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C S Cizek Jul 2014
Like her husband, Claire's wineglass
left rings on the table. Her coarse
hair stuck to her thin, oxblood lips.
She found time to breathe in between
sips and dry coughs brought on by her friend,
John, smoking on the couch. He put his Pall Malls
out on the armrest like Dalmatians. Her sister
lay in a red wine carpet stain counting
the pennies behind John's feet.
Claire hid behind a fruit bowl;
oranges with skin far tighter than hers.
*Oranges her husband would've been glad to ****.
It feels so weird using names in poems because I don't feel like I can ever pick fitting ones. This poem was really spur of the moment. I like a few of the images. What do you think?
C S Cizek Jul 2014
I’m whittling down my track list
to keep my iPod’s song count
from reaching 1,000. Rare Beatles
tracks, a famous Lennon interview,
less-than-great Punk Goes Pop
covers, and some jams I haven’t
played since 2005. Complete albums
are now only half full because some cover
art is better than the lyrics in the pages.
I'm really considering buying a used iPod Classic when I get back to college because deleting old songs is getting harder and harder.
Time is money,
and money is power,
and power moves people
who prosper, and flower,
and grow into workers.
And workers bring service.
But service brings customers;
workers get nervous.
And nerves cause anxiety,
panic, and pain,
which cause workers' mistakes,
which, with pride, create shame.
And with shame, all the workers
stay home, never trying
to make something else
of their lives. Never buying
the houses they actually
want. They regret.
And regret causes anger,
and will to forget,
and forgetfulness causes
complacence and silence,
which causes more anger,
which brings about violence,
which leads to destruction,
and passionless death,
and then one lonely worker,
his last lonely breath:

"The world stole my power.
Ain't stealing a crime?"

But power is money.
And money is time.
C S Cizek Jul 2014
I miss the way your fingertips
drew circles on my almond skin.
I miss wrapping your hair around
my finger like a phone cord
when I watched you sleep beside
me.

Now that I have your attention…

My issue’s not with the lost loves
but with the ones still holding on.
Because of you, pain is a cliché.
Human emotion has become
redundant. The only thing
that’s #depressing about
your life is how you’ve made
a conscious decision to relive
your “hells” constantly by making
them the focus of your poetry.
I know poetry is a window to the soul, and this is a look into mine recently. I may get a lot of hate for this, but I feel like it has to be said. It's rare that I scroll through the trending poems and favorite any because they're all about missing someone. I get it, people miss people. But there's no originality in how people present it. And I feel badly for those whose ORIGINAL work goes unnoticed. I'd like to think I have a valid point. Maybe I don't. Regardless, this has been on my mind a lot lately.
C S Cizek Jul 2014
I'd like to think that we
could unplug our Ethernet
arteries, replace them with
notebook spirals, and still
live long enough to fill
the pages.
Go listen to Watsky's "Tiny Glowing Screens" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAqVmUciDSc. It wasn't the direct inspiration for this spur of the moment poem, but it definitely is an amazing track.
C S Cizek Jul 2014
I slipped into the walk-in cooler
to escape the kitchen heat for a few
minutes. I sat beneath a wine rack
holding up a chardonnay chandelier
with zinfandel bulbs. I'd swear
I was at the Ritz if it weren't for
a lemon box slowly collapsing
beneath my weight. The motor
to my right churned out frigid air
like a 43rd floor air conditioner
in a luxury suite with fresh fruit rolled
in on cardboard carts. Everything
was buffet style and there were no lines,
just the painful thought that I'd have
to leave paradise soon.
C S Cizek Jul 2014
Do you like art?
Does Renoir sit in a frame above your bed?
Are you alone?
What does this painting look like to you?
I use dots to portray events in my life as described by others.
Van Gogh never cut his ear off.
Georgia O’Keeffe loved painting vaginas, and so do I.
Want to be a model in my next work?
I met Bosch at Starbucks a few years back.
This took me twenty-two hours to paint.
Buy this, buy that.
Andy Warhol is my dad.
Another paragraph from my Creative Writing fiction final. This is from a scene where starving artists are pitching their personal statements to a woman, Catherine, who's driving by.
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