"aerosol" poems
Thugs with Pens & Aerosol Cans
Thugs with Pens
Hell-bent; not on cultism
Just airing the other sentiments
That don’t make it to primetime
Thugs with pens
Not poking out eyes
Just venting spleen
Sick of the lies
Thugs with pens
Deserve to be heard
They don’t poison your brain
With stacks of *****
Thugs with pens
And aerosol cans
Can change your mind
In ******* time
Thugs with pens
Can make a dent
They don’t need to insert
Un-readable, un-interesting
Covert small print....
Thugs with pens
Don’t need no script writers
Or advisors nor signatories
Witnesses, nor dodgy men
With gold plated fountain pen nibs
To make amends
Or throw in no hidden clauses
That secretly **** your life blood
Thugs with pens
Don’t aim to pierce your skin
But make their mark
Deeper within
Thugs with pens
And aerosol cans
Completely uncensored
champions of free speech
The establishment want suppressed,
silenced, deleted; terminated.
Thugs with pens
And aerosol cans don’t
Schedule meetings
To fix the minutes
And schedule another meeting
And keep ‘minutes’
As square angled
And unproductive
As formal conversation
Thugs with pens
Aim venomous ink
At headless politicians
That squawks like chickens
Bending over
For the *************
Bank-beefing corporations,
Controlling the masses
With ***** little catchphrases
And mounds of munitions
And illegally enforced restrictions
On your movement and free expression
Honest men
Have nothing to fear
From Thugs with Pens & Aerosol Cans
These “thugs” seek asylum
From countries
Where the law’s
Not bought and bent
Thugs with pens & aerosol cans
Are made to wear monikers and masks
Thugs with pens
Don’t turn on its own
Neighbours and citizens
To perpetuate myths:
A ****** ************* lie…
A thing that never happened!
(That’s for all of you dumb wits
out there
Who believe most of the ****
That’s drip fed
Your sensation addicted minds
Most of the time,)
Time you started reading between the lines
In fact get a pen
Or an aerosol can
Write your own lines
Start broadcasting
Reclaim your space
Before you’re completely neoned
Into the shade
And corralled under the spell
Of a TV screen
Or an anger raising headline
That conducts the flow
Of the status quo
Load up your magazines
With ball point pens
And sharp edged writing nibs,
Strap on a belt of aerosol cans
Reclaim your right to free expression
In public spaces
Join the rag-tag army
Of intuitive
Self-knowing men
The End: is well begun,
George Orwell
Should never have written
That blueprint,
‘1984’
Mar 25, 2013
Mar 25, 2013 at 8:59 AM UTC
an aerosol angel with college-ruled wings
and paint stained fingertips
stranded in a sea of pigmentation
lately, she's been feeling out of place
not all compasses point due north
a parrot in a sea of sharks
who's never learned to sail
they're selling tickets to the shit-show on the shore line
catch the half priced sunday matanee
save the date
a trapeze ******* with a choke hold on the universe's coat tails
tap dancing through star charts and love poems at the pace of lightning's strike
some failures just have to be public
if lessons are to be learned
the prettiest ballerinas aren't afraid to fall
she's learned the hard way to find beauty in skinned knees
strength in stubbed toes
and faith in a broken heart
no point in dressing up, honey
prince charming doesn't frequent freak shows
he's an arrogant flake, anyway
her best bet is a strong man
or a fire breather
when looking for a boy to bring home
one man to bare her burdens
and another to scortch the wreckage of what's left
careful what you wish for
butterflies the size of funnel cakes shake her rib cage to pieces
silver confetti on pitted pavement
he looked so handsome beneath the neon lights
horrified and ecstatic all at once
like a lost boy in neverland
scanning the crowd of strangers for any possible princess tiger lillie's
someone to ride alongside on the ferris wheel all night
untill the sheriff shines his flashlight down the path that points them home
alone
but handsome boys know little about matters other than themselves
so she's gotten good at feeling bad
it's time to find a man
someone who can build things instead of just break them
Nov 19, 2012
Nov 19, 2012 at 3:17 PM UTC
I want to live
Forever,
Where instinct is born
That sacred state
found in throngs of dancers
Pressed tight like bubbles
of compressed air inside scrap metal
on this aerosol dancefloor
or the microsecond in which
I am falling deep
in this freezing autumn sea
Midnight adventures
With a friend so dear
Fits of giggles, clad in nothing
From head to feet
And a rushed kiss
behind closed doors
All ruffled hair,
Plum stained necks,
Bodies pressed together
like two cards from a deck
I long for these places
And feelings so strong
I have fallen for all those places
Where thoughts don't belong
Sep 9, 2014
Sep 9, 2014 at 6:56 PM UTC
The sun is resplendent and warming.
on this bench in front of these shops in a town we’ve never been to.
