"auditorium" poems
And as existential doubt sets in,
I know that I couldn't want you
But I couldn't help the rush of rejection
And so I fell
A thousand times
Screaming drunk filthy
I swear you were the one
Until I sit alone with myself and I know what lies within
But I don't know what lies beyond
And my hollow eyes find yours across the church
You in your white dress or suit or whatever nightmare you picked out
Plastered perfection
I was not the one for you
Because currently eternity has been looking more and more like a graduation ceremony
And I watch as everyone I've ever loved or loathed makes their way across the stage as I am seated in the back
And it doesn't really sting
Until the curtain falls
And I hear congratulations
With a mouth full of hell and a head filled with wine I stumble out into the crowd
And I spill myself all over your gown
Church or school auditorium it's all the same now
It's all the same now
Let the curtain fall on this too as I say congratulations
Congratulations
Congratulations
I still feel the same.
May 5, 2016
May 5, 2016 at 12:15 AM UTC
I remember walking up
to the Fiddler on the Roof audition
when I was fourteen years old
alone, feeling very unstoppable and confident
and then hiding behind the big trashcan
in the foyer of the auditorium
As they repeatedly called my name.
If you want something
throw it away.
I remember getting a *******
from a purring cat
in the dark
in a dumpster
behind a ***** bar.
If you love something
throw it away.
I remember buying you lingerie
and ripping it off of you
not even two hours later.
If you love someone
throw them away.
I remember seeing you
wear my shirts after ***
and how undescribably gorgeous
you looked then, glowing
and I thought about callling you
the other day to ask for them back
but then I realized:
If you loved in something
throw it away.
Nov 4, 2011
Nov 4, 2011 at 3:59 PM UTC
Colours of blue, green and pink
float by dancers dressed in
grand outfits of silver cloth.
A girl, not much older then 9,
sits in the back row of the empty auditorium
looking on in awe of what she was seeing.
She closes her eyes and imagines
herself upon the stage being the lead role.
It's always been her dream to dance like them.
A tiny tear prickles in the corner of her eye,
she gives a soft sigh, knowing it's useless to
dream of impossible things.
She turns, careful not to bump
the chairs in the row in front of her.
She grips the wheels in her hands,
and rolls out of the hall.
Jun 17, 2014
Jun 17, 2014 at 1:45 PM UTC
*You should get an Abortion.
It's for the best.
Your life is a wreck,
and you shouldn't want to
invite a child into your mess.
You're eighteen and homeless.
That's too young
to deal with all of this.
You can barely keep a hold
of yourself,
A kid would just make it worse.
It's time to just accept that.*
Those words were once meant for you, mom.
But, for some reason
you didn't listen.
You ignored their logic
and chose to battle through the pain.
You didn't give up.
You fought on.
Got a car, a job, an apartment,
and a way out
of all the things that controlled you.
You didn't give up.
You knew you could be a better person,
and a worthy parent.
Because instead of being
constrained to your past
You used each mistake as a lesson
that slowly started to give you strentgh.
You didn't give up.
You believed in yourself
When no one else did,
and formed your own
path which,
inch by inch,
lead you farther from your fears
and closer to that moment
when you were able to sit
in the auditorium
and watch me graduate with the words
Thank you Jesus
ringing in the back of your head.
(I know they were)
You never gave up,
and look at us now, mom.
Look where we are.
It's a miracle.
We conquered all the odds
and ignored the logic.
Because you never gave up.
I want to be like you.
To face my trials
without any fear.
And when they tell me
to just give up.
To accept defeat.
I won't.
Because you didn't.
Oct 30, 2015
Oct 30, 2015 at 7:37 PM UTC
"Shh," she hushes me.
I watch her close her mouth, then her eyes. But her very soul, she exposed to everyone, to me, in the auditorium. The music begins, and I literally see the intro of the song sink into her skin. I notice her shiver; not that i didn't want to put my arm around her to warm her up because it wasn't the temperature of the room. It was the music. She was feeling it. She is it. Her breathing to the piano's notes, her heart beat rhythmic to the dancing fingers on the keys: I can see it all. Her shoulders rising and falling--
"Oh," she softly speaks, pulling me out of my melodic reverie. "Did i just-- A tear, how silly of me to cry."
