"cartridges" poems
Drowning in the sea of red
cartridges stuck inside her head
singing to the pigeon man
about all the stars again
how they crunch under her toes
there she goes
She dines by the candlelight
golden beetles lined with blight
in her velvet dressing room
withered flowers in full bloom
Drowning in the sea of red
cartridges stuck inside her head
singing to the pigeon man
about the dawn once again
how the curtain rises low
on last show
Cigarettes in the first row
burning slow
Rustling of the stolen feathers
burning slow
City shining through the smoke
burning slow
Feb 19, 2016
Feb 19, 2016 at 1:30 PM UTC
Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade
How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash;
And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.
Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-leads
Which long to nuzzle in the hearts of lads,
Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth,
Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death.
For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.
There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple;
And God will grow no talons at his heels,
Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls.
2.3k
All weapons of
the fates you've sealed
Are no match for
this pen I wield
The power to
articulate
Ticking rhyme bombs
to detonate
The conflicts waged
gambling mankind
My perfect hand
is treaties signed
Hellbent hounds pray
like dogs, I hunt
Frontline this notebook
battlefront
With metaphors
of mindless drones
Like similes
to brainwashed clones
Whose C4 booms
and IED's
Can't build bridges
like ABC's
Or tear them down
with death regimes
By rusting through
the war machines
Flamethrowin’ my
verbal grenade
With ****** noun
scorched-earth tirade
On militant
cold-blood elite
King cobras know
I'm packing heat
Seeking missile
resolution
Winged raptor
devolution
Prehistoric
barbarism
Literacy
cataclysm
Stockpiling
extinction bones
We're cavemen carving
fallout stones
My Hiroshima
prose explodes
With nuclear
bushido codes
Released from my
katana's ward
To free my press
from shogun lord
Oppressing haiku
imagery
And samurai
epigraphy
Expressions of
my ronin soul
Omitted by
the daimyo
Satsuma is my
poetry
My final draft's
Nagasaki
Ink cartridges
strapped 'round my neck
I print no charge
or background check
And ****** every
live round free
Of innocent
blood elegy
And killing sprees
of gunned-down news
Domestic violence
black and blues
A Number 2
pencil dependent
Obsolete
lead-head amendment
Open carry
shoots a blank
Empty shell case
at my think tank
So grip this peace
then **** and pull it
**** my diction
write the bullet
Oct 8, 2016
Oct 8, 2016 at 2:10 PM UTC
At goodwill Buy the Pound
every day is black friday
Hundreds of soccer moms line up their
white sneakers on a black and yellow caution tape line
zombie over it streching for yu-gi-oh cards
wait for hazmat suits to wheel out eight bins full of trash gone treasure.
When the bins are locked in place the hazmat suits go back to pack another load
The air horn sounds.
You do not want to be anywhere near that caution tape line when this happens.
At goodwill buy the pound
If you're not part of the fight,
you're part of the floor.
They need to find their
puzzle peices lost in cat liter
Johnny really needs
every single nerf dart
DID YOU TAKE A NERF DART?!
WE TALKED ABOUT THIS JO-ANN
THOSE WERE FOR JOHNNY.
Johnnys grandma is not the only elder throwing elbows
varacose veins are curb stomping dads hauling consoles to make a quick buck
Skinny College aged video game collectors swim through the mom-pocalypse
raid the stashes for disguarded NES cartridges
Jo-ann grabs a twinky boy by the black graphic hoodie.
Tosses him back into the horde
lunges for a barbie doll hidden under some wires.
This is not a place for nice children.
If you aren't willing to push around some nanas
you will leave covered in nike prints.
This place turns people.
Ever look at someones mom and think
She looks like she's always wearing a mask.
She is!
Buy the pound is her natural habitat.
One grandma keeps so many cats, her living room is a Petrie dish
I think she just wants to be in charge of a small third world countrey.
Granny needs to go rally up the soccer moms at buy the pound.
To lead those cats into a mother thirfting revolution
These woman leave feeling like they saved their family a fortune
Dumpster diving for sport.
Every tossed or trampled stranger
One flip flop closer to
feeding their children
clawing through poverty
When that airhorn sounds again.
They scurry back to their carts.
Tell their children
"Make sure nobody steals this"
as they line back up in haste.
Touch their all white nikes to the caution tape line.
Hold their family close like brass knuckles.
when that airhorn sounds.
It's time to fight.