Italy’s a lot nicer if you’re in a small town.
I’m watching her peel an orange
slowly,
meticulously
she’s removing the skin from the meat.
She reminds me of a boxer wrapping his hands
before a big fight.
The last moment of meditative solitude
before the **** hits the fan.
She’s finishing with the peel now, setting the pieces on the bench next to us
as she splits it in half, an aerosol of juice sprays from the orange
she hands me one half
and begins to eat the other herself.
I peel the segments apart, eating them slowly
and spitting the seeds into the gutter.
she’s smiling,
the juice running down her chin,
and neither of us are speaking.
Later I’m smelling the citrus on her fingers
as she runs them through my hair;
it’s barely long enough to run fingers through,
and I’m thankful for that.
I’m thankful for that orange.
I’m glad I saw that small town,
the one without tourist attractions or snakeoil peddlers
I’m glad my scalp ever knew her citrus fingers.
it came,
I saw,
it went.
Feb 7, 2014
Feb 7, 2014 at 2:28 PM UTC
~
*gone to earth
left for dead
everything is tickety-boo
forget your iron-on measures
and scuttled installation
your life is a bakery
that cake is like your head
bittersweet
and full of regret
what am I reading these days?
a book across the stars
where dreams in the throes
of giddy aerosol cans
**** the passersby
and sleep against
the exit sign*
~
May 16, 2022
May 16, 2022 at 10:32 AM UTC
My aerosol life.
Suspended droplet:
A tiny Pluto
Frozen in a can.
So far from it,
Spray tan
It's not dark enough.
Bronze mirror coat,
Bind those gorgon eyes
Those jury fists
Away from me.
Jun 28, 2012
Jun 28, 2012 at 2:01 AM UTC
Penny vase made from
the brown voided canyon rusting.
Friends that were made of waste,
they said time was simply turning,
the boat spoke back and said the depth of ones nature
could walk on water
But a deep voice
Was all that sprayed in pungent
aerosol and
displeasure.
Do we need to be on the same boat?
To drift into the beguiling surf?
Altogether
Better if we were dispersed
Dropped by the caving soft curve
Sliding through the unseen wash, watching your muddy glare.
Track the force in
blueberry motion
pulling and pushing us,
a sollen hand
and flying sleeve
The touch of flaunting fingertips and strings,
The fluttering wick
Swing and swished.
The chest of wonders beaming
Transmitting
a map
and lines like hay and wires
They were all exposed in the lines of her eyes
Maps
You frightened me that sleepy day
The dusted arsenal stick
Casted me on a rod made of hibiscus dew and syrup
A venomous hook that entangled my earrings
The push and her wave of desire,
Maps
To her treasure,
Reeled it now all over her wet webbed feet.
Caged,
Maps
and pressure
of the rocks falling against the time ticking
Hours away from the swaying shore.
Oct 18, 2018
Oct 18, 2018 at 8:56 AM UTC
Maktub saw the light at the end of his tunnel
It approached him with a barbaric screech
Doppler shifting to piercing, painful pitch
On the wrong side of tracks he watched the train charge past
In his new freedom, he explored the station
Wandering through the grimy halls by
Too-busy roaches scurrying from the bright
A burpy crumple lump sat propped against the wall
Reeking of sick and
Filth and dead liver
Maktub bought him a sandwich
And left it on his lap, with a dead president
On whose face he had jotted a blotted
Don’t drink me
The *** woke to this, and
Bless you friend, jaundiced beam
Bless you back, sir
Restored faith in (chances) chances
Some teens whizzed unpaying under turnstiles
On rolling boards, lying on their backs and holding bags
Maktub found them clever and pursued
In a secluded spot they made aerosol spray mural
Mischievous hands intricately crafted as cans blasted
Through their mist emerged a mighty orb of life
And in blackness round twinkled possible worlds
He admired their vandalism; art is everywhere, he thought
At sound of step the mural makers
Dashed, leaving colors and can
Maktub raised it, unfamiliar, and finished the wall with
We are one
Returning to his platform, he saw that more had gathered
And a strumming bard, milk eyed, fluttered notes with dancer’s grace
Her voice sent shivers down his spine and lifted him in spirals
I would recognize the
Song of God, he thought (and I know where he is)
The screeching came again, and Maktub
Leaned to watch, eager for his light
His train had come to take him home
He was calm
He was ready
May 16, 2012
May 16, 2012 at 10:13 AM UTC
My brother brushes past me in the kitchen.
