You've Been Timetabled

Feb 9

Carlo C Gomez

...
Dear Mr. P - [stop] -
...
I was your knife in the water, a credit card kept exclusively for killing - [stop] -
I was a gingersnap on your sugar train, a flower-filled glory box to swallow your whole wide world - [stop] -
I was night, night of the electric insects, praying mantis and ladybug — nervous animals, lotus eaters, enjoying a ceremonial after meal
- [stop] -
I was slivers of pseudoscience poisoned by man-made seasons — a new and beautiful and interesting disease - [stop] -
You and me, we are now the same — snapshots in sheared time, before the closedown of our impossibly ****** impulses - [stop] -
...
Best wishes, V
···

#satire #sexuality #history #myth #indifference #breakup #correspondence #unhappiness #selfishness

Feb 9

Kitbag of Words

becalm, bestill, bequiet..

becalm, bestill, bequiet…

yes, a singlet. a singular mannerism
the language permits to adjudicate
the required emphases of the
urgency of a command, plea, a begging
bequeathed bequest and a request in
combination, with one exhalation,
these portmanteau, allinone, smashgrab,
blending of two words, to advise herein,
that we bring our kitbagofwords of
poetry to ourselves in order to

becalm, bestill, bequiet our kindred souls…

#becalm #bestill #bequiet #kitbagofword

Feb 9

Kitbag of Words

“til the fear in me subsides”

this fear well known to me,
for my truth is captive held
within, fearing the honesty
that seeks to liberate it
from the cages where it’s hid

lesser my mettle, the truth periodically
spills over. and my fleeing is not
freeing for the fear travels fast,
spine, legs, hands trembling treble
honesty a disease, never a by your leave,
or a pretty please, just a bandage ripped,
and the skin, rawed from within,
and now from without, and I pray
til the fear in me subsides

Sometimes When We Touch
Song by Dan Hill

You ask me if I love you
And I choke on my reply
I'd rather hurt you, honestly
Than mislead you with a lie
And who am I to judge you
On what you say or do?
I'm only just beginning
To see the real you
And sometimes when we touch
The honesty's too much
And I have to close my eyes and hide
I wanna hold you 'til I die
'Til we both break down and cry
I wanna hold you
'Til the fear in me subsides
Romance and all its strategy
Leaves me battling with my pride
But through the insecurity
Some tenderness survives
I'm just another writer
Still trapped within my truth
A hesitant prize fighter
Still trapped within my youth
Sometimes when we touch
The honesty's too much
And I have to close my eyes and hide
I wanna hold you 'til I die
'Til we both break down and cry
I wanna hold you
'Til the fear in me subsides
At times I'd like to break you
And drive you to your knees
At times I'd like to break through
And hold you endlessly
At times I understand you
And I know how hard you've tried
I've watched while love commands you
And I've watched love pass you by
At times I think we're drifters
Still searching for a friend
A brother or a sister
But then the passion flares again
And sometimes when we touch
The honesty's too much
And I have to close my eyes and hide
I wanna hold you 'til I die
'Til we both break down and cry
I wanna hold you
'Til the fear in me subsides
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Barry Mann / Dan Hill

#fear #subsides #kitbag

Feb 8

Carlo C Gomez

Shutter Light Girl

~
She smiles only in pictures
Her hair is growing long

With eyes closed
Au coucher du soleil
Her voice is dulcet
Her laugh is nexus

"Take me with you," she says.
"We'll make kites, we'll steal land."

The gentle arrival of rain
In the blue hour of
The portrait gallery
Makes her qualified to dream
About a serenade of water
And the blueberry boat
~

#womanhood #childhood #photography #wishes #memories #nostalgia #innocence

Feb 7

Carlo C Gomez

Picture Book

I remember her
in old
photographs

she'd been
daydreaming
all her life
in her under-age
world

spinning
like a top
eternity
in her head
but recklessness
on her tongue

crusading for
******* summers
in Europe
and all that comes
splendidly hither

when laid down
by the embers
in the groves
close to
the congenial sea

I rightly recall
before the page
turning

electric particles
shooting off
as fireworks
in each of her
copper eyes

and how destiny's
curtain fell
with such
suddenness
that morning of
the thin blue line

#women #nostalgia #memories #love #life #family #pregnancy #change #crossroads

Feb 7

Carlo C Gomez

****** Time Traveler (or) How He Spent His Days After Retiring From the NFL

Year after year
--at daylight savings--
he kept moving his clock backward,
but never forward,
until he wound-up in the wrong century.

He then slept in masks,
his dreams repeatedly
disbanding and reforming,
as if in someone else's show,
but it was his hallucinating set-list, for sure.

He lived at the call of the void,
feeding off peppermint sticks
and clusters of chokeberry,
to help ease the pressure.

One phantom summer,
he read The Joy of Euthanasia
from cover-to-cover, over and over,
until he could recite death.

He poured his heart
into his new work
as an artist of tacenda,
--yes, he kept a lid on it.

And when the pretty young bees
buzzed about underneath
their brazen parasols,
he'd smile up at the sun
for her complicit glow:
the warmest days
always drew them out to him,
like honey on the tongue.

Now naysayers may keep
him out of Canton,
but one day, like most serial killers,
they will name a school after him
and his hijinks.

#football #concussion #violence #hallucinations #ptsd #killer #timetravel

Feb 4

Carlo C Gomez

The Missing Paperboys

~
The boys of summer.

Johnny once sat under the bleachers, the scar on his tongue, a reminder of the time he bit it after falling from a treehouse. A sack full of yesterday's news in a red wagon, the first and last clues.

Eugene ... the other kid who dropped out of sight on Sunday morning, now the evening edition; now a black spot on the sun.

Why the two-year gap?

Departures and landfalls. But no explanations.

Mom and Dad never comfortable peering into the camera lens. Big brother breathing out vapors until something sparks and all
the old questions came back.

A detective's paradox. No bone. No fragment. No evidence. In his home garage hangs a poster of Eugene to remind him every day.

-- for Johnny Gosch and Eugene Martin
~

#disappearance #abduction #mystery #boys #unsolved #crime #1980s