#ted
don't be the ted
my brother said
inferring I maybe say too much
or
care too much
or
love too much
i'm the kinda guy who kinda wants to stumble and fall
and careen down towards a wedding gown
i want the smiles and moments
to compile the components
to buy you a ring without knowing your name
step back
breathe
Nov 15, 2021
Nov 15, 2021 at 8:04 PM UTC
There you were on 658 North Skyline drive, visiting the place where you once called home
With those innocent, helpless girls on your restless, manic mind.
At the age of twenty-five, a hopeless law-student drop out
Sitting in the blistering hot Summer Tacoma heat in your battered beige Volkswagen windows down,
wind blowing on your ruddy face.
Wishing you had a flashy Maserati
Thousands of beads of sweat trickle down your head like a waterfall.
Frustrated and exhausted
Knowing the fate what's going to become of the pretty, carefree girls laughing, walking ahead on the street by your car, but they're completely unaware.
The reminisce of cheap beer and stale cigarettes on your breath
As you quickly glance at your velvet crowbar, that resides on your chair-less passenger side, so desperately wanting another hit.
Jittering with panic inside, that familiar feeling surges with an adrenaline rush in your body, going from zero to eighty in 0.01 seconds
You start to get in a trance with self-destruction, panicking with chaotic anger beginning to emerge again, in waves like the ocean.
The entity begins to set in
Yet something abruptly stops you.
Holding a crumbled picture of dear Elizabeth and Molly, you keep your wallet in your right blue jean back pocket.
Yet you don't give in to your double life.No. Not this time.
Letting the devastating, destructive behavior from the entity consume your entire being.
As you begin to have sudden regret ignoring the powerful, impatient fidgety urge.
Ten girls have now suddenly evaporated into thin air, caused by your harmful doing.
Police and newspaper sightings of a certain man named "Ted" have appeared out of the woodwork,
But you keep that identity hidden under lock and key.
Newsflashes pop up at the five o'clock hour, but nothing seems to phase you into utter shock.
Now sitting in an unclean, rat-infested jail cell in Colorado
The walls only seem to know the REAL you
The light fixture is almost sawed off entirely to your liking, for your excitingly filled escape, set for tonight.
Going through the small labyrinth of the ceiling of the jail,
New, fresh, clean clothes on, and annoying coveralls off
You open the front door, as a blast of the bone-chilling cold goes through your body,
Fast, snow falling on the ground, and luckily a car with its doors unlocked
You now fade away into the blackness.
After you've completed the horrendous event in Lake City that you so desired to do on a whim
There's now no recollection of your recent event, even though you were there.
The trees with the wind are whispering and gossip your horrific acts.
Only they truly know your lawless stories
A couple of years has rolled by,
Trial after trial, day in and day out
Hoping and confident that you'll win, but each time, you've disappointingly lost.
Judge Cowart sits on his throne, tentatively listens
The buzz from the ***** and pills that your beloved Carole snuck in for you is finally beginning to wear off.
Irritation sets
As you razzle-dazzle each individual with your stealthy charm
The time has finally come that the jury decides your ultimate, timely fate
Flash forward to eight years on death row, with that heavy metal that you wear
Living in a concrete castle, in a desolate foreign land
Indeed not Buckingham Palace.
Rowdy, loud, ***** unclean, unshaven men surround you.
Something that your not used to doing.
Not the place you wish to be at the moment.
Body odor and sweat with no air conditioning in a stagnant, minuscule cell might also be Hell on Earth.
While just an old malfunctioning fan tries to keep you cool from Florida's oppressive heat.
You talk to the four walls, that listen when the detectives get fed up and bored. With your perpetual beating around the bush rhetoric.
You wasted your life on behalf of your destructive behavior and wrong choices
Time is ticking faster and faster when you only have a few days left till death day arrives
Rose is officially gone and is now a long distant faded memory of your failed career of a deadbeat father and husband.
It's been a few years since you last saw her and Carole as they vanished from your life.
Vanished and stolen.
Like the girl's lives, you had vanished and stolen from happy families only to destroy when you willingly obeyed and fulfilled the entity's destructive wish.
Your tears become your lullaby, for your last night on Earth.
January 24th, 1989.