Jun 15, 2016
Jun 15, 2016 at 10:49 AM UTC
walking through the big flea market
off of highway 19 north of Tampa
looking for whatever and something
curious and kitsch or campy
merchants selling in the parking lot
used blenders and old cameras
burnt out or faulty devices
DVD cases and game cartridges
old rednecks shout out opinions
in a cacophony of drawled signifiers
representing visions of despotic rulers
reigning a tyranny of taxes and decline
old glass containers and windshields shine
scattering high afternoon sunlight in the Sunday sky
sitting and resting used and content waiting
waiting for the wear and reduction of time
the market continues into indoor aisles
criss-crossing within a ramshackle structure
plywood walls supporting sheet metal roofing
an aroma of every greasy food wafting into one
people wrapped in worn fashions
whites in Ts and denim
muslim women in headscarves
a black deputy strapped down in uniform
the deputy enforces commerce laws
around the alternative marketplace
a variety of commodities are still available
bongs and e-cigs and incense and **** ****
parakeets cry out down one aisle
a stack of blue aquariums drone a bubbling hum
the stench of cedar and rat **** and hamsters
reptiles basking in the arid glow of heat lamps
all is right in America’s America
the flea market is the floorboard of that promise
an opportunity for anyone to begin
or start again and over and over
a liberal conservatism can be guarded well
with rifles or tazers at bargain rates
a conservative liberalism is applied openly
in the atmosphere of everyone for anything and everything
the dream of the flea market
a black market and a carnival
all of America’s cheap art on display
its people swirled into one
equal in their struggles and desires
reaching for resources and derivatives
buying low and selling higher
stealing and selling short
walking through the big flea market
on a hot and cloudless Sunday afternoon
looking for whatever or something
it’s a fun thing to do
originally posted to my blog https://sublimeobscenities.wordpress.com on 4/27/2014
Feb 17, 2015
Feb 17, 2015 at 1:17 AM UTC
She’s the type to eat a bowl of ice cream,
shoot a gun, and be fine. I’ve never seen so many pieces
under someone’s rug before, but she keeps
herself in cookie jars, in ink cartridges, in book binds,
anything she can find. I’m surprised she even looks
in the mirror anymore. It’s not possible that she’s herself whole.
But she braids her hair back when she rides her horse,
she channels old Miranda Lambert
and pumps that kerosene melody through her veins
like it wont’ catch fire. I’ve seen her
poke her head through old sweaters like she thinks
it’ll be something new this time. I’ve seen her paint
her skin in expensive body washes, the washcloth
like sandpaper as she tries and tries to smooth
all of the uneven edges she’s collected.
I bet you could watch her memories in a wishing pool,
like in a mini mall, with all the pennies heads down.
They would spin themselves around the surface,
suffocating one another so that only the good ones would shine,
but she dare not pour herself into something that reflective.
It would only reveal what she ties into the waistband
of her old American Eagle jeans every morning,
and that would just be too **** hard. It’s easier
to venture ******** with a crummy perspective
and a realistic approach than it would be to even consider
that maybe this time it wasn’t her fault
for expecting to much, and that maybe people just ***** up.
That maybe, for once she wouldn't blame it on it getting her hopes up
that made her fall, but that no one was there to catch her.
I’d rather watch her cry herself to sleep for months
than to pretend I admire the harsh falsetto she bites back
in all of her lullabies. But she’s the type
to burn old pictures for fun, to delete contact names,
to swallow all her sadness and paint her bedroom a new color
than watch herself come undone.
May 7, 2015
May 7, 2015 at 12:05 AM UTC
brought bones to
a gun fight,
cartilage and
cartridges.
/
Does the rope
around my ankles
make me look fat?
Aug 27, 2018
Aug 27, 2018 at 11:41 AM UTC
~
*The Umbrellas
of Cherbourg,
pastel-coloured,
rain-soaked,
bouncing
around the room,
blocking all of the exits,
in Doppler shifts
it all turns and returns,
indeed there's daggers
in a woman's smile,
from a grain of sand
to mushrooms in the sky,
say it in a letter—
a hostage crisis,
recitative,
and catlike,
load the cartridges
and let them fly,
(flutter of wings),
face the sun and
bargain with flowers,
(flutter of lashes),
grow as clingstone and
follow my warlight home,
(flutter of heartbeat),
just close your eyes
and make believe,
it all turns and returns,
Geneviève,
I will wait for you,
la petite amie,
I will wait for you,
anywhere you wander,
anywhere you go.*
~
Aug 23, 2021
Aug 23, 2021 at 4:58 PM UTC
After it is done and we are spent
like cartridges,after we
began,begin,became the firing pin,became,become
again the bullets in the gun,
in and through the blackened chambers run,
we killed the sun and kissed the night,held
it tight to let it know
but it knew well that it could go
and went,after
we were done and spent.