But before she could wipe her cheek, I took her hand in mine and kissed the tear away. She had this confused look, but it soon melted as I neared her.
She was not only music, she was a symphony. And every fiber of me was in tune with her, and there wasn't anything else in the room which I payed attention to.
Mar 17, 2016
Mar 17, 2016 at 11:41 AM UTC
I wish sometimes I was a man of music.
I see the right side of a tune sometimes and my body seems to feel rythm. My hands and fingers slide over imaginary guitar strings and invisible ivory keys.
My ears vacuum up the sounds of beautiful music, from instruments to midnight breezes.
From simple words to metaphors and phrases.
It seems sometimes my inspiration comes from places that ears perceive as open spaces.
My heart beats to stake it's claim, to find its rythm in a vast world of sounds. A world intricately detailed and expressive. That not only whispers but shouts, that bursts out of the spheres and penetrates the cosmos with sound.
A world as grand and explosive as this, that overflows and spills onto us. Into us, even.
A world like this and my heart beats. To find a heart beating like it's own.
They seem to sound the same, but ears that know the difference can always hear it. whether loud or subtle.
I wish sometimes I was a man of music. Because poems can't seem to write the way my heart beats...
but it does help one to realize the difference, between "beats for" and "beats with."
My heart used to believe it was beating to find some tempo smooth as itself.
But it was beating in tune with someone else's tempo. it was beating with someone who hadn't been heard yet.
I wished I was a man of music, but to be honest, I feel poetry is the only way to properly say that sounds can become trapped. Like an image can be captured, sound is trapped in the wind, and whispered on to the world.
If my heart beats, it is flown on the wind.
If your heart beats, it is flown to the moon and back.
I heard your heart beating some long time ago. When we could hear those things. So my heart started beating in tune.
To find your heart, and let it fly me to the moon.
If I was a man of music, I'd have made a poem to sing to the wind. And it would have drawn you towards me.
But I'm a man of poetry, and all I recall of finding you and trying, was imagining a sound I heard in a dream.
Singing in a spotlight to a single beating heart in an empty auditorium. She stood there strumming upon rays of light, and humming vibrations to the tempo of her heart beat. Mine couldn't help but keep the momentum, but feel the rythm and accept her composure.
Now I hear the same, every time your hands touch me, and your lips whistle melodies into my mind. Things you say get stuck on replay like songs or broken records.
Things we do become sewn into vinyl, as the needle undoes our threads and leaves us naked.
Leaves us whisping through the air, and when the record turns off. You're stuck to me, stuck in my head like strands of smoke from a candle, tangled and gliding into each other.
In other words,
I was never looking for just anybody.
In other words,
I was looking for someone to fly me away, to a place where we already existed together.
In other words,
Not a day goes by that you haven't flown me to the moon.
Jan 12, 2015
Jan 12, 2015 at 8:25 PM UTC
Its funny, as I am sitting here in the back of the auditorium, listening to all my friends on stage. The song is The Nutcracker, and suddenly it all comes back. As the bass thrums in my ear and the trupet blares loudly across the audience, I remember those winter day where She would take me to The Nutcracker. Two young girls in tow, She would cart us around, another venue every year. It was grand, the high light of my season. I could watch women with long limber legs and men in their toy soilder costumes, prance gracfully across the stage in time with th music. As I sat in that darkened auditorium it all came back to me. She used to take me to see this, to listen to this music. I had the urge to laugh madly, and cry out in anguish. Its a funny thing how precious things become long after they have ended. When the memory still stands while the erson fades. In that darkened auditorium I felt a pang of sickening nostaligia and longing. For She is dead and I am still here, and now I have no one to take me to the Nutcracker
Dec 12, 2013
Dec 12, 2013 at 10:46 PM UTC
*First light in the Hudson Valley
Arbor Day of April, 1970.*
Adrenaline coursed through our young
bodies, our hearts on fire with purpose.
As we rode our bikes, walked, or jogged miles
to our rural high school, red-winged blackbirds
called out from the misty swamps.
Beautiful but invading, acres of purple loosestrife
were rapidly taking over their wetland habitats.
