"buckshot" poems
The seven day prayer candle burned out
seven days ago, and the twisted blinds
are held together with chopsticks and moving tape
after snapping in an unresolved haunting.
The nights enter like gemstones and exit like rabbits.
Truth sequestered from skin; I get a haircut
instead of another tattoo.
While shaving my neck with a straight razor,
the bald Albanian barber asks me:
"Which is scarier: people or mirrors?"
Before I could reply he shook his head:
“Trick question. They are the same thing.”
Walking home, I tore up the if-I-die note I had hidden
in my back pocket, and taught the pieces to dance
to the silence of buckshot screaming into a black hole.
The choreography was as patient as pregnant pauses
breathing into paper bags.
To the neighbors, smoking cigarettes on their stoops,
the shredded paper just looked like litter.
Jan 15, 2013
Jan 15, 2013 at 9:45 AM UTC
I love my life.
All of it.
Every time the sun warms or
Burns; the rain soothes, or
Stings with angry ice; barrel-hot
Buckshot, I
Thank. Thank for the
Weather.
I love my life.
All of it.
It's an art.
All of it.
Every time the axe rests above
Your neck mid-air,
Wink at the masked one
Holding the handle.
Thank. Thank for the
Swift awakening
Awaiting.
Add years to your dreaming.
It's an art.
All of it.
I love you, poet.
All that is you.
You hold an opposing answer
In each hand, commanding
The chooser to hold
Your gaze and keep
Asking.
The best readings rest between
Every line drawn.
I love you, poet.
It's an art. All that
Is you. **** well
All of it.
Sleep safe.
Add years to your
Dreaming.
Dec 27, 2014
Dec 27, 2014 at 3:09 PM UTC
I'm drawing a blank, here.
Let's spill it all out.
We love everything altogether as it is. Even the things we hate.
We love to hate them. I do. You certainly do.
No relevancy here, please don't even try to understand
This hastily scribbled bunch of swirls
I am just trying to meet my psychological demands
And dance across continental rifts
Deep-sea madness floods
Your brain on the walls
All your memories on my favorite sweater
It's so beautiful to watch your life flash
After your eyes are turned round
And they get all bloodshot
Like my buckshot.
This doesn't make any sense anymore.
What am I doing?
Seriously, guys, what the ****
It's so hard to watch the good ones turn sour.
Beautiful and poetic.
"I hate the way things are."
Dec 20, 2010
Dec 20, 2010 at 6:37 PM UTC
You had two pet rabbits, one named Mickey the other Maurice,
who lived on lettuce bits and behind thin metal bars.
A caged environment set up on the study's wood floors,
with books and a red couch to keep company
and your mom, because she would finish her graphs and stats
on the mahogany desk living in the corner of the room
and she liked the rabbits purr and delicate noses
and would hold them and pet them
when she put down her pen and moleskin and accounts
because, although caged and bought at Pet World
in the strip mall across from Adult World
on the other side of Interstate 67, these rodents gave her comfort,
reminding her of Maine and Jonathan
who abstained from going and killing for sport
with his brothers when they went, in pickups
with buckshot and murdered deer and rabbits,
because she still missed Jon and bought these fluffy
white creatures for 47.99, a good deal,
and they came with a little rock house
that they could sleep and burrow under
like Jon and herself, snuggled in Maine,
away from Palo Alto. So every time I come over,
to have *** and eat dinner and listen
to what you learned to play on piano,
I stop by the study to see Maurice
and Mickey and feel the presence of Jonathan
and the sticky suburban sadness of your mother,
while keeping a secret promise close to my heart,
that I'll never become an accountant.
Dec 5, 2014
Dec 5, 2014 at 6:54 PM UTC
I will never be enough of a man
To dowse my saffron robes
In cold gasoline and set it aflame
In buddhistic conviction--
My dreams would scamper
From my burning head to find another,
My flesh would crack and burn
Like old parchment
In rough palms.
I will never be enough of man
To eat buckshot out of
A hollow cold steely gun
My mouth wrapped around the
Reaffirming thickness--
My eyes would dart and then close
My ears would ring and then collapse
Like an old building
Consumed in flames.
I will never be enough of a man
To wrap a rope round my neck
And stare blankly ahead
To seize the day
From God's hands--
My face would bulge
My limbs would twitch
Like a dying rodent
In the throes of cancer.
