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Here's a toast
To those who never asked for it
Because they really need one
And i for one am not letting them out
That would be wrong of me
And wrong for you
You got to think about the things that you do
Even if they appear as minor
They're much larger in the other portraits
This card game shouldn't end in a forfeit
But those few seem to anyways
High stakes, low stakes
Makes no difference to me.
Martin Narrod Nov 2015
if you ever want to come over and be sick and use my body like a doll-rod
I invite you to do so.
if you ever want to throw the rings and earn no points just to throw something
I invite you to do so.
if your pictures turn moldy and you can't face the mirrors, neither can I.

it's been three hundred seconds and I'm wondering if I should be listening for alphabet city or the sound of the Wilson's razor, if I should be curt or vowelless, glib and just a big sickening consonant or Occam's tired and infinite inner gesticulations- calculated but fleeting.

if you ever want to be you in front of that cemetery wall covered in the haze of eggy moonlight
I'd like to take pictures of the alms on your arms.

This earthquake is spicy and I am thrilled to feel some of the momentum coming back to my chest. I'm wishing for art too and believing in faeries and mid standing-ovation bringing my ears forward by cupping my hands, and holding ceramic mugs to the side of my head, listening for a dial tone or the tones of the dying.

you don't even know you make me write
into a black book or the white box, into the notes
onto the arms, scribbling while driving myself crazy at three-hundred and eighty seconds. Is this recording? I can turn it up.

what does it mean if I want to hang doors and patch holes, make locks and wear capes? It's been such a long lawn time, since I first got high on myself, met a new person and didn't want to drown or for them to drown.
Is this when I take the rocks out of my pockets and stop lingering by the water? Please let me know. You'll let me know, right?

If you ever want to talk serial killers over Apple Jacks or Corn Pops
I invite you to do so.
If you ever want to skip rocks or run from the cops with a second skin
I invite you to do so.

I like to dangle my feet over edges, while wearing floor-length gowns, while wearing ebony feathers, and avoiding being arrested. It's 26 minutes into tomorrow and we didn't give each other permission to die yet, so please don't go down without me. You're supposed to tell me when it's time to wear my rocks in the river, even if I never mentioned the plateau or the room where I heard the women crying.

Keep my secrets in your open-handed notebook
I invite you to do so.
Pencil new eyebrows for me to don, draw new shoes on my feet to wear
I invite you to do so.

Lock me in a box until I'm calling for the horrors, in a light-absent four-sided trap in the fetal position, I could be in a basement or on the 7 and a half floor of the Mertin-Flemmer building, but hum to me please.

I've asked you to set me on fire twice and you haven't,
does that make us best friends? I hope.
sapphires jello friendship trust fashion honesty portraits beingjohnmalkovich ringtoss seconds minutes hours pictures photos closeness occamsrazor mirrors alphabetcity elliottsmith needleinthehay needleless and obeyed OwenWilson LukeWilson tenenbaums theroyaltenenbaums footnote to a footnote wonder wander windhand invitation chicago
Martin Narrod May 2014
So I scuttled up, until I found a voice like Japan, I read him his rights, turned out the lights, and laid right back on the sand. They said, "Sir, he was much of a father to me, but we were labeled his kin, right in our family tree." "Oh wow", I said, with a gentle, smooth voice, he went missing last August, but now he wants back you boys?" "Oh yes, he sure is a feral man. We think that's why he dried up and flew to Japan." Right then, the two of them went silent just like two second story men, so I inquired, "What happened then?" "From Monday thru Sunday he took to prayer from the bible, and on every other weeknight he watched Japan's Top Model. He threw gallant parties to a harem of wives, he read each of their palms, and looked in their eyes; some time later, when everyone was about to leave, he'd turn on Happy End and start a wild ****." By this time I was tired, the sun began to set, I grew tired of my beach patch and yearned for my bed. Although soporific, I tried to be polite, I said, "Let's finish this conversation some other time." "Of course!", they said, "We're off to bed. We'll see that you'll do the same." Then they stood up quick, and reached down and picked up my chains. The beach we laid on was black top, asphalt and tar, the bed I craved was behind a row of private bars. The two of them, them both, were children of mine, because my memory is shot, this might've been their millionth time. i got locked up in a county that's dry as a beach, like Elizabethtown, Kentucky, where I was raised till 13. No one, not even the warden, knows really why I'm here, even some man from Cell Block Five, asked me last Sunday, why was I here. My beach perhaps, it's love at last, concrete, gravel, and stone- a 6' x 10' room with bars and a porcelain throne. It's mine I cry, each night I die, with glee, with smile, with rite. But it makes the other guys run at me, and try to start random fights. I don't remember the boat I took, but I remember the tour, going to Japan at Epcot Center since I'd never gone before.
Nick Strong Apr 2014
People stare into the portraits hanging there,
Portraits just glare back, watching, gathering.
They see, hear all, and utter nothing;
Tears shed, plans made, broken
Secrets kept bound on canvas.
Absorbing laughter, thoughts,
Imprinted within brush strokes.
Oils containing dreams, brought here.
Artist’s folly, a person’s musing,

Thoughts trapped in a flick of stroke.

© Nick Strong 2014
Written a while ago after looking at a famous piece of art work and thinking how much it had seen whilst hanging there.

— The End —