Harbingers of the forests, blue jays issued
warning cries from deep in the woods,
where blights were killing our trees
with increasing frequency.
Three of us rode together, cycling in relative
silence, until we came to a meadow
selected for our early breakfast picnic.
We feasted on special fruits and cheeses,
hungrily stuffing in rare treats.
One friend began to send iridescent
soap bubbles into the chilly air.
Up they rose, up over the soft, puffy cloud
of her reddish curls, and into the dawning sun.
One bubble landed, unbroken, in the cold, dewy grass.
We stared at it, somehow understanding that here
was a delicate metaphor for our own fragile planet.
Approaching our school now, we breathed deeply the fragrance
of apple blossoms from commercial orchards all around us.
The spraying of pesticides had yet to be banned.
We were sleepy in our classes that morning;
most of our teachers understanding that we stood
now for something worthwhile, that we believed in,
and they smiled with kindness, some even with approval.
Our principal agreed to an awareness-raising slide show
designed for our fellow students, teachers and parents.
An intelligent man, he was admirably tolerant of the wave
of changes that our generation brought with us.
Smoke stacks, polluted water, and dying wildlife
flashed onto a screen in the darkened auditorium,
accompanied by the vivid symphonic power of
Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring'- a score so revolutionary
that a riot broke out at its premier, in May of 1913.
We had no idea then how much worse things would become.
All these years later, we each do our part, blessing
the efforts of our children and their children,
hoping fervently that we are not too late.
Apr 22, 2016
Apr 22, 2016 at 2:37 PM UTC
One Republic
pick and mix, assorted all sorted
wrinkles missing, smooth as glaciers
toils reversing on harbingers like excesses does
walking the trodden alleys learning Sods mathematics
organs pains for non-organics are inherent consequences so
one Republic and the anthropologists utters a myth in passing
all bananas look like all bananas because bananas are bananas alike
sing a song of three pence and a pocket full of fear
Plato's cave a grand auditorium for lames
united disunited ages in anti-virus glares
white noise in white air and masses sigh
the emperor's coat plays invisible chess
ladies think long and hard in minds
for a dolphin swims like none-other
the glides of the sweetest depths
and in those places unseen
expanded vibes of feels
know reasons why so
it's the bigger snap
it's the difference
the forbidden
fruit lures
will not
move
not
go
in
Apr 20, 2019
Apr 20, 2019 at 6:07 AM UTC
That Spring afternoon of my Upper-Middler year at Andover, I had just spoken with G. G. Benedict, the man who controlled, in effect, at which college you would matriculate. Columbia and Yale were at the top of my list. "Fine, fine, Tod. You've done very well here," he said. That evening, every student found a place to sit in George Washington Hall auditorium. Oppenheimer was to speak. I sat in the balcony, but I could see the man well. He looked as though he might have been around plutonium too long. Gaunt, pale, he began speaking. I cannot remember a single word he said that evening, but I will never forget the portentous feeling that came over me: DREAD (or should I say "dead"?) Over half a century after Oppenheimer's speech, humanity sits precariously on the cusp of extinction. A hydrogen bomb is 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bombs we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and there are thousand of hydrogen bombs we know about on Earth presently, not just the two atomic bombs Oppenheimer had. If only one hydrogen bomb accidentally explodes, scientists say that explosion will be enough to cause "Nuclear Winter." The sky around Earth will grow so dark that sunlight will not be able to penetrate it; thus, nothing will be able to grow and we will all starve to death. Every living creation on Earth will die. I think Oppenheimer, as smart as he was, knew, at least subconsciously, he had lit the fuse to inevitable annihilation of all living things.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Apr 27, 2023
Apr 27, 2023 at 4:03 AM UTC
Every day
on the orange-line metro, she would wait;
wait with her lovely mahogany harp
and it's worn, threadbare case
for a dollar;
a piece of tangible hope,
as delicate strings of rhythm
filled her ears
and controlled her senses.
What people couldn't see
was the way her soul poured itself
into each pluck of a fragile string,
and how her eyes remained
fluttering,
as the entire symphony
harmonized around her insignificant tune;
vibrating through her chest;
booming through the auditorium,
which was really just an orange-line metro
and a lone woman with a lovely mahogany harp.