I find myself offended, not for his rudeness nor the brash way he attempts to apologize.
But because on my own flesh and blood I smell him.
It has been years but the odor of his cologne still sends me spiraling.
Memory is a haunting thing.
How am I supposed to move on when every wide eyed, bro-tank wearing beef cake smells like my worst nightmare,
It feels like I am just trying to escape,
but was forced into Stockholm's syndrome via perfumed air and this sense of helplessness that I cannot bear.
This is what it feels like to drown all over again,
but this time I am perpetually a scared 14 year old girl, and it is arms surrounding me not lake water.
I could find irony in using that brand of cologne to light myself on fire,
or to inhale the aerosol into my already full lungs for a short high
Either way it would be the same as killing myself all over again.
Half of me is still on that mattress somewhere,
I don't know how to get her back, or why I want her so bad.
But, how can I make this little girl inside stop crying if I'm not there to comfort her?
How could I ever be there to comfort her?
I am so broken and bruised,
I still flinch when hit in spaces once blackened by hands I thought I knew.
Jul 29, 2015
Jul 29, 2015 at 5:59 PM UTC
i was born at the heart of a ribbon jam
my analog pulse
tap
tap
tapping
out the lyrics of my fight song
since day one
india ink sludge blood has flowed
from my dog-earred heart
straight through to my ball-point fingertips
my DNA lays in cursive wait
leaping from the pages
into the light
at every aching plot twist
card catalogued depictions
not of how events factually unfolded
but of how it seems they could have unravelled
if this were a paperback i'd planned to read
and re-read
alike
but alas
when the lights go out
that's it for this round
and i'll be down for the count
no matter how hard i fight
but words...
words know not death
solely evolution
they change their shape
their time
their place
a word can only fade
like aerosol on dust colored cinder
a single word will outlive one hundred empires
one thousand governments
ten thousand authors
and so
it's within articulation that my loyalty lay
and in my words that i'll find my home
here
in the lowercase swoops and loops
of the 'A's
and the 'E's
and the 'D's
and the 'G's
...and those little cursive 'Z's that hang just the same as mom's old hammock
yeah
home
with every inhalation of stale inhabitation
i'll exhale a poem
my regenerative reincarnation through catalytic creation
Jul 8, 2013
Jul 8, 2013 at 4:34 AM UTC
strange
isn’t it
how
memories
pique our moods like
mountains
bursting
through the
stratosphere
only to be sent
plummeting to the
depths of an
abyss
darker
and
deeper
than Marianas Trench
at the flip of a
switch
subtle triggers
found in the way
someone laughs
or when a co-worker
grins
out of the corner of
his or her
mouth
i see you
in the characters of the
literature and
films we used to critique
over coffee
hiding in the vestiges
of Daenerys Targaryen
or
Mélanie Laurent
you are France
an entire country
unto yourself
the smell of the sea
clings to your skin cells
in ways i
only wish
i could
you are in every
solitary
letter of Helvetica
whispering
softly
of things that
were
of things that
are
and of some things that
have not yet come to pass
you float
in the carcinogenic smoke
of cigarettes
a silhouette
corporeal particles
i exorcise
with equal parts
relief
and
regret
every night that i
paint the town
in neon colors
of vibrant life
i write your name
when i
vandalize
and fantasize
that you are
somehow with me
maybe floating happily
in the molecules
of aerosol
spreading across the
concrete
you’re in every song
by Brand New
like the residue of
dew drying on
the leaves
in the
mid-morning
light
lingering
even as
the sun calls you
home
the way i lingered
on your doorstep
to make sure that
you made it safely
back inside your
home
i’ve come to find that
i am equal parts
melancholy
and
blithe
and
i think that i
can finally say
i’m getting better
but
to borrow
a page
from Vonnegut
i’d be lying if
i said i didn’t still
catch
myself feeling
sorry
about the things that
no longer
matter
Mar 10, 2014
Mar 10, 2014 at 10:11 AM UTC
Purple skies and wounded hearts
Leaves drifting away
Growing trees and yellow planes
Night turning to day
Untuned cellos, crumbs on sheets
Grass blades in between toes
Aerosol cans and crooked shelves
Snowflakes that stay on the nose
Purple you and wounded me
Us drifting away
Growing you and yellow me
No one wanting to stay
Untuned me, crummy you
Two scarred, translucent souls
Aerosol me and crooked you
I'm dying, but nobody knows.
