sb-stokes
SB STOKES writes, draws, designs, produces, and edits in the hills behind the lake in Oakland, California. / / His first book of poetry, A History of Broken Love Things, was published by Punk Hostage Press in January 2014. / / A chapbook of SB's poems, DARK ENTRIES, was also published in October 2014 by Gorilla Press and The Pedestrian Press. / / A fourth generation Californian, SB is one of the founding producers of Oakland's free, annual literary event, Beast Crawl, which will be happening for its sixth year in July 2017. / / He holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and is both the former poetry and art editor for Fourteen Hills: The SFSU Review. / / His poems can be found in print and online in/at many quality publications. / / He often asks for water, but, so far, has never been given gasoline.
Going back
is a Fool's
Paradise
Its un-
truth is
its
Per
Fec
Tion
the delicate
bead
of your kiss
A tongue
enunciating
what the
present
Can Be
makes
it all
So Clear
Worth
while
Good
night
but not
Good
bye
to us
maybe
but
You and I
still stand
strong
think
clear-
ly
have twisting
desires
guns
in our backs
for some tattered
and tear-stained
piece of Truth
We cannot
be
Con
Tained
within the realm
of
Re
Collec
Tion
Let us bleed
out
into the
frightening
cold
of our stark
Day
Light
Dreams
Jesus, I own
thoughts that
align me
with you!
You are
a confusing cup
of cigarette tea
And we
are working
to let
our meat
be malleable
our minds
supple and
our tongues
agile
in the warm
embrace of
the other's
Mouth
Heart
Eyes
Another
universe
of dangerous
Pos
Si
Bi
Lity
To hell
with Duality!
The past
is Simplicity!
**** what is
wrong
Know what is
Right
and live to see
the probability
of Tonight
Feb 20, 2016
Feb 20, 2016 at 5:59 PM UTC
fuzzy-eyed humpers
baby-headed jumpers
I don't need you going
out on a ledge
flipping your lids
life on the skids
because of those things
that you did
that one time in Redondo
or was it Hollywood/Skid Row or
that other time in SoHo
flouncing from one news spread
to the next
has-been cloud-head
holed up in a windowless basement
tea shades on sprawled out on the unmade bed
of some formerly artsy tenement
tacked up jazz poster of the
suicided former resident
a good friend of someone
we'd all met
at Jack's or Jerry's
or Phil's or Joe's
or Fred's
Oct 7, 2015
Oct 7, 2015 at 6:29 AM UTC
I wanna say ghost crumple but fear the retribution for assuming something other than
something I vaguely remember no that's a downright lie as flagrant as a flag flapping
in defiance I remember so well as if branded by that moment scalded by my focus
your post-coital scent and that smile in both your eyes and your own cascading
laughter the honest laugh done in private when truly experiencing wonder and the
baby smell in the crater where your neck joins your skull to that body your body
young and heavenly unspoilt like a river's passion cresting itself and returning to
your carefully manicured shores I wanna say paper cut but anticipate the ache the
burn that will cause me my body my brain my heart we called it spleen in previous
times something other in the future no doubt in my mind my heart my body the echo
of recollection of a different color and a different flavor than the original worn into
something other by the abrasions of both time and nostalgia a different shape all
together taken by this memory but its intensity a twin identical and more perfect in
reflection of your reflection in a sunlit moment the denim blue of curtains unable to
contain the refraction sliced delicate by the broad leaves and your bare skin still
glowing from a washing and a shaving and you are lost in your own reflection
humming songs and curling your hair bleached shocking white with blonde intention
natural roots so Nancy Spungen but more or less that much more careless and
ruthless a thing you were in that moment only I couldn't and didn't know it I wanna
say please just leave it, but I daren't and I shouldn't and at the time I couldn't couldn't
bear to think it but really just like cancer I just knew it and I didn't and you didn't and
we stood there and I wanna say we let it but we didn't and it happened and now it's
just reflection recollection and despair
Oct 4, 2015
Oct 4, 2015 at 7:46 AM UTC
You are the pleasing smell of Chinese grease
I am the invisible motivation to frolic in the fountain
You are a stranger's giggle &
an invitation to dance
I am a Cabaret Voltaire 12"
& half a clove cigarette
You are the diaphanous nature
of auburn clouds at twilight
I am the woman who raised you
but never dared speak your name
You are that familiar left shoe
abandoned on the roadway
never finding its twin
I am an expectant evening
after an expectant morning