So the empty case came as no surprise
to anyone
except her,
as she shed a single warm tear
and stepped off the train into the cold, bitter night.
Mar 4, 2014
Mar 4, 2014 at 1:59 PM UTC
if I were asked , are you okay
I would know not what to say
The way my feelings work
the way they ebb and flow
turns my headspace into an auditorium
full of noise
full of sorrow
full of love
with hopes for a better tomorrow
I guess I'll say I'm okay because
I've got to chase this wolf away
It breathes down my neck
It haunts every step
it salivates at the thought
of sinking it's fangs in again
and again and again
I'm hoping the meds take effect
like a huntsman
please release me from this beast
Until that time comes
I won't stop believing that I can be
free
Sep 8, 2022
Sep 8, 2022 at 5:42 PM UTC
Walk into the auditorium just to see the band on stage…
I swallow my spit,
my nerves,
and my pride.
Oh, you are talented, dear,
Because I sit between two of my best friends, and yet,
I feel completely alone in this room full of people.
Because the only things I see are brown hair and a gray shirt.
Because all I am aware of is your goofy grin and saxophone, and
The way your lips part when you laugh still makes my heart shiver.
I’m begging just to see your face once.
To be reminded of the way that lights make your eyes
Look different every time,
Picking out the specks of blue, green, and gray
As if your irises were a kaleidoscope…
My mind suddenly feels perceptive of every emotion,
And from across the stage and stadium seats,
I feel your eyes avoiding mine,
But I cannot break this cold stare of heartbreak
And the needles that caress my spine.
Although my brain is unwelcoming,
Memories are flooding my head…
Reminding me that once, you held me close,
Telling me things I shouldn’t have believed,
Holding my hand
Telling me I’m not damaged
Inviting me into your world
Reassuring me it was okay
And yanking it all out from under me.
And everyone stands for the convocation,
I’m thanking the stars for this opportunity,
Because right now it’s socially acceptable.
It’s okay that I stare at you and let my heart beat fast,
Because you are on stage,
And I’m just one in the crowd.
But I always was, wasn’t I?
Just another one in the crowd?
Another float in your parade of heartbreaks.
It’s okay, my heart is mended,
Please, just look my direction…
My mind is not sure of anything,
But everything else is,
Because we finally just made
Eye contact.
Sep 3, 2013
Sep 3, 2013 at 2:48 PM UTC
simply trying to remember a certain coat that took me like a mouth.
a coat my soul left me for.
I have been to the tub I would sit waterless in-
typewriter like a girl on my lap; the vaporous acorns of bliss winter squirrels, ash,
in the desperate curls of pubis. I have been
to the gym, its court of passed and passed back fire, its auditorium unfilled
as a church in spain. I have been to my knees.
to the egg of bird, the grief of cow, and to the lengthy absence
of train’s tunnel. I have been
with boy, with baseball, with book- smoking late on this fence
with these my trinities
soon to strike
for the house of my anna
cheerless and bare, not russian, not there.
Jul 6, 2012
Jul 6, 2012 at 1:45 PM UTC
Late at night when I’m alone in my cinder block room
I think about what could have been.
I think back to watching our favourite shows in a warm basement
And talking about what happened during third period last Thursday
Now I’m drinking in a dimly lit common room
Talking about what happened at that party last Friday
I like it here
But I wish I could take a break from the hazy nights filled with the wandering eyes of mysterious strangers and kisses that taste like *****
And get back to what could have been
So that maybe our eyes could have met for just a little bit longer.
On early mornings when clouds darken the view out of my window
I think about what could have been.
I think back to reading Shakespeare in the library
And wondering why the future seemed so far away
Now I’m reading Othello on an ivy and limestone campus
And that unreachable future is right now
I like it here
But I wish I could take a break from studying until the sun rises and philosophy majors slipping me their numbers
And get back to what could have been
So that maybe we could have stayed alone in the high school hallway for just a little bit longer.
On Sunday afternoons when the hallways are eerily silent
I think about what could have been.
