"beretta" poems
I cower in your shadow,
shivering despite any acuity of my own.
(your words are like loaded icicles,
beretta rounds fired through my false logic
and fake religion;
it scares me.)
The truth is I'm not fearless,
I'm pale and lily-livered and only so heathen as the other stars.
(maybe it's good you're in college,
it's closer than you were growing up.
when we were young,
you were short yet rough.
I was the younger,
and, my shepherd, you were faithful;
I only got lost 8 times.)
I don't think I ever really knew you
in any possible perception.
(I know I knew the talk of you,
the hustle and bustle at home and abroad
of your mighty intellect,
your crushing wit,
your driving polities
a war machine and
your gleaming smile
its patron god.)
How could I ever compare, though,
to the goddess of mind and body, brains and war?
(the truth is I am but a defiant priest,
crooked nose and
ashy eyes.
I think the reason,
even today,
for all my insecurities was due to you.)
Appeasement was a method used by the vain and weak
to protect against the humble yet brilliant.
(I feel your ********** take me over,
I feel it acid-wash into my skin,
de-porous my bones
and my imagination structure.
I feel it sink me up to the top,
drowning me in your air,
in your sky and your perfect chemistry.
your burning gold catches me,
smothers me in hands too big
for such a small person.)
How is it you are so tall
when you come up to my chin?
Why is it that I shiver and shake at your light foot falls?
Answer to the shadows
and my cowering will not respond.
Feb 27, 2010
Feb 27, 2010 at 11:07 PM UTC
"listen to me!" his mother said
"If I see one more tear, you'll never see her again!"
the five year old boy's cheeks
still flushed
his eyes swelling like
a pop-knot
they are ****** red
his chest will surely
explode from the tension
any moment now
he clenches the tube of
ointment in his front pocket
of the new pair of jeans
his grandma bought him
on the way back from
North Carolina
the young boy wipes his eyes,
rubs the bald spots on his head,
noticing his last eyelash has fallen on
the last tear running down his
face
his grandma holds him tight, she says:
"I love you. I'll be back soon."
he can feel his mother's
needle-worn arms pulling him away.
he can smell her morphine sweat.
he can taste her oxycontin breath.
despite watching his grandmother
close the door of her 1990
green Beretta and drive
off Walnut Street and
down Oakford Ave--
the little boy
never cried
again.
Oct 10, 2013
Oct 10, 2013 at 8:46 PM UTC
she was the first
to act as though
she wanted to be my beretta,
to hold a holster to my thigh
and accept the badge
of partner in crime.
she spoke without shelter.
pool days of marination
in monsters and taurus,
a kiss for pity
as i'd yet to be corrupted,
and she stole some joy
in taking what wasn't hers.
she was bigger than me.
she showed me
how shattered touch screens
can look like dried petals,
but cut like cold *******
and when you're in a field of dandelions
how they come in handy.
she wrote the book on flagellation.
she promised it was all for me;
calloused fingertips from
loving me with lighter fluid,
scratches for feral adoration,
and the damocles' above my head
or rather hers, and hers to drop on a whim.
she wrote a chapter on manipulation.
i wasn't ready the first time
she pushed passed denim
and plaid as easily
as she waived my concern,
nor the second --
nor the third.
she had daddy issues.
i still didn't know
how tampons worked,
or vaginas for that matter,
and so to be forcefully
and viscerally introduced to both
behind a tree in Henessey
****** up my brain a little.
she called it "mad week."
ear bud cables
became garrotes
around my neck
in the suspended
movement of a pulse
through my aorta;
and as every day with her,
i felt she crossed a line,
and as every day before,
i never called foul.
May 2, 2013
May 2, 2013 at 2:07 AM UTC
I slowly walked into the Boardroom
Silence
You could here a pin drop
Silence
Locked the door behind me
Silence
Opened up my tatty briefcase
Silence
Pulled out two Beretta 93R automatic pistols
*Silence
Chaos*
**Corporate ******** annihilated**
Oct 6, 2010
Oct 6, 2010 at 5:13 AM UTC
Mixed up messed up
wacky Yankee doodle world,
curled up in a ball
like an animal should,
its no good running guns
and popping and burning in your own hood.
Used to be bike chains and brassknuckles
A Filipino dude with a balisong,
but now its a Beretta in every waistline.
Machine pistol mean mugs
putting drugs above people
in the hierarchy of the streets,
cold blooded hits, where there used to be beating.
No wonder every Tom **** And Harry, is crying Apocalypse Now!
It's not over till everybody gets a chance to sing, take it all in.
Begin anew, step through, and claim the future you want for your great grand children.
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 1:59 PM UTC
Sketching surveys of desolate dreams,
purveyors of private property plots,
their impatient greed,
ignoring purple spray paint warnings.
Six feet under, resting next to Grandpa's coffin,
live valuable minerals, their rights forgotten,
a farmer of soy beans, wheat and corn,
oil & gas law to Grandpa was foreign,
but he knew why our creek's current flowed north,
upwards, defying gravity or reason, why these men had come.
One time executive cowboy hats descended on the farm,
in pickup trucks, just purchased from an oil lot in Odessa,
Grandpa took aim and raised his Beretta,
their unfit hats lost to the blast, the only harm.
I was only five, when I saw his lengths of protection,
he took me on hunts for deer, boar, quail, dove,
would always aim his rifle, fire and miss,
blamed it on his eye sight, yet hit bullseyes on paper targets.
It took me 20 years to understand why, with swallowed pride,
he purposely missed killing these animals,
cursing his eyesight instead, winning an Oscar for his humble acts,
was he blinding me from death?