Your expiration date has arrived.
Rowdy, drunk onlookers are at your last hurrah
The warden swiftly comes to your death watch cell and wakes you up from the unrestful, anxiety-filled sleep you had gotten
Are you ready? He asks you.
No longer now is a handsome forty-two-year-old, but a shaven bald gangly, ailing man, with the appearance of looking like a sixty-year-old who's unrecognizable to one's eye.
"Deadman walking," the warden shouts.
Emotionless expression looks of people that you've once known in your past are now seated in small white chairs
As officers restrain you in the infamous wooden chair, of the many in-humane men who've gone, years before your time.
Adjust your electric crown
Nerves begin to quake internally like a rattlesnake
And in less than a flash, with two- thousand volts, you'll be gone from this world forever.
At approximately 7:16 am, you're pronounced dead.
Alone & Forgotten.
Dec 21, 2020
Dec 21, 2020 at 9:36 PM UTC
Like fireflies, they dance
around my head, teasing,
promising resolution.
I can't catch them,
too quick for my heavy hands.
Movement on my fingertips,
but the light dims just as fast.
Frustration closes my eyes.
Defeat sweeps my mind clean.
...
My eyes snap open,
The light blinding,
and finally,
pen can meet paper.
Feb 9, 2020
Feb 9, 2020 at 5:50 AM UTC
The way I see things
if I were Ted,
You'd be Robin.
All a series of broken strings.
I don't get a choice, not this time.
I'll always come back to you, no matter what.
Love is the best thing we do.
It’s our drive. To envy, lust and crime.
It's not love if I pick another.
It's not love. Not meant to be,
something silly. Forced upon, not by destiny.
You know it’s true. We've chemistry. You're not just a number.
No, it's not wise or safe to think of you -
Especially because we're not likely to ever happen.
Then why do I choose to torture myself?
Why do I aim at catching a bird, when it has already flew?
Is there a reason why I turn back?
For not trying to find a new soul to match
mine? I'm not afraid of the future.
I don't run back to the past. Waiting for my heart to crack.
Because it's love - It doesn't make sense.
I don't care if I get hurt. I don't mind beating myself up.
It's okay just looking at you and just be thinking -
How amazing you are - how wonderful must it be to be close to you, without any suspense.
You once said, that my face always brightens up
whenever I see you. And you're right.
That is that it because I see yours
brighter and more clearly than anything
Irrelevant of what you're wearing. Irrelevant of your makeup.
I don't want to part ways;
just these few months have been hell.
I want to take your hand and just hold it,
knowing it's mine for the rest of our days.
Though, I'm not clutching your hand.
Because I'm losing you. You're fading away.
I’m losing the real you. Not the idea of being with you.
And destructive as it may be, it is so **** grand.
What I’ve learnt from five great friends,
is that I can easily lose someone I love
someone who’s special. So I act.
I do something about it.
So that the possibility never ends.
Truth is, that I can’t promise that we’ll be together,
that you’ll be mine. That you’ll be in eternal happiness.
I can’t vow to be perfect. I vow that I’ll love you though.
When it’s sunny, overcast or stormy weather.
I get it why you’re scared. It’s okay to be afraid.
I, too, am frightened, lost, in between questions.
But why not think about tomorrow? The past is familiar
but as long as I’m with you, never in doubt, never betrayed.
Yet I must keep my calm. As I am thinking about tomorrow
when midnight has not even strike. Haste is not right.
If it has to happen, it’ll happen.
I don’t want to rush. So I’ll try and take it slow.
- And yes, I wrote this poem thinking of a certain bella,
taking lines from television. However, don’t discredit me
as I’ve meant every line written here, during this journey,
seeking the girl with the yellow umbrella.
Mar 26, 2017
Mar 26, 2017 at 12:15 PM UTC
The warning was clear so the report not so near.
This sound still buzzing in my ear.
The warning of a second shot, They did not want us here.
Quickly we retreat.
We walked on in the snow, Cold and slow, Where to go?
The Cold wind deep the sky peace with Violet.
Yet we still remember the sound. That sound buzzing in my ear
The warning clear, it's slap so near
The snow, Deep and cold and our resolve not so bold period
Current tensions presented through adequate noise.