Sep 28, 2011
Sep 28, 2011 at 1:07 AM UTC
Paint fumes,
Ruthless summer nights.
If a flash light comes flickering,
Reflecting off the metal tracks,
We take flight.
I can't help but let it make me feel complete,
Even the quick window scratches,
And pilot tags on the street.
Ruff concrete,
When laced with aerosol,
Make it seem like much more than a wall.
I stand at 6 foot 4 inches tall,
But with a can I stand as high as I can reach.
Now do you see why this is appealing to me?
Oct 17, 2012
Oct 17, 2012 at 11:13 PM UTC
there's a million dusty back roads
which tell a million
dusty back road stories
sinners and saints
redemption and judgment
retribution and love
and there's a million alleyways
cobblestone or brick
where a million
dusty back road people
tell tales of travel
in the glow of a flaming trash barrel
and there are a million bridges
which have been layered
with poetic inspirations
street preachers
spraying their words
from aerosol cans
and a million dusty back road people
sleep beneath those poems
almost every night
I have a million blown out pairs of shoes
and I wouldn't get rid of one of them
because each one
tells my dusty back road story
Feb 21, 2013
Feb 21, 2013 at 11:26 AM UTC
I was made to be milk glass—
Lately, I've been more of
a scattering of light,
a technicolor oil spill,
effervescent kerosene,
a phosphene
in a running eye,
fluorescent aerosol
going cumulonimbus
in a green sky;
a variegated skin rash
caused by shining neon bile
all festering and iridescent;
a tattered road map
on the wall of a food court,
bearing incandescent roads
twisting like snakes
eating their own tails;
a human being in the form of a
kaleidoscopic feedback loop
passed back and forth
between the mouth and the ear
and the mouth and the ear forevermore,
burning the tongue, the finger tips
and teetering on the edge
of glittering, glorious incendium—
After the smoke has cleared,
I can go back
to sleeping on the shelf.
Jul 11, 2016
Jul 11, 2016 at 3:27 AM UTC
They come for her in red and blue
ambulance lights disco dancing fragmented beats,
purple intent drumming against flaking graffiti art on the garage door;
aerosol skeletal rose garden shadows cower
under twist-rust razor wire
fencing
in the flowerbed graveyard strewn with dogs’ delights—
there is neither bark nor howl,
those sounds echo deep within the basement walls;
lumps of meat a’thudder,
twisted growls
for the boy, Timothy,
which both Rottweilers had been fond of as well.
Until the very end.
Neighbourhood eyes scowl,
wide-eyed middle-aged pyjama-children
fresh from midnight escapades;
arms folded tight,
everyone glares at her night-stained blood dress,
and the dogs’ heads held high above her pretty head,
revenge-trophies served lukewarm
on a school night against the backdrop of suburbia
crying
under ambulance sirens’
apocalyptic announcement regarding Amy:
had she not answered that phone call and left little Timmy unattended,
she might still have been able to hold him in her arms.
Until the very end.
Feb 21, 2011
Feb 21, 2011 at 5:43 AM UTC
every ounce, raw
legs ******* necks
authentic because this time history
didn’t exist
or the future
just timelessness, innocence and lots of kissing
unexpected like car crashes and so familiar like eggs in the morning
like the feeling of not sleeping in your own bed for a few days and then getting to again
relief, in a way
and sighs
but mostly raw
with passion that draped over us like a canopy of red roses and white silky fabrics
I think that might have been the most connected we’ve ever been
I think that’s because we aren’t attached to each other in any way, anymore
real,
raw,
exactly the same
completely new
everything is all over the place and as condensed as an aerosol can of hairspray
at the same time;
my hair grew
your face thinned
and we are in exactly the same place
Aug 17, 2013
Aug 17, 2013 at 5:56 PM UTC
i often times get distracted from myself
by the person i like to think that i am
she's a ******* catch
a cash-in-hand
done-deal find
worth every dime
i'm tangled up line
woven into the creek-bed
that couldn't even catch the sunlight
but it's alright
i got a few coats of gold krylon
hiding my rust from the mirror
Mar 3, 2015
Mar 3, 2015 at 10:31 PM UTC
Fumes fill the air,
The aerosol leaps from it's binding,
Swirling through the empty space,
Looking for a surface to cling too,
Letters vomited onto brick,
My name hidden in the shades,
To never be forgotten,
Is all I fear.