I will always be enough of a man
To kiss your lips
With my own and feel
Your curves in my hands
And look at the sun--
My trembling hands falter
My eyes can't see to feel for you
Like a blind pianist
Playing the blues.
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 2:54 PM UTC
What makes you think
that the suffering will stop
if you take off the top
of your head
with a shower
of buckshot
or slice the artery
longways
or down
those pills
with a gallon of wine
fully dressed
lying in bed
with a note
pinned to your chest
What makes you think
the pain will stop
just because your dead?
I hate to break it to you
Aug 29, 2015
Aug 29, 2015 at 7:59 PM UTC
It was a Sunday morning
and by gosh what did I see
I think it was the Easter Bunny
staring out at me
He had a basket filled with eggs
and chocolate butter cups
But when he saw my shotgun
he knew his time was up
He dropped his Easter basket
and fell upon his knees
He looked into both barrels
and said “Mr. If you please
I'm just the Easter Bunny
come to spread some happy joy
From house to house
and door to door
for every girl and boy"
I considered his objection
as I held him in my sights
If he was the Easter Bunny
then I didn't have the right
But his head would sure look pretty
mounted up upon my wall
Right between the Tooth Fairy
and Santa's jingle *****
I pondered this dilemma
and I chose my words with care
"I've shot a lot of critters
but I never shot a hare"
I decided I would let him go
I'd let the moment pass
But when he turned to run away
I shot him in the ***
So now he's mounted on my wall
above the fire place
Between the red nosed Rudolph
and Cupid's smiling face
They'll be no need for colored eggs
come Easter time next year
The Easter Bunny's on my wall...
With buckshot in his rear
Aug 26, 2012
Aug 26, 2012 at 2:57 AM UTC
in the penguins luck the furnace begins
at reprograming the news. Picture frames on 2 x 4s , three
photographs and glass bottles in the most decadent of matrimonies.
Three-hundred million dollars.
And the race riots show 'em who'll take the dampit from the mound of
Soot stained elements, canvas, trash bags, electric guitar riffs, giraffes, bingo, the drip-drop on the drop cloth. Easing into the new processor.
She who settles the wages of crickets with ether and single-barrel vanilla buckshot and maple. Incisors and cynical stereotypecastes and the shadows of the other mugged and loose canonical charades the worser and worsening play their ad keywords at in the sketchmakers many movements her dactyls fine and her fingertips many. Sweet lines of breathing and setting.
Feb 14, 2016
Feb 14, 2016 at 3:24 PM UTC
The truth set me free along tome ago.
A lightness of mind like vapor from a Tennessee still
nestled way back in the Blue Kentucky hills.
Carefree as a bird swiftly winging to buckshot every feather in place.
The song of my nature driving me forward. To be or not.
Easier to forward than crash into false recollections.
Like a roaring inferno set upon the land. Reckless.
A mind too lazy to conjure in webs of reckless fantasy. Encased with surety.
A perch above the turmoil where the view is forever and blue.
Yes there is a price however. The winged truth is easy target for the hunter.
He lies in the brush well concealed and leads the mark by a hair.
Placing projectiles in the way of surety with devastating precision.
Truth falls to earth in a death spiral ****** feathers waft behind.
Fire and destruction. Fire and resurrection. Fire at will.
The heady substance is a snare.
a small price to pay. The Phoenix will rise however.
The outcome will replay.
The Phoenix will rise yet still. Stubborn in his way.
Set free to soar and fall to ground
Set free to soar.
Set free.
Feb 17, 2013
Feb 17, 2013 at 9:58 AM UTC
Behind locked doors
in humidity, Steven
tried his luck with a
nose-full of buckshot;
Poor ****** lost.
Feb 22, 2014
Feb 22, 2014 at 11:50 PM UTC
Her love it knows no boundaries
I buy for her a cat
My darling keeps a basking shark
In her woolly hat
How many sticklebacks
Are beat up by the frogs ?
My dearest keeps her worn out stones
Underneath her logs
Her touch is like ...a million tons
of rubble from the moon
To charm a thousand dragonflies
Like buckshot as they swoon
I walked across the ocean
To breed her for a while
Out in the Antarctic
Zebra's que-ing..for a mile !!
My darling sweetlips Octopus
Oh come and marry me ?
But dog said " I FORBID IT " !!