Quickly scatters us, our intentions been spoiled period
All to do buy a blast of adequate noise.
Dec 2, 2016
Dec 2, 2016 at 10:57 AM UTC
cable news video brilliantly captures
the blood washing Parisian gutters
glittering in City of Lights sparkle
images of carnage coagulate in my mind
clotting my heart with searing resent
in desperate need for release
from the abject scorn
that boils within my veins
I flip the channel to
watch a Predator marathon
but light entertainment
fails to satiate my restive soul
I turn down the volume
and click back to News
My iPod is audio ready
to soothe the savage beast
with some righteous death metal
I blast my earbuds,
Culture of Death's new CD
prepares me for real action
ever at the ready
digital recreation
has me *********
my controller
mustering up my
Call of Duty
comrades
I am a recognized
high score battlefield hero
taking out godless apostates
in the global war on terrorism
I'm usually eager to
baptize Iraqi jihadis in a
Holy Ghosting
bloodbath
but tonight
Black Ops kills
fails to thrill
my controller and I
stand down
opening the gun case
I cradle my Bushmaster
the smooth barrel and rugged stock
feels so right in my hand
it pleasures me to know
I am one of the good guys with a gun
I relish the fear and respect
I garner during open carry
troops to McDonalds
the hairs on the back of my neck
sometimes titillatingly rise
one day I hope to
take out an active shooter
at a movie or the supermarket
that would be way cool
I place my Bushmaster
back into the cabinet
and carefully rearrange
one of my Glocks
yet even with this
considerable armory
I still feel insecure
it may be time
for a trip to Walmart
to secure another Glock
*** more ammo
my heart recovers a bit when
I think about tomorrows recon trip
to my tree stand in the Jersey Highlands
Bear season starts soon
for the past few weeks
I've baited the area with
Dunkin Donuts and bacon grease
I've detected lots of bear ****
can't wait to drop one of those suckers
I visualize one in my gun sights
should be easy pickens
my CD ends with
some real raucous ****
removing my earbuds
I turn up the volume
on the News
footage from last summer's
Black Lives Matter demonstration
runs in continuous loop
members of the
New Black Panther Party
are yelling into the camera
a woman in a black burka
her eyes squinting angrily at me
from underneath her cover
sends shivers up my spine
when we take our country back
they will be served some
Second Amendment justice
News flashes Ted Cruz
condemning Muslim
refugee resettlement,
in a Christian Nation
only Christians should be
allowed in...
News breaks back to footage
from the concert venue
highlighting the
blood stained mosh pit
News flashes ISIS Jihadis
riding in Humvee's
routing the fleeing
Iraqi army once again
News highlights a smiling Putin
firing off Caspian Sea cruise missiles
into the bleeding Levant
examples of decisive leadership,
if only Obama could grow a pair
News flashes to a Rose Garden Obama
bragging about killing Jihad Johnny
the drone strikes and
active bombing campaigns in:
Syria
Iraq
Libya
Somalia
Nigeria
Mali
Yemen
Sinai
Afghanistan
Kenya
Congo
and other unspecified locations
are working says the Muslim Prez
By the looks of Paris
any real American Patriot
would think not
we need to send a message
a quick strike fix
some major shock and awe
to placate a nations troubled soul
if that offends any Christian
turn the other cheek
wimp, so be it
I say go
Old Timey Testament on their ***
let our vengeance is mine God
**** them all
**** them all
**** them all
Culture of Death:
Cystic Dysentery
Barry McGuire:
Eve of Destruction
The Doors:
The End
jbm
11/17/15
Newark
Nov 17, 2015
Nov 17, 2015 at 5:34 PM UTC
He looks like a trapped caged animal,
So evil and transparent
Almost naked among the cloud;
Laid bare,
For all to see.
He knows the end is here!
He hates the feeling of not being in 'control'
Fear consumes his mind.
He is no longer.
Sep 2, 2015
Sep 2, 2015 at 9:28 AM UTC
I'm 'sophisticatedly' sticking a pen
in my mouth, pretending
to smoke a cigarette.
I don't have the courage to hurt
myself, but
I do.
In 'subtle and implied' ways, he
says.
