The Tortured Artist a
term so redundant it
should fuse: Tartist?
now that's a
title I'd advertise

It's like:
if I'm depressed, then my
poetry is a gazillion times
deeper
more serious
better

people
praise Coleridge, Poe, Van Gogh or
Sylvia Plath or David Foster
Wallace maybe because
people
are glad that they aren't
the ones to sacrifice sanity for
Good Art

art is
artists are

art is worth the pain only
when it's not
mine

The picture is blurry or
maybe I'm not seeing clearly
either way I've resolved to
dissolve this moment in
time, and I absolve myself of all
ties connecting me to that
image that laughing
face that at one point
must have been
mine

Just in case of
stormy weather I
have storm windows which
are also optimal for
keeping me warm at
night

There is something
satisfying pairing 'nothing' with 'numbing' they
sound so similar are used in the same
context I want my mind
numbed
nothinged
see it works there too, just the dictionary doesn't
know it yet

if I moved to the moon (like
Xenon) the number of pounds I
contain would be 83.3%
less
I would be less
according to a scale on the moon

Rain: a good excuse to
stay indoors
I hear it dripping
on the roof, the street, the
sidewalk
but I will never feel it

If
my velocity is negative on
paper, am I going the wrong
direction? If I am accelerating in the
opposite direction of my destination, (if
I slow down I mean), is it good
or bad?
How about when a train is positively speeding at a high
velocity towards
me accelerating positively
in my direction Do
I run?

Aching bones shallow
breath combine with quivering
fingers as I type
(not to mention) weighted
eyelids squirming stomach and this
sense of an accelerated heart
beating
against my chest fighting
to escape but
it would not survive the
extraction

I'm not claustrophobic or
scared of the dark or
scared of people or
anything

Really

I swear

It's just--
I can't go
outside at the
moment can't
get dressed wash my
hair open the door find
my keys lock the door walk
outside just
can't do it right
now

so I trapped myself
here
staring at a screen until

Chubby cheeks! aww
www like a chinadoll so
pinchable cute adorable --
incurable

Growl growl ru
mb
le rumble gro
wl

(my belly protests my healthy
lifestyle)

Reading readily rewrites my
reactions --
results in wondering what is right and
what
isn't

Self-worth
measured in:
1) pounds and
2) passing glances from

strangers

Model
Mode
Mole
Lode
Ode
Dome
Dole
Doe
Om
Meld these letters
Model the word

Healthy melissa you need to eat
Healthier she says as she
eyes my tightish jeans, the belt
bisecting my hips splitting each in
two
I eye them too.
Healthy is in the
eye
of the beholder

My body is baudelarious.
Hilarious,
no?

I make mistakes.
you understand this
flaw of mine my
only one, I guess if
you think about it...
you explain it with
your perfect phrases:
"Little Imperfections"
"Nobody's Perfect"
"I Love You"

until I mess up

Then,
you don't miss me
you no longer take
me

being perfect, you stop
mistaking me for
someone who you
love

I collect secrets
gathering them up like
a squirrel holds chestnuts in its cheeks
I hold them, in anticipation of
leaner times
that way, I will be
fine
fine
when winter arrives -
when I am left
alone

I tear it limb from
limb
definitely carnal, I'd say
(although not very gory--
it's cooked) the grease coats my
insides my fingers are shiny
my nails get a sheen as
the skin slips between
my hands my lips my
tongue it
tastes
so warm and wet and substantial
a real thing
a live (dead) thing it tastes
good

How much gradation in a
graduation?  is it a final line
declining to be either here
or
there? I'd like more
gray
in my ceremonies

It's a long way to fall (the season, I
mean) just spring has
come just
now
but when can it be
fall
again?

It Off
Rock & Roll
All over from a bullet shooting just
past your ear so
close you can smell the
powder the fire the
lack
of lifeblood in the open
air

I see you go towards
the light of
streetlamps, get ******
right up into the heart
of the electric fire
and
burn
(or melt I
suppose)

How long
does a new year last? only until it
grows older, grows up and out crawls
first in spring, then
walks on to winter but when
exactly
precisely
does the year turn from New to
Old why are Old years never
happy?

a Typical Self-pity Poem this
is... see my list
of perfect woeful moans:
I ache all over from
crying alone and
clenching my jaw and
scraping the bone
I crave independence
but cannot bear it without
help
I know too much to think
I hate my world--
yet I preserve it in ink

Walt Whitman says:
I contain multitudes
Well.
How should HE know what I contain?
I mean,
I don't.
How presumptuous is
he, to sing MY song to me?  Whatever
Walt, you're pushing
daisies now so
whatever

I’ll make a haiku
It will not say what I want
At least I’m speaking

Wipe me clean of bitterness:
left over is a bland weak limp
thing who cannot stand
out in a meal, gets
eaten for lunch
no consequences for the
stomach that restrains me

that you aren't The One (but
you knew that already, didn't
you?) Just
didn't think I'd caught
on too

But I  see you with the Other one a
perfect duet of
Ones
I should tell you I
know I'm
not

pictures of pictures of pictures are my
past, every year adds another frame another
layer of rose-coloured glass between Now and
Then

Then...now...what? my future is un-
framed, unhinged, unexistant
and so far unbroken

Black keys leave me
wondering the night in
shrinking armour a
leg will do I do
do you?

I spy with my little eye...
a bigger eye behind.
a nose between the two
some lips sketched in
below, very
red
a chin hangs from the jaw, like
a stubby
stalagmite

Hulpin tupero ska
ti la sol va va
VHAT
VHAT
tol si naso ta ree
pina nahno kandoo
lo
VHAT are you saying?
VHAT can I understand?

A man tosses
pizza in the air--
what?  you thought he
would toss something else?
There is a hole
now, just there between
his first and
second knuckles that stick
out, forming a
fist

Voicing my verbiage takes
valour and validation--
one more vintage than the
other, I vow

sonorous symphonies simper at the
soirees of my sincere
sibling while I
stand by
scowling

pick a pocket or
pick a tree
but do
not
pick
me