There was no vision impairment, I found out in hindsight,
probably the trauma witnessed, as he died with 20/20 eyesight.
Mar 15, 2018
Mar 15, 2018 at 1:59 AM UTC
Behind the mask of darkness
Always lies the madness of one inner self
It is important to respect one fear
Around this time of Halloween
The autumn leaves had blanket the cold October ground
Covering the Jack' o lantern on the front porch,
And I wasn’t about to let nothing petrify me that cold night
I remember that morning had come a minute too soon
Before my R E M cycle kicked in
I wasn’t mentally prepare to face another day
But there I was once again: undone
In my country we were never allowed to,
Celebrate Halloween or dress up in
Anything, that resembles evil, ghost, globin,
Headless horsemen, or vampires,
It was known to be the works of the devil doings
My candid thoughts were on Halloween spooky night
The loud screams of trick or treats,
was heard all around this gloomy town of Collins port
Small tots all dress up in hideous costumes
I had allowed fear to control my thoughts and inner space
Black spiders, howling wolves and black coffins,
The creepiest sound and display on route 69
Grown folks hide behind the masks of darkness
While parading the street of Sotho in Manhattan
Another long night of evil spirits, witches and ghosts terrify the night;
Toddlers with Tiaras was on the verge of tears
what a lose-lose situation: From beginning to end
Close to ten there I was cruising down route 69
I check the glove compartment, took out a peppermint patty,
The rusty Beretta Nano pistol was still there,
snugly into my glove compartment
My pepper spray was close by my trigger fingers
Suddenly, I felt a **** scraping, and clunking, squeaking sound
My tire blowout in the middle of nowhere,
Behind the mask of darkness
Always lies the madness of one inner self
"Trick or treat!"
Oct 12, 2015
Oct 12, 2015 at 8:51 AM UTC
- up country Laos, 1972
I won't do it, I said. I won't.
It's a direct order, he said.
We stood a few yards apart,
in front of the blasted wire
where the screaming
enemy wounded
were caught like stuck flies.
It had been a long night
of attack and repulse;
the howling wounded
were all that remained.
He was maybe thirty,
an Ivy League ***** wannabe;
I was just a battle weary broken
20-year-old with no silver spoon.
You will get your *** out there
and tap those moaning *****
and you will do it now, another order.
I said, I'm a medic, not a murderer.
They are prisoners. There are lines,
even here. I will not cross this one.
**** lines. What you are, he said, is a *****
In his hand, a lethal black 9mm Beretta;
in mine a 1911 model Colt 45 automatic.
Both loaded. Both ready to speak. Both angry.
Both anxious. Both with something to say.
You aren't my CO. You're not even an officer.
I refuse, I said. **** you and the Company.
My hand tensed on the 45. The Beretta quivered.
We looked at each other, working out the odds,
Death, for one of us, seemed only a few seconds away.
But he hesitated, lowered his weapon.
It's ******* like you who lost this war, he said.
And it's mad men like you who started it, I replied.
He turned and walked out to tap the wounded,
one by one, ****** after ******
Delighting in revenge.
I walked back to the chopper, gun in hand,
and nodded to the pilot. We flew away,
at first to more war, but then back to the world,
the world that could never, ever be the same.
~mce
Apr 22, 2015
Apr 22, 2015 at 9:28 AM UTC
he wrote three poems that night
and all hell broke loose
the children looked through the windows
and fell in love with sin
the men stood on the misty northern platforms
waiting for the trains to take them to the front
and the women wept for hours because they were afraid of change
he wrote three poems that night
he stood high up on the city walls
and fired them at the crowd with his magic Beretta shotgun
to a bunch of innocent by-standers
who would never return to their homes sane
and they laughed and they felt awkward
and they knew it was up to them to sing in tune or disappear forever
he wrote three poems that night
one exploded like a space shuttle in the frozen black sky
the second burned the gates and freed the tigers from their cages
and the third roamed the streets with a wicked smile
- dynamite strapped around the chest
and high on acid like a bulletproof son of a *****
it was the night the dogs were barking his name
and the signs on the walls were painted blood-red
while all the communication systems broke down
and nobody was ready
but clearly
he was
Apr 8, 2010
Apr 8, 2010 at 8:59 AM UTC
Unearthly longing puts a spell on me
prophetic and poetic words empty my mouth
you've done it again,
dashed and crashed my need of you in one move.
A marriage invitation. Ours?
No, yours and hers.
You'd promised that I was yours
you were mine.
But, you found deeper water to play in,
cream vellum invite
inviting me, the one that you'd ****** for fun
to be an honoured guest at your celebration.
My celebration also, alas for you.
Such beautiful flowers coo the guests
I smile, I've seen these flowers before
at my door.
They'd announce your intentions
frenetic, athletic, kinetic ***
was to ensue.
Hushed ahhhhhs as the bride to be
Stepped out
bridal colours of a ******
shame about the groom.
Numb I watch her walk to you
I know every inch of you
I know that secret quirky part of you
that perversely makes you gentler.
Will she find it?
She's at the altar, I start to feel frenetic
this is wrong I should be her
you caressed me first
you kissed me first
You were my first.
Wait, the vicar is asking for objections
You both turn, look out at us the congregation
I lock eyes with you
I look perky, your mask falters
It's all over bar the screams
You see dear I do object to being an object
who looks for a concealed pocket sized Beretta
at a wedding?
That red stain will be ****** to get out.
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 6:43 PM UTC