spent talking on the phone
You are the receiver
the near-silent listener
the breather of shared truths
I am the walker the watcher
the faint scent of prawns
near the dumpsters at work
You are a newborn angel
a pageant of colors & functions
I am a poet, no matter
where you find me
lost on a street corner
that I'll never own
You are a plane ticket, yes
only one way to answer
I am a handstamp still worn
but only as a reminder
You are the fairy lights
strung between broken
promises only barely remembered
after a night washed in ***
I am a cluster of strangers, drunk & excited
We are the gift of mystery, alone at the table
We are mutual, the future
the last to be opened
We are the mission completed
the present grown tall
Oct 4, 2015
Oct 4, 2015 at 7:42 AM UTC
unwanted and rudderless
on another underground Sunday
flub-dubbing my way
through the weeks
the months lost
like episodes of shows
I don’t watch anyway
lately few words come to me
fewer thoughts stay
landing for a moment
on my wires
then gradually
but inevitably
fluttering away
my hands
the only birds who stay
busy doing other things
driving cars
flicking lighters
rarely touching anyone
mainly holding tight
for another
friendly fire fight
the train I’m on rocks
and roars me through
tunnels dug by
dead men
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 7:52 AM UTC
“Make things beautiful,”
she said. “Yes,”
they all agreed.
“Yes, make beautiful
things, not ugly things.
Stop making ugly things,
stop making things ugly.”
they clucked their tongues
shaking their heads side-
to-side their eyes staring
not moving and disapproving
overcharged black cat clocks
over my tiny shoulders
another attempted monster
someone scary on my paper
meant to be scary
a werewolf or a vampire
a cut-up human monster
pencil lines infused with the
pressure of wanting
to make real
to be taken
seriously little hands
shaking
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 7:50 AM UTC
The biggest secrets we keep
we never give voice to
our lips never pull taut across them
our bowstrings’ quivering arc
over an ivory expanse
but there are words for them, sure
deflated or still deflating
no air filling them up
unborn they marinate
inside a secret pool
our other mouth
making them daily
kneading them into truths
whispered ever deeper into us
still deeper than
any other human can hear,
smell, see, or taste
coming off the tongue
casual and leaping
as laughter
never that steam lifting
wafting, floating
forever out of you
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 7:49 AM UTC
Crushing out handclaps like cigarettes
white noise whispering from each speaker
song long over but the melody lingers
codas in my mind, over the reports of car alarms
and muffled conversation
loose plastic groans of the office chair
Another clean night viewed thru slanted blinds
cold feet bare on ashy shadow carpet
smoke in the air, streetlights slit in beams
memory slips, hands type toward
a dreamlike place, some lost day
I set it straight
crippling nonsense intense
packed tight with grilled cheese and avocado
Cazadores and cranberry push back sleep
tiny cardboard boxes fill me
******* fluidity, one brown duck
among the aggressive others
that look on your face
riding a rusted bike on your birthday
your smile luminescent
around the lake and then
perhaps a beer and a hug
potential tumescence grabbed and poked
eating rusty water from an old brown glass
leave a leather letter, a leather gun in hand
garter belt memory, a trombone face
a cardboard avocado, a lost refrain
Jun 13, 2015
Jun 13, 2015 at 1:34 AM UTC
1
When you extend
time changes into words
reaches toward common history
Inspect your saga
motivations for doing
anything
inflating bike tires
handstands on the grass
riding the night train home
scrawling a drunken note
2
surprise registry
sorrow spreading like dank fire
under the skin of your face
the piano calls
"rattle columbo skee-dazzle"
now wave them around
hypnotic and sincere
you must believe
in the something I'm transmitting
up the live wires
into a collective hive
or down by the rustling dumpsters
3
cast off shells
spent nutrition and supplements
inform a blood ooze
"I can't, I just can't"
gurgling on a blanket of blood
one arm waving
half a pincher bug
electricity still making it happen
another loop of living
purely motion driven
without purpose
the body stays and stays
4
the mind burns and slips
another dark portal
born voyager
bon voyage-r
out of cleaner hands
rough with hairy splinters
combine powers
find a way off this rock
5
vortex of hand-woven sediment
chambray and needlepoint
tiny backstitched leaves, flowers
sang a little song while he did it:
"Ol' brown poesy,
something something Alabama"
"Shut up, Kid!"