I think back to ordering takeout at midnight
And laughing at each other’s jokes even if they weren’t that funny
Now I’m eating noodles out of a mug because I ran out of bowls (again)
And laughing at how you would be teasing me about this right now
I like it here
But I wish I could take a break from Styrofoam meals and coffee dates with boys from tutorials
And get back to what could have been
So that maybe we could stay at the diner down the road for just a little bit longer.
On Tuesdays in lecture halls where remarks on Romans echo through the auditorium
I think about what could have been
I think back to what should have been
And long for what possibly would have been
I packed my bags and headed down a long stretch of highway
You captured the city skyline with a camera
I like it here
You like it there
But I hope that one day we’ll get a break from it all
And with a degree in one hand and certainty in the other
We’ll take what could have been
And make it into what’s ours
For maybe more than a little bit longer.
Feb 1, 2014
Feb 1, 2014 at 7:33 PM UTC
And the show is never over!
I don't even remember purchasing the tickets.
Welcome to a runny nose, and welcome to a style of up and down.
Because that's all up and down are; styles for the miles of crowded planet.
Drink your tired music like a bowl of wonton soup
Chunks will surprise you.
Swipe your debit, credit, hallmark card to purchase them
All of them.
Every inch of their REM.
I woke up to the winter concealed in valleys
Filled with fortune and ethernet cables.
What's your wifi password?
"Thanks, love."
Alright, thanks, love.
What a beautiful way to say "careful."
Carefree.
Curvature of some invisible decimal point.
I love you.
Dec 25, 2012
Dec 25, 2012 at 2:02 AM UTC
On the stage
under the lights
in front of the auditorium seats
a
Sneering, jeering, laughing
audience at
one on the stage
The spinning shimmering
hologram
of
all my fears
reluctance
guard rails
concrete barriers
perpetrators
and
victims too
rememberings
and
anticipation
stood
Connected to me
by
a long tether
And
along that tether
my
power flowed
away from me
Into the performing
Mannequin
on
that stage.
Who was the puppet master?
In a moment of freedom
or was it just pique
with my golden scissors
the
tether was
cut.
The shimmering stood
for a moment on stage
the crowd became silent
and
looked away.
In my moment
of release
I wished it well
compassion and peace
and
I was finally free.
Apr 8, 2014
Apr 8, 2014 at 9:03 AM UTC
(start with a bow and a swish)
we are a thousand beating symphonies
variations of a familiar theme
treble clefs and four/four rhythms
chord progressions up to E
(sorrow and anger and love and hate)
arpeggios and interludes
minuets quadrilles and waltzes
the refrains, the fermatas, the reprises
we are a thousand sweeping overtures
(the last note rings through an empty auditorium)
Dec 8, 2012
Dec 8, 2012 at 4:48 PM UTC
The Professor drones on.
I glimpse at my phone...quick-link to trending news... "Grease thieves" the headline reads.... Envirogeeks stealing french fry grease to run their old diesel tour bus. Willie's on the road again it seems.
I imagine 60's dressed high school girls stealing DVD's of the classic movie musical and every girl I every dated singing the part of Oliva Newton-John in all the songs. The old love-crush imagined from my boyhood brain surfaces.
The long legs of the most beautiful fair-haired Australian beauty. In that last scene wearing those tight leather jeans... "Oh Sandy"....Don’t believe me, ask your girlfriend the first thing that pops in her head when you say the word “Grease”...it won’t be french fry.
Wait candy!...Freeing my ceased-up palm from the creases of my deep-seated thesis folders, releases my pack’s last handful of Reese's Pieces. Nearly asleep, I study the candy's ingredients as Dr. ancient geek waxes eloquent about Theseus, redemption and ancient Greece. The very parallels rule my brain insanity.
The oil from Palm trees burned bright that night the ancient Greeks create a democratic state gathered in an ancient auditorium designed for debate or education or to tempt our fetes and fates with historical songs, love stories and tragedies of the day.
All so my present day brain could reference the social tragedy love songs of "Grease".... the unchanged, tour-bus-fueling power of oil and grease stolen in the name of freedom, a ancient Greek democratic freedom voted on in a auditorium the very design of this Greek History classroom copies.
****** why are they putting Palm Oil in my Reese's Pieces?!?!
11:34am starts.