So i'll have to wait and see
Or shack up with a Tortoise
Whose name is Ethel bytheweight
I think i have... should go now
Cos ...she always makes me late !!
I set adrift my chocolate log
on seas of peas and cream
laughing as my head fell off
I dreamt...the strangest dream
Sep 14, 2010
Sep 14, 2010 at 1:41 PM UTC
~~~
*it as if I am blinded
by the perfection
of the moment
all sensors singly loaded,
yet interacting,
in a buckshot of common cause
my eyes suffused
by sun scattering rays uncovering a day's birth placenta gleaming
amidst the glaring shadows of the refuse of nature's yesterday's
discarded leavings
my eyes reversed,
unsuffused
as it they were a gift,
waiting all this time,
forgoing-opening until
just this moment
my ears suffused
by soft sounds and
swirling ripples of calm waters,
the wind teasing, saying,
move like me, but just so, barely,
the real sounds of the quietude heard
as if for the first time
my tongue tastes you,
wrested from my mind's eye, you are given,
in the everything, skin creme of lapping waves, in the everywhere,
uncovered from within the sun's own departing shadow
my smell
is the smell of life,
nostrils flaring expanding with no limit
to take it all in,
completing, unifying,
a puzzle that never was,
that is now forever solved
my hands fuse
the tingling of life given from wet dewy grass,
shiny and reflecting,
the roughness of the bark,
a natural protective coating,
combining soft caresses and confirming
the necessity of both
perfectly still
I sit amidst
the perfect stillness,
all movement unnecessary,
all my senses reach out and return as one,
bringing me presents of knowledge,
more than suffused, I too,
am trite but true,
dearest god, can it be true,
rebirthed, renewed
this ordinary day
is now extraordinary
solitary figure staring gaze steady,
a perfection ******
impatient for the
suffusion fix
of this day, and the morrow*
~~~
**August 6, 2015
Shelter Island**
Aug 8, 2015
Aug 8, 2015 at 10:58 AM UTC
_We burrow where they lie, our fallen brothers. Old sweats and fledgling crow bags, both. In death as in life, they have our back…and so we plough on into the abyss by the light of a caged phosphorus flare, hot metal spraying the midnight hour like some vengeful fay’s buckshot.
A human scaffold supports us for the distance of four miles. That’s Piccadilly to Hampstead; Circus to Heath. The length of a lifetime…of hundreds of lifetimes. In the winter when the rains come and the trenches run like a quartermaster’s latrine, the soil sloughs away to reveal the ossuary within. It is then that I, in my now customary delirium, imagine that I can reach out to shake their hand again._
Nov 11, 2020
Nov 11, 2020 at 3:11 PM UTC
Plasma stains
beneath family portraits
Dust collects
on top of fingerprints
Bit’s of hair, fingernails
jammed in braided rugs
Just knowing
creates a foul stench
Oh, the spatter
that splattered when
Buckshot went off!
It’s been 8 years ago today
Claimed crazy residing
were once he had killed
And he always
plans to stay
Neighborhood strays
never sow to his lawn
They scurry by
whimpering in fear
For a body was missing
the law never saw,
Not even
the protruding ear
Grocers delivering food
strewed cross the yard
And the mailman
hasn’t stopped by in ages
It is said “who gets too close
to what rests inside,
Will be next posted
on the front pages
Jun 13, 2010
Jun 13, 2010 at 6:53 PM UTC
Beneath the calm
Of moonlit leaves,
Lying lovers
Shoot the breeze.
When in the moment
Of the mode,
Between the rhythm
Of stride and strode,
Shoot off your mouth
And not your load.
Corner thugs
Will deal you drugs
To smoke or snort
Or mainline shoot.
It's a slippery slope
Of lost freewill,
The up is high,
The trip's downhill.
You're in the cross hairs;
Drugs shoot to ****
The shooter feigns
Heeding advice,
So craps himself
On loaded dice.
The lawyers grin
Without remorse;
They shoot your savings
Throughout divorce.
The pool hall hustler
Cues his cool,
Looking for
A snookered fool.
Naively, when the children play,
Yell, “Ah shoot!” instead of say,
“Ah ****
We say that's okay.
Like saying, ****
When they can.
It's in the Bible, see?
Sports Illustrated
Puts out a shoot
Of photoshops
In skimpy suits.