Jun 11, 2014
Jun 11, 2014 at 4:30 AM UTC
I drew his cartridges of loaded hope and daddy’s dancing shoes from his piano too many women n’ ***** bluez that cut of coyote teeth on his mirror in lipstick
A portrait of a saint
A portrait of a ******
A portrait of love and death
A portrait of humanity
I’m alive
I th e stra n g e r
I the collapsible paraplegic
I the daughter of the govenor and the daughter wailing sax
His mirror melted into red wax
Of confusion
In this open room bathroom where he is lying behind me invisible through all the lipstick he bought me that is drawn all over his reflection, my reflection, this place, this death sentence, the rest of my life to lead after 16 on my own, I can only hear the image screech I used to be behind me
26 wires into different parts of him to machines that make him breathe
candy colored computer heart pumps and wicked adreneniline bumps and heart breaks and candy necklaces and bad legs and I don’t know this now but in three days after a year of this ******** he’ll be gone
stroke.
Here I go.
Again.
On my own
1/10/2010
Jan 10, 2010
Jan 10, 2010 at 1:04 PM UTC
she's gold on one side
silver on the other
heartened and free
she runs like a car wreck
racing at breakneck speed
trudging through sand to conjoin
two-fold into one.
little passes by her that goes unnoticed.
she drinks in every opportunity
to swallow what ever happening will feed her today's lesson.
equanimity hostility frivolity passivity.
she knows the streets have taught her more
than she will ever forget.
and she can remember how it felt
to taste ***** in her mouth
when she looked in the mirror
that mocked her every breath.
she tries to back step
and unmake a bed
that she's told she made
and must lie in
for the rest of her life.
she wants to call consignment
and have it undelivered
but they won't take
bug ridden
**** stained
sprung and un-stuffed
pieces of junk that carried
peoples dreams in the dark.
there's no worth, they say.
so she's left
carting around holes and dead air.
melted glass and ***** cartridges.
spent fits and broken tin.
wondering
what kind of legacy this is
for a very pretty tousle haired girl
that trusts her with unfeigned eyes
and believes in super mom?
she cries at night
and tries in the morning
being as tangible as they expect-
but in that socketed place
that holds spun sugar contemplation
she buries herself.
one two-fold parades all day
playing puppet gurrl games.
she lives in a land of
pots of gold and rainbows
clover and blue moons
moving one step at a time
towards what's expected
because she knows nothing else.
day in and day out
running like a car wreck-
gold on one side
and silver on the other.
Jul 12, 2010
Jul 12, 2010 at 12:04 PM UTC
Quiet Jane,
Your mind was insane,
Your thoughts fell to the
bottom of the earth into
a pit of burning fire and
as it fell, it yelled out your name.
Oh, Quiet Jane.
Pictures around the room,
Framed with macaroni and glue.
Windows stained with the cracks from
the fist of Quiet Jane.
Empty cartridges laying on the floor,
Holes in the wall and in the door.
Twenty old bottles of Gordon's gin,
Smoky room, the walls are caving in.
Pacifiers scattered around the table,
Unused, but open nappies in a cradle,
But no small child seen wandering the hallways,
What's going on, where's Quiet Jane?
Mar 2, 2013
Mar 2, 2013 at 4:46 AM UTC
We are all talking much louder
Than your shoulders can translate
There are escaped sovereigns hiding from
Modern anthems of star spangled spasms
Underneath our hearts there are cars and cartridges
Condoms and consoles coiled around our flagpoles
We are through being told what not to do
So whenever we fool around with tiny tyrants
Please know that we are talking about you
And I am supplying your mind with ecstatic silence
In order to finance these fading fitness regimes
And measure your symbols in systematic struggles
We are all insignificant bundles of nerve fibers
Hoping to one day be born again
As an alchemical magus fluent in many languages
Sep 23, 2019
Sep 23, 2019 at 2:29 PM UTC
broken pencils do write
snapped crayons still color
dried pens never talk
empty toners cartridges do not print
squeezed lemons reveal secrets
chalky chunks mark sidewalks green
introverts reserve their words
in volumes the quiet do speak
Mar 23, 2021
Mar 23, 2021 at 8:44 PM UTC
i walk around the carnage of my souls carcasses
your empty promises lying around like shells and cartridges
you were the harness keeping me from falling into this heartless fortress
i should have known your touch wasn't just harmless
it was there to harvest
my dreams my hopes my aspirations , until you **** out every thing
and there is nothing but darkness...
your love letters look like habeas corpus
summoning me to a court, with a sentence to the gallows
i have swallowed all your lies and the pain
the shrapnel of what we were once are still stuck in my heart and brain..
too scared to love and dream again
too scared to even mention your name
too scared that you were the dame..
Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 6:12 AM UTC
harbour abyss
shallow dwell our shotgun cells
open wide
tastes like magnesium
swallow now
magnesium magnesium
fall down you barrow folds
why are all the snails out?
you haven't heard?
it's been forty weeks of rain
it's been forty years of rain
crush them if you see them-
don't you know we're in a bubble economy?
the churches crumble
cats lie bored in parking lots
surrounded by nothing
pat pat
the summer heat
dye your bones
in rohypnol veils
empty into cartridges
shoot up
sky burial
float the concentric
lace of vultures
do you ever pantomime being hurt,
just to hide your hurting?
hahahahaa,
no
this ******* heat
pavement swells
dig up the dirt
relay the dirt
reseal over spit your teeth
tap tap from the mountaintop
into the ocean
spend the days watching
kids stamp on the ants
and then cry as they learn what it is to know death
mothers stare on with tired eyes
the summer heat
the summer heat
who took all the rain?
-sosososo,
there's this game,
this game, you see
you
make a jigsaw
but replace every odd or so tile,
with an image of your own design
after a few tries,
the whole thing becomes entirely incomprehensible,
but at least it's yours
Dec 1, 2016
Dec 1, 2016 at 7:22 PM UTC
On the desk, there lies a fountain pen
It doesn't take cartridges
Rather, you dip it in ink and press it to paper
It makes a sound, not unlike fingernails on a chalkboard
But not like it either - it's satisfying instead of goosebump-inducing
Slowly scratching the page until it's gone
The ink has bled onto page 3
I've pressed too hard
But this paper is thick
Previous poets pondered profusely
Pretending this pen was a pipe
Holding it between their teeth until an idea came ripe
This pen holds a history of poetry
Of spilling thoughts that otherwise stayed internalized
And of sometimes spilling ink
It gets everywhere
I love it
May 12, 2015
May 12, 2015 at 4:52 PM UTC
We spent cartridges
like honeydew wine water,
they flowed in all directions
as we tormed the ramparts,
spilling destruction with
concentrated-fire.
Split second decisions
left us unable to think,
to think about the color of our socks,
what coffee flavor intrigued us,
or how we wore our hair.
All we cared about
was one more day
above ground,
it was survival of
the fittest,
not who was neatly-dressed.
Jan 4, 2014
Jan 4, 2014 at 10:52 PM UTC
I long for that cold, blued steel against my skin as I anticipate the end.
I could easily take my life.
In the corner rests my rifle and cartridges.
I don't know why I don't do it.
I don't like living and I don't appreciate my days.
Joyless. No afterlife. Nothing.
So why don't I just
Tie this knot.
Oct 17, 2016
Oct 17, 2016 at 6:28 AM UTC
I’ve been bleeding
black and blue bubbles
through extruded cartridges.
Leaving doilies soiled
on your dressed tables
without placing a touch.
Trying to donate gifts
from my darkening life
to a priceless recipient.
Pushing your peace away
with each bubble blown
onto ink-smeared surfaces.
My mental misfires
cause my life line
to tangle and retreat.
I’ve tormented my threshold
with a shattered appendage
that over extended its reach.
As I twist tourniquets,
I represent one unconditioned
for appreciating being love in truth.
Please, reset my uneven mending
and apply an encouraged healing
by molding me in wrappings of you.
Nov 24, 2012
Nov 24, 2012 at 3:56 PM UTC
your words cut deep,
deep in the flesh of my soul
and that was how it’s always been,
I guess. And we were just waiting for
words to go between the words we said,
to add up to the little things that brought us
together, saying words to each other slowly,
without affixing other words that can drive us
away from each other, like when the love was said,
and when the love was gone, and all we ever did was
say ‘I don’t love you no more,’ instead of what we always
told each other, as if the words ‘don’t’ and ‘no’ are always just
negatively inserted between the cartridges of our vocabulary, and instead
of loving each other more and more, we settled on elisions, thrown between
our words, our sentences, our 5 AM conversations, our used-to-be-connections.
your words cut deep and we tear our tangled limbs. elision. that’s what it will be.
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 10:42 AM UTC
Son of a ***** there’s twenty dollars down the *******
Five cartomizers for this electric cigarette