Oct 28, 2016
Oct 28, 2016 at 6:15 AM UTC
Running Blind Madness
Eyes Wide Heart Pounding
Spirit Lifts Senses Live
Theres Thunder IN THE Atmosphere
This IS A Free Arena
A Gateless Auditorium
Open Fields
Open Wide
Forking Lightning ON THE Horizon
This Natural Inebriation
IN Dynamic Resonation
Anticipation OF THE
Consternataion
Hells Beasts Abound
Snarling Snouts Sounding
Heavy Hoofs Pounding
Crazed Dashing Hounding
IN THE Chaos That'S Surrounding
Hells Beasts Abound
Torso'S Writhing Flailing
Grit Bucking Flailing
Crimson Flow Tailing
THE Gore OF THE Impailing
I'M Knee Deep
IN A River OF Blood
Fleshen Heap
IN THE Reddening Flood
Sodden WET Flesh
Whip AND Turn
Trace THE SKY
With THE Carnal Rain
WET THE Earth
With A Reddened
Stain
Sodden WET Flesh
Whip AND Turn
Trace THE SKY
With THE Carnal Rain
WET THE Earth
With A Reddened
Stain
Sodden WET Earth
Besot With Death Mirth
Drown THE Earth
IN THE Afterbirth
Every Beast THE ****** Herse
DON'T RID ME OF THE ******* Curse
IN AN Ever Rising River OF Blood
Causing Chaos With NO Remorse
I AM Power IN Full Course
Wreaking Havoc
Sump
WET
Dripppin'
Torn
This Bloods LET BY MY Horn
I'M Sopping WET
MY ****** Horn
I Feel Like I'M NEW Born
Drumming Quakes Pounding
Shaking THE Foundation
Lifting Spirits IN THE AIR
I AM GOD Everywhere
Helter Skelter IN THE Chaos
This IS Pandemonium
Freedom Forms
IN THE Void
Electric Flux Obliteration
Pure Intoxication
AS Evil Incarnation
This Revelation
IS Anihilation
Apr 10, 2021
Apr 10, 2021 at 7:55 AM UTC
Shakespeare says, "The world is a stage..."
But who gave me this play that has no page?
We are the playwright of our play.
God has given us the light for the way.
"Action!" Our feet stand on the theater,
Ready to perform, use all strength to do better.
The judge is sitting at the auditorium top.
Millions of mouths jazz for the artist of pop.
Their echoes can trick a lofty heart to fail.
But the dressed player will not be the tail.
Sep 7, 2025
Sep 7, 2025 at 2:26 AM UTC
Starlight on soft clarinet.
Moonlight on jazz solo.
Empty auditorium
Even more empty stomach.
Your black painted nails
In daffodils on the fresh looking lawn,
Beat to the tambourine.
Jazzist smiles his sunglasses smile
And blows his smirk into riffing saxophone
Exploding into blues chords
Floating, like smoke,
Filling our lungs inwardly.
And you look up at me,
Blades of grass in your hair,
And you laugh.
And that's how i know you're still breathing.
Mar 19, 2013
Mar 19, 2013 at 4:56 PM UTC
this years Tony Awards
had the best ever emcee
he filled the auditorium
with a panoply of glee
his tap dancing routine
enthralled everyone
as did the comedy
stuff that he spun
he's a man of stage
and of silver screen
that Jackman chap
can certainly set a scene
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 7:39 PM UTC
Forever ago,
maybe,
I had done this before,
but growing up had pushed it aside,
disregarded it as child’s play.
Yet somehow as I listened
to the rain
pounding against the auditorium roof,
the child in me
awakened
and now I stand
breathless,
with my pant legs soaked, as
he looks at me
and laughs
and takes my hand to walk me
to the dry and warm.
But before we step onto the sidewalk,
as we linger there in the parking lot
in the swirling space between young and old,
I can see us years ago
as 8 year olds dashing through nightfall
to splash ourselves
joyously
as we did tonight.
And for all the maturity I pretend to have,
my soul sheds a
raindrop tear
for the simple happiness
I have lost.
Mar 29, 2010
Mar 29, 2010 at 8:51 PM UTC