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Jack P May 2018
spilled burning hot chamomile tea
on my shaking hand
which proves, i suppose
that the ones you love hurt you the most

would like to think that falling sick
is the work of some Trickster God
fashioning shackles out of wool
fistfulls of hair wrapped around a bedpost

was asleep for forty-eight hours
most of them i dreamt
various iterations of
an unattainable light

left by abstract imagery
the words adorning
an album i know
making sense of the nonsensical:

"there was a tiny cactus on my desk. i was angry and i smashed it down. the poor ******* cactus didn't do anything. i kept the needles in my fist all afternoon. i left the pieces of the *** and the dirt on the floor for weeks. until my mom finally picked it up. 1/21"
i'm sick
Jack P Apr 2018
though not a man in the mirror, per se
more a man behind it
with a penchant for schaudenfreude
smile yellow with sadism
the rot, the cavity
grinning from behind the glass
like some ******* Cheshire Cat
to my Tired Insecure Alice.

no two ways about it:
he is there and i am here
symmetrical
but for the man's barbed tongue
perforating mirror and
licking at the corners of my brain.

he sings an ode to a spindly leg
torso of crush'd cardboard box
predisposition for loquacity
(not a city you should visit)
and badly drawn countenance
scrawled across coffee-stained parchment.

so convincing is this
man behind the mirror
with his pejoratives
administered with utmost precision
surgically removed volition
saying things like:
"The City That Never Sleeps
would cower at the indelible image
that is the hulking bags under your eyes."

i have nicknamed him "Conscience"
in the hope of wrestling back control.
quiet down the persistent nagging dissenting voice that sounds suspiciously like mine own like i'm knocking at the door of delinquent neighbours
Jack P Apr 2018
me: "today i feel big
i feel very big
colossal, in fact.
wingspan all-encompassing
beaming bristled coughing light
day happily backwards.
i feel significant today
really, really important.
didn't polish my own shoes
left home; home wept quietly because it would miss me.
today i feel hungry
very hungry
ravenous, in fact.
hungry for your company
hungry for broken shards of warmth
hungry for the day"

you: "you look tired"

me: "....oh"
moodswinging
Jack P Apr 2018
and so the melody went: C, A, G, E, C, A, G, E, C, A, G, E
and he was locked inside it
and his heartbeat was in 9/8; a rhythm he struggled to move to
and it set his veins to boiling temperature
and the blood bubbled like soup on a stovetop
and the vessels burst like a boat in a storm

                                                                           ...until he found the key,
                                                                           that unlocked the CAGE.
the idea of tension and release in chord progressions in music
Jack P Apr 2018
...before the eternal worm devours connecticut
one will cycle through the stages of grief
as though one is trapped in a revolving door

two will lock eyes with immemorable combination
reprise themselves of their situation;
i meant "recuse", sorry, although - sadly
the former would not take me aback

three will kick the bucket
but only into the pouring rain
the torrential downpour of one's errant brain
to catch the storm in an endless black

but it boils down to the one, who -- utterly defeated -- says to the other:

"you know me less than you know yourself, and that's saying something"
to the endless uncaring and his little backpack of slow-burning practical jokes
Jack P Apr 2018
Back turned to back on the shivering hull
Captain declared for the anchor annulled
The old shore grew shy under asthmatic skies
And wind caught the sails as we watched its demise.

The shanties drew thin, about two hours in
Whistling fell limp 'til curled up in the din
Was a specter of that which I seldom denied:
A brother or two whom my stern face belied.

I would not leave this outline to flicker and fade
Carried by waves as mine own Mother prayed:
"If his life is cut short on the edge of the stern
God, we will find you. We will make sure you burn."

Weeks stumble by, clocks rusting by sea
And if their hands turn, they turn onto me
With reminders of blades which have long since been drawn
And the broken tree branch blooming souls in the dawn.

I've seen reflections of self in the constellation-black:
My sister rides in on the Phoenix's back
My brothers, the Gemini; two halves of a whole
And Mother Andromeda, the Queen of it all.

Ship edging near to the end of the Earth
A convict by trade but a human by birth
Tallying up days by the marks on my back
Lashings for supper and now I've lost track

And so no matter how far this old boat can sail
I'd swim 'round the world 'til my lungs twice do fail
To return to the place where the bed doesn't move
And the waves do not push like they've something to prove

*

In a week and a day I would jump overboard
Bypass the plank that the crew so adored
In a few short seconds I would make it back home
An under-sea shortcut to Our Family's Gloam.
about missing family
liberty
poetic freedom
a stick up the [redacted]
Jack P Apr 2018
\put your feet on the land/

His name, according to the scrawl on the cover of his journal, was Viele. His build, according to everyone he'd ever met, was a lazy mosaic of withered limbs; veins snaking like cracks in pavement.

His intentions, according to hindsight, were regrettable.

\and see/

It is the gospel truth that man is the expert of denial.
As sure as the dead stay dead,
The Graverobber will prefer the term 'opportunist'.
Viele was a "professional",
took pride in his "art".
He dug, dug, dug,
'til the wood did part.

Stripped the cemetery to its bones (or, if you please, of its bones).

\ain't no grave/

Then Viele snags his shovel, about three feet deep.
Somehow the handle asphyxiated by the stalk
Of a Morning Glory, which flowers a defiant blue -
swallowing whole, the rusting *****, as its spiral buds take
their first breaths - against, of course, the tarred lung
of their rawboned abuser.

And lo!
(the image befits the phrase, as does the Earth "empty of form")*
the deadyard stood guard,
erupting
like it was suddenly attacked
by an impressionist's paintbrush.

The deadyard, and Viele
Van Goghing, Goghing, Gone.

\gonna hold my body down/

In Lieu, In Bloom:
Baby's Breath and Bells of Ireland and Daisies and Hydrangeas and Lace of Queen Anne and Sunflowers and
God, ad nauseum they arose,
arching upwards from graves.
Leaving no gravestone unturned,
in the pursuit of the place
where footnotes become headlines
and headlines turn to deadlines
and deadlines turn to soil.

For in the morning,
when Viele returns
and Glory, ironically, stands down
(slash-stands-us-up)
we will know to wait.
Tucked away behind our rejected Heaven's gate,
for the show to return.

Where there's Life in the urn.
leave the poetry to the prose (of which i am neither)
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