I make watery coffee and convince
myself, my happiness
lies in there,
floating. And I pretend
I'm in a Parisian cafe.
But these are pipe-dream dregs,
nothing else.
I guess they can't substitute the
vividness of being,
living.
Of sharp technicolour experience that can be
smelt.
Dregs, indeed.
Today, I borrowed Birthday Letters by
Ted Hughes from the library.
I'm wondering if
salvias were his favourite
flower.
His favourite.
I can't figure it out.
For his words are only stricken,
messy with the rawness of
too-technicolour experience.
Beautiful.
But sharp
enough to pierce and
poison,
like Paris.
My Paris, your Paris,
our little Paris.
So startlingly, breathlessly
red.
I suddenly know why I have written this.
The colour of salvias,
of Paris,
of me and you,
is my soul's favourite.
His favourite.
And salvias, their fragrance, it
douses the fire that's threatening to
suffocate, swallow my
life whole,
incomplete.
Red is my favourite colour.
And it's yours.
But I really don't think I want it to be.
May 23, 2015
May 23, 2015 at 6:13 AM UTC
Section 17 Row H seats 11 and 12
Almost every home game does he see
A grey haired man with a clip board sits
Two seats over and one down from me
He's a scout for the bigs, Comes most games to watch
Can't watch as a fan anymore
They know he made it, was up with the Bruins
Played defence with Old Number Four
He watches intently for five minutes or so
Just enough to watch each kid skate twice
Then he drinks down his coffee all in one gulp
and then he returns his eyes to the ice
The Scout, we will call him, for lack of a name
Has seen kids who've got game disappear
They find out he's watching, they get all uptight
And they can't play 'cause they're all tense with fear
I watched for four games, got his routine down pat
Watched him arrive and watch the kids skate
He'd go down in the corner and stand by the glass
Watching close through the plexiglass plate
He stayed away from the coaches, the players as well
And the parents, he'd avoid like the plague
If one ever stopped him, and asked "How's my boy"
He'd smile, and give an answer so vague
His career ended early with a stick to the head
Almost killed him, but, he was too mean
His left the game early, with Wayne Maki to blame
The Scout, is Edward "Ted" Green
Each season he'd sit, watching game after game
In arenas all over the land
Some kids he'd notice, he did not come to watch
They were just something that wasn't planned
He'd come into town to watch a kid who could score
And go home with two names on his list
One a defence man, and the goalie as well
But, the scorer, couldn't skate and got missed
Ted, would watch and make his reports on kids
Some were right, and the kid would go pro
He may be a star in the minors right now
But, the bigs...well, fate only knows
He'd listen to parents and coaches talk of the boys
Saying "My son's the next Bobby Orr"
Ted would chuckle a little and not say a word
He knew the kid would be heard from no more
Putting pressure like that on a young players back
Is like saying, "My boy will be God"
From then on it's never, the talented kid
I'ts the boy cursed with Orr's lightning rod
Many young players get compared to the best
But to say it out loud is a curse
You put a red dot on the young players back
He may as well leave in a hearse
Ted's seen them all, coaches, players and bums
Played when the game was real tough
They had lighter equipment, not kevlar like now
and Ted, as we know liked it rough
His scratches and scribbles on the page tell a lot
But to the untrained they look like a mess
A pharmacy student couldn't read what he wrote
Nor a court stenographer I guess
He's a spotter of talent with stories to tell
More of them about kids who fell short
Most of them cursed with the "My kids the next..."
and the name of the best in the sport
Two Hundred and Ten games he watches each year
Most times he's gone early on
He's sees what he needs and then he packs up his stuff
And by the end of the first, Ted is gone
He's off on the road to another ice rink
To sit and watch on the hard seats, so cold
To listen as parents and coaches again
Talk of greatness, it's all gotten old
Terrible Ted has a warriors soul
And his grey hair is thinner but, curly
He has ice in his veins and a stick through his heart
Too bad his playing time ended too early.
Jan 5, 2013
Jan 5, 2013 at 8:17 PM UTC
Twenty hours to develop a skill,
Not become an expert but a will
and a way to make sense and play,
do with finesse, an aptitude that stays,
to build
upon the
hours of
basic ability,
A knack.
