ignore.
Potentially far better or far worse with friends.
Try making lists so you don't forget something important.
Nothing is really important until you realize everything is incredibly so.
Everything you say about other people will be said about you, and worse.
Everything you think about other people will be thought about you also.
Your fantasy compliments will sound crazy should you find someone to provide them to you.
People you hire to say good things about you will not believe them, and neither should you.
The least popular thing is often a million times better than the most, which is why nobody is willing to share it.
Apr 6, 2015
Apr 6, 2015 at 4:00 PM UTC
Our life puts the "Sh..." back in
"Chicago."
This pulse could race, slow to a dull thud or stop and curdle like the residents of a container of milk who've been left out, and still you will never love me.
Gobs of waiter phlegm we never detect in our bowls of soup and teapots beg our forgiveness and howl for our affection, and are invisible.
But where is the crime in not loving
when we are not loved?
How could there be a crime in not loving,
when we are loved poorly?
Loved so poorly we cannot afford
to ask ourselves where is the crime,
thus implying innocence.
We put the "mice" back in
"monogamous."
tip-toeing, silent but for mere squeaks, nearly inaudible whispers,
furtive looks, and how we run away, screaming,
or, like mice and Chicagoans all, we freeze.
Aquiver with fear, iced up in the Polar Vortex, hands raised in the policeman's spotlight.
But where is the crime in not loving
when you are not loved, or loved poorly?
Loved so poorly we cannot afford to stand up straight,
We scurry close to building walls,
trying not to be seen or see each other as we curse our fate.
Where is the crime in not loving those whom we hate?
There is no crime, but still, not loving is the heart of all crime.
To feel so deeply unloved we wish to destroy ... you name it.
Blot out, ruin and erase them; our enemies, our families, lovers, and even the world herself.
Jab a knife into her verdant hide and twist until black blood flows.
Gouge out mountaintops seeking iron for our towers.
Remaking her grace to build our graveyard.
These vibrant phosphorescent tombstones, overpopulated pillars of mutual isolation reach up into the clouds.
Announcing to the universe, we trumpet a loneliness as profound as it is absurd and ugly.
Jan 8, 2015
Jan 8, 2015 at 6:48 PM UTC
I could see clearly,
and the path I needed to take,
the hard choices to make and why to make them
and next I knew also
That all paths lead to the same place
and every choice is hard, and how could I know anything?
The fog was all around me, myself included.
My wisdom left.
and yet,
for some unknown reason, I write.
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 2:11 PM UTC
Another dusty dead year curdles, cracks and falls away
Its leavings relegated to the wrinkles in your brain
Your browser history; bookmarks, highlights, favorite places.
Some grime settles in the corners that won't get scrubbed away by Auld Lang Syne.
Flecks of history get stuck and cake the alleys and furrows, allowing us less room to think, and then what we keep is what ruins us.
Jan 1, 2015
Jan 1, 2015 at 4:46 PM UTC
Notes passed in class:
Circle yes no or maybe.
Pages torn from diaries and journals:
Tonight I think I might love...
Haikus carved into the metal floor of the hole where your books are hidden during a quiz:
"School's a chore learning
2B a bore 4eva
while even ugly ducks soar"
Texts sent flickerfast explain why we're still fighting.
ME: And then you said...
YOU: I don't wanna read this ****
ME: OMFG this **** is what you said!
Emails from spambots clot inboxes with poems that are better than those from most flapping quills and tapping claws,
because they have no reason:
"Earstwhile Hardly asked an clocks raging spleeded
Pills pull grimy stovepots into a curdle stoop.
Click Here. Click Here. Click Here."
Dec 16, 2014
Dec 16, 2014 at 1:46 PM UTC
Vipers vipe another's life
by the flavor of their bites.
Constrictors construct another's death
by stacking slim breath upon breath until no more is left.
Adders addle able bodies into meal,
and Rattlers crackle should you come too near,
but not in here.
Boomslangs sling their back jaws into prey, to chew the venom in.
Black mambas leap even at thawed white mice.
This is where a permanent tranquilized matinee meets a life sentence,
all year long and every year hence.
Fang glands churn and produce venom to no productive use.
Serpent jaws pitch surge and yaw to locate the same frozen rabbit as yesterweek and the procession of all the weeks which preceded.
Though kneeless, to me they seem to be kneeling,
praying for prey to cross their path.
I make my way past the Coral Snake, Anaconda, Python and Asp, all lax, medicated or meditating on this wilderness where their hisses are merely reminiscent gasps.
Through the anesthetized malaise, we observe the faces of a most ancestral and mammalian fear, and they can gaze back at us, but rarely do, reduced as they are to being expensive jewels, on display behind the fingerprint smudged windows in the Snake House.
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 5:38 PM UTC