When we say
We shoot meat,
Do we stalk roasts
On city streets;
From our hide
On city blocks,
Do we crossbow
Down our chops;
Do we rope *******
Then use buckshot?
It's euphemistic,
A rich spadeful:
"We shoot 'em all,"
And that's no bull.
Jul 9, 2014
Jul 9, 2014 at 12:07 AM UTC
I’ve lead this nation through its greatest
Civil unrest,
Like the last hand left clapping at
Curtain call,
I stand tall, a little too tall, stove pipe
Black hat,
Huzzahs and here here’s, I’ve had
My share,
And my critics would rather load
Their revolver,
Than blow buckshot with their brains
And tongue,
Which is why I’m stuck inside my own mind,
Comatose, near death, and all I can think of is my
Little boy.
White walls, white women, and **** in my
Bed pan,
Through my shattered cranium, I can still see
And think,
Slack jawed and glaze eyed, this isn’t right on
My son’s
21st birthday, who will be there
To buy
His first beer, or cool glass of
*** punch,
Mary Todd abstains from the savage
Fire water,
So Edward, knobby kneed now, please tell
Me who?
To share a malted Schlitz, or fine Pabst
Blue ribbon,
To teach you the proper way a man sips
The foam,
How to crush the julep leaf before crushing
It in,
Your table will be full of well wishers and
Whiskey drinkers,
Your belly will be full of well whiskey and
Sour mash,
Your woman, how beautiful she will be,
Glossy eyed,
Your brothers, yes, your companions will
Be there,
Alas your dear ol’ Dad will not be present for
The speech,
As I have addressed so many
Times before,
But you can tell the story, of fore score and seven
Beers ago,
Your father lay vegetated, weak, tired
Of dying,
With the thoughts of honey hops and
Bitter barley,
The sweet wheat, and your transformation
Into manhood,
You’ll be as lonesome and lost as the
****** Confederacy,
Child, know that your father can not tell
A lie,
That on that day, I will be tapping
A barrel,
In the land beyond the sky, stirring the foam,
Humming happy birthday.
Dec 25, 2011
Dec 25, 2011 at 12:44 AM UTC
A man tore himself apart
It was just the other day
Limb to limb, bit to bit
****** pulp, sinew askew
And now he sits and wonders
Was he always in such discord?
Or was this a fabrication
A fabrication of the mind
Or of the absence of a mind
Self diagnosed insanity
A man who had reached an end
A break, a crack, in his psyche
Exhausted every nodule of sense
Along the highway of consciousness
But how has it come to this?
What was it that sent him into madness?
Was there an actual affliction?
Or did he see his reflection?
He took his manifestation of monotony
Blew it to pieces with a shotgun blast
Picking out buckshot with broken fingers
Each pellet another unanswered question
How many times can a man crush himself
Before he's pressed too thin?
How many times can his world be flipped
Before he knows which way is up?
How many deaths must he endure
Before he feels alive again?
But he can no longer take action
After all these mindless meltdowns
He lays on the forest floor, motionless
Becoming one with the earth
Buried in leaves and branches decaying
The dirt below him is cold and wet
Insects crawling and colonizing
Marching through his rotting flesh
And it all feels romantic and beautiful
Sunlight and serenity fall upon him
Feeling nothing and everything
And then nothing again.
Aug 11, 2016
Aug 11, 2016 at 2:27 PM UTC
grass, gas, or *** nobody rides for free
cops and robbers and the indian hides for me
my *** ate grass got gas and then shies on me
my horse got sores got shot, and dies on me
all us poor kids didn't mind to be a tribe
eenie meanie mighty moe never helped us hide
tony two tooth's daddy likes to run around
his mom is gonna play too and "hunt him down"
one two buckle in my shoe, toys in the attic
hopscotch buckshot semi-automatic
piggy goes to market this piggy stays home
then, this old man comes rollin home all alone
sorry coach but this year i can't go out
daddy blew out his knee and my shoe had a blow out
richie rich called his stepbrother a snitch
sweet summer hits with a hickory switch
jump back charlie jack you know how we feel
bacon comes from a hog boy not from a meal
hoppa fence it's 50 cents for stolen fruit
poppa top drop no deposit no returns pollute
Oct 8, 2021
Oct 8, 2021 at 2:39 AM UTC
there are different ways of making love
sometimes in mysterious places
all of you reads this poem
we might just touch bases
let me tell you a story
of a chance I took
After it was said and done
I never took a second look
One night me and my partner
.drove down a country road
it was dark as it could be
and things was about to unfold
we ran across this cornfield
so we stopped and we both said
we were in a pickup truck
so we climbed into its bed
we did not see no trespassing signs
and did not see no house
so we were in the middle of the Act
and tried to be as quiet as a mouse
then all the sudden I heard something
and I told him to please stop
but he just did not listen
then we were put on the spot
and then there was a flashlight
shining in our face
along with a long barrel shotgun
as we stared in total amaze
the farmer gave us a warning
and told us to leave his property
and then we left out of there
which scared the heck out of me
so all that read this story
please watch out for the dark country roads
please rule out the cornfield
because you might get the buckshot
by the heavy load
Jun 21, 2015
Jun 21, 2015 at 12:43 AM UTC
where are my ugly people?