Jan 6, 2015
Jan 6, 2015 at 6:31 PM UTC
all my past
imposes on my breath today
i enter a grand mosaic public building
and on goes my medical face mask
i join the back of the queue with my documents in one hand
and my numbered butcher ticket
in the other
i admire the mosaics
a jarring tide of art against the bureaucratic purpose
of these rooms
gauzed in with own product exhaust
all my past is attending
exhumed
patted into my breath
baiting remembrance with unsubtle notes
for example :
integrated spittings of 'drum' tobacco (i quit a decade ago)
horning catches of cologne every boy used as a teen
seasonal scents unweaned from deep in my system
(some reigned in from the different countries
i lived in or visited)
then i am frisked back to infancy with breast milk and rusks
it's all there a basking flippancy
all there in musk about my face
one fragrance after another
it's an honest relief
to host an alternative to my 'old man' breath
but odd and concerning
something of the brain ?
Apr 6, 2024
Apr 6, 2024 at 1:40 PM UTC
My heart is packed so full of love for you
I dreamed I exploded, like aerosol cans sometimes do
I blew with such force that my bones became shrapnel
And leveled the town, except the small chapel
My teeth flew like bullets, I didn't know what was happening
They killed everyone in sight, except for the chaplain
And then, thanks to him, we were happily wed
Even though, at the time, I think we were both dead
May 2, 2025
May 2, 2025 at 7:17 AM UTC
i still leave you love poems on crumbling walls
like rust-stains on canvas yet to be stretched
there isn't a message yet
but in my dreams
you somehow see it all for what it means
following the commas and line-breaks
right back to where you left me
and we finally allow ourselves
to share the light necessary for life to grow
i awake in the morning with whiskey breath
and aerosol stained fingertips
*can't you hear me slinging siren songs
across the distances we keep
while fast asleep?*
Aug 5, 2014
Aug 5, 2014 at 3:44 PM UTC
It is the era of aerosol and quick drying paints.
Nocturnal beings of angst and rage,
tags with demons mocking saints.
Turn on the news, what do you see?
Testament to the world's misery.
Cheap lit tunnels of black and beige,
for the righteous 'tis the perfect stage.
From boor to bold, in quick fashion,
magnificent walls of exploding passion.
Social themes? Put a dash in.
Something about food stamps or field rations.
The can is violent, the man is not.
Only the walls it fought.
Bombing the streets
while promoting world peace.
Feel the wrath of mighty pen,
I dare you- paint me white again.
Oct 21, 2010
Oct 21, 2010 at 10:54 PM UTC
beautiful thing
i say to my body
but my mouth speaks back to me with
crooked picture frames on walls, a fraction off beat
microscopic holes in my vernacular atmosphere
from one too many aerosol words,
of not thinking before spraying toxic
beautiful thing
i say to my body
but my thighs speak back to me with
tallies marked on skin
a sciatic nerve pleading for no more flexing of
car wheels tracks on waved sand
beautiful thing
i say to my body
but my feet speak back to me with
pinching plastic between nails hammered heavy into
figures blinking upon flat bottomed arches
pliant pleading for weightlessness
beautiful thing
i say to my body
but my stomach speaks to me by
stuffing breadcrumbs down a jagged trail
of the small intestine, appealing
beautiful thing
i scream to my body
but my mind speaks to me with
thinking thinking thinking
that thought has no weight
so weigh on me
Nov 6, 2014
Nov 6, 2014 at 11:38 PM UTC
"7:45pm"
it means time and time again that everything is new,
that
magazubes conzine poetry, that spelling is relative.
it means the last kiss is the first kiss,
is the first **** worth this?
it means i am numb, i feel [or fall out] harder than you,
i think until i bleed,
i mumble the streets mid-morning, mid-slipping sleep;
the windows aren't lit, the neighbors still sleep.
it means last night was a quickly remedied failure,
fixed by mix of music and a can of aerosol aimed at
canvas, or a bottle turned inside out, or a typewriter
being taken advantage of.
it means the groping and loving before the fight was
genuine but an uphill, losing battle against ourselves.
it means i love you and hate myself for wanting to
release my grip upon your heart because then you would
be even more hurt and i would be even more alone.
the closer i am too you, the more it blurs. the more
i cannot focus, the more i feel like a locust that
is just greedy and hungry and can't give back what
i've taken from you. i want to give back.
but locusts travel in swarms and eat crops alive;
this is not how i learned to survive.
my heart begs for it to make sense, my head begs
for this **** to stop.
Dec 16, 2011
Dec 16, 2011 at 10:56 AM UTC