waving, eyes wilder
his blood comes out
more and more
glistening cough
thick bubbles of dark
6
paint the hard stroke
his pained face
get back from it, step out
of his way
his oncoming fate
panic burned streets
camps springing up
fingerfuls of air
"I just can't, I can't"
a weak wave, he lays back down
other words too far from the surface
he waves
7
his hands tremble
spent impulses
so natural
the soul slips
gears burn out
the metal whines and snaps
the straps are off and he is gone
rabbit's foot bound
now a blur in cosmic space
flashing toward a diamond planet
inference of his purpose
light-years for comprehension
Jun 13, 2015
Jun 13, 2015 at 1:15 AM UTC
to the tune of guitars, mandolins,
bagpipes, cheap coke & hairspray
Freighters crest the punk-washed waves
the sun shines out
unaware and uncaring
Our tiny animal foibles
behemoth sub-audible
military choppers
chop the air
The air, no offense, much better
on it's own
sans commentary or guitar-fueled breaks
the promise of returning surf
silent acceptance by rock and sand
Again and again, we return
and it returns to greet anew the day
again the sun and
more importantly, the moon
And here, right here I am
phone calls and photographs be ******
to live, to breathe, and be free
this is the gift we share
the covenant we acquiesce to
life's contract:
Be here now
and then be gone
Good work done
and done again
to acknowledge human order
to rever and accept
to create, not destroy
despite what might have come before
or will come again after
Be ****** or choose not to
This is our secret
our secret treasure
kept right here
within earshot of the bored gods
spread out like bleached wood
our foibles, our suspicions,
our struggles
our gallant moments
in sunlight or in shade
we persevere and
look **** good doing it
Oh, the momentary glory
The ecstasy of our
reciting invincibility to one another
like religion or science
we accept it and trust it
and, therefore, it is true
if only for a moment
the laughter subsides
and what does it leave us?
the exhalation of waves
on shores unnamed
Things we hold so close, so near
clenched with inescapable fear
that this might suddenly end
lights out, curtain down
a dejected sigh, a knowing frown
This great place, this great land
Oh, the metal in my days
and in my hands
There was a time when
I would worry, I would fret
and wonder at what
each gesture meant
But now so much more I know
of the secret songs of our beloved coast
to think that somehow
we can digest all this
parse everything that befalls
such a joke, it is to laugh
in the shade of the cove
far from the mast
It is no joke, but more
to laugh, not to cry,
nor cower back
OOF! WHOO!
sunning & living & loving
just so
It is our way and all that we know
amid handclaps & footfalls
among cliff faces & sheer falls
we shine so solitary
& bright among the world
and its fashions
The thrill of standing so tall
against inhuman scale
its momentary humor
our highlights & travails
So much meat to manipulate
against surf & sail
from the privilege of the cove
friendship against the rocks
winds and darkness
Huddle, you beloved masses, huddle
The schooners schooning
the bay accepting
lucky our lives absorbing
the glory, yes
the glory, I said it
THE GLORY
of living today
like a grown-up
with a robot with its
hand up
Oh, the exertion
of simply being human!
Constructs of strobe lights
& nonesuch!
We claw, we dance,
we construct the armature
of the ridiculous!
We strive, we fall, we climb
imagined walls
What excellent detritus!
And now the chill descends
the shade the cove knows
only as a friend
I sit alone
construct these lines
wishing for lost loves
amid shade, sand & brine
sunken mermaids in my mind
I love the threat
they present
For me, ironically,
it's all in words
I share the secrets
that the tide keeps
in surf & loam
I look at technology
& I look away
that's how I know
I'm human
how I know
I'm not completely lost
not completely
without animal
All we can hope for
a pumpkin at sunset
& not being pathetic
with people that love us
Yes, it's a lot
good weather and foul
beacon of human remembrance
It's all we can ask for & should
(Oh, Dan Langton
how much you've simply
taught me
thru words, sure
but just as much through
sly looks & laughs
Portland you're all
houses and woods
and there's always ****
to do: so tender
to women "Beat me!
Oh Bob, beat me!")
& Motorhead prevails
on the Golden Gate coast
away from the campground
our shared & secret cove
Jun 13, 2015
Jun 13, 2015 at 1:13 AM UTC