shuffling with holed shoes,
defunct ****** organs,
crossed eyes.
those whose strides echo their
genetic abnormalities,
a leg an inch longer than the other (like me),
arms fat with blood,
skin resplendent with eczema
boils on eyelids,
dilated pupils,
escaping from the mirror with
horse tranquilizer
and enough ***** to sink
the state of California.
where are my ugly people,
too long under the delusion of
"finding inner beauty"
by the pretty ones;
straight teeth,
combed and styled hair,
brown and ivory skinned
drowning the streets with their
cackling and condescension.
we should scar their faces
with buckshot,
carve those empty smiles across
their high cheekbones
to be an omnipresent companion.
show them a bit of our own
benevolence;
where are my ugly people
like me?
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 6:22 PM UTC
You knew I wouldn't see you
But it didn't hurt any less
Returning cold embraces, warm caress
I knew it was too good to
Keep you from all the buckshot
I forgot, you can't cover the spread
Now I'll have to pattern another gun
One more choke, another run
Cause you weren't true
I lied when I thought of you
Now I'll cry, but know I'll get her soon
Dec 6, 2013
Dec 6, 2013 at 9:06 PM UTC
She let me put my **** in
Leading me inside with her
Shaking ashen fingertips
Embedding her ember eyes like
Molten buckshot beneath the skin
Her fake moans
See-through writhing hips
Begging for it
Until like midnight strikes
Fingertips behind my eye lids
Timid her lips pressed
Wet and ripe
Against me
Red lips archaic and distant
I have rent the curtain
That led to the holiest of holies
Now it is only a matter of time
Before she forgets my name
Before she let's his name slip through her lips
And I bash the mirror with my fist again
Imagining it is her
Frail rib cage beneath
My gashed oozing knuckles
Three fingers in
A warm tongue slides against my brain
She ***** the weak ones like me
Breaking us in
Making the next goodbye easier
Her television dramatics
Slamming doors and suitcases
Raise a fuss from the neighbors With itchy ears
Pressed against the walls
Furiously they ********** to the
Sound of her fists thudding weakly against my chest
Tears dripping from my cheeks or hers
*You *****
They hang on our words
Like scarecrows in an autumn wind
Mar 19, 2013
Mar 19, 2013 at 11:45 PM UTC
The aggravation
*Tick
Tick*
Of the internal
Monologue
I want to burn it with a
Cigarette
It's impossible to speak
So I wrote poetry
I stayed up late in
The night
Penning
Senseless pages of words
Easily forgotten
Oh well
That's good go on with our daily lives
Until it hits you one day
You'll be sleeping all alone
And
Alcohol was your best idea
To put it away
In the bottom shelf
Where it grows
and rots
A hole away in your life
Until you open the drawer again and fall in
Mar 6, 2013
Mar 6, 2013 at 8:00 PM UTC
but I’m just buckshot
caught in a sonnet,
and there’s just too many
shotgun shells
in my diction.
There’s gangrene
in my carrion verses;
each word, a gaping
wound of its own
shrapnel design,
puss-filled and leaking
through wrinkled
notebook paper.
A putrid smell instead of
cheap perfume lingers
on sealed envelopes, —
dried blood
in lieu of a wax seal...
waiting to be opened,
and pressed to a numb chest,
where the infection
can spread again,
and again.
Dec 17, 2015
Dec 17, 2015 at 11:55 PM UTC