Not twenty hours out of twenty four,
Nor ten thousand hours of the master
craftsman, or journeyman too.
Measure each moment, on a stop watch,
hurry not to or from, savour time as your
very own,
not on loan,
neither a
borrower
or a lender
be, of time
dedicated
to your betterment,
better me not,
and bless my soul,
if twenty hours is the time,
one hour a day would be sublime,
success is merely a fortnight away,
if you have the foresight to stay the course!
For Twenty Hours.
Feb 11, 2015
Feb 11, 2015 at 12:32 AM UTC
Jack and Jill
Went up the hill
With Bill And Ted
To buy two bottles
Of mineral water.
Jack and Jill
Came tumbling down
Fatally cracking their heads open
And the local council was done
For corporate manslaughter.
But Bill and Ted
Came down on their mountain bikes
With the mineral water
towed on a skateboard.
And having buried Jack and Jill
At an environmentally friendly funeral
They headed for the Amazon
On solar powered surfboards.
Thus they concurred
This was yet again
As vinegar
Bed and
Brown paper-free
As there ever could be
Excellent Adventure.
May 23, 2014
May 23, 2014 at 8:49 AM UTC
Aging arms splotched with purple and red
signs of tangling with jagged dead branches
among white pines along the back of the yard
reach for a copy of Ted Kooser's _Flying at Night_.
Pages flip for a stop here and there
to read _Sunset_, _Carp_ and _Spring Plowing_
Envy swells inside him with the realization
that he will never write such fine poems
which prompt memories of childhood adventures
living rural among tiger lilies blooming in meadows,
newborn calves teetering toward first steps,
and freshly spread manure capturing the scent of fall air.
His fingers still grimy from early morning planting
place Kooser's volume carefully beside his empty coffee cup
content that he is blessed to have discovered it
that day hiding next to classic tomes by Shakespeare and Whitman.
He rises to tackle digging potholes for double begonias
to decorate his yard and and to dream of pages unread.
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 11:36 AM UTC
He sat there behind the table,
with his glasses sitting on his nose,
and his skin sitting on his bones - both loosely,
the way you’d expect someone to sit
after 75 years of good, but hard, living.
“The trick is-” he said
deliberately pausing to shift the weight of the sentence
toward the upcoming words
“you have to wipe away all the things you don't want to see."
He said this as he scribbled his name
inside my new copy of his old book
smiling in that gentle old man way.
I scampered away like a schoolboy
feeling like an idiot
having rambled at him
in my best impression of a scholar
- like a kid wearing his dad’s oversized suit.
I talked at him about
how well he captures a moment in poetry
like this former US Poet Laureate
wasn’t aware of his talent
and I was somehow the first
delivering the good news.
As I wander the campus,
having escaped my embarrassment
I think back to a poem he read tonight
about watching an old couple sharing a sandwich.
It was an ode to love,
an image you can see in any sit down restaurant,
literally anywhere in America.
He focused in on this couple,
in this diner
at this moment
apart from time, like a moving still life
forever framed by his words.
He wiped away the screaming kid
and its overwhelmed mother in the booth to the left,
the table of teenagers playing hooky to their right,
and the underpaid twnetysomething waitress
who clearly didn’t want to be there anyway.
He wiped away all of that distraction
and unearthed this beautiful moment
this pure example of true love-
A sandwich cut from corner to corner
by the shaking hands of a man
whose glasses sit upon his face
and skin upon his bones
all the way you expect a man to
with woman he’s loved for forty years
with whom he shares everything.
I think about the moments I have missed
the poems never writ
because I was staring at the waitress,
who clearly didn’t want to be there anyway.
Apr 12, 2014
Apr 12, 2014 at 12:46 PM UTC
In the aftermath
Of a very hot bath
Sylvia Plath
Used to re-read
Katherine Mansfield stories
Until she felt
A little bit snory.
Whilst Ted Hughes -
After he'd imbued
The cool waters of
A shower for an hour -
Would watch Jackanory
Till he felt Hunky Dory
Then listen to Aladdin Sane
To bring him back to
The real world again.
Watch That Man!
Apr 11, 2014
Apr 11, 2014 at 2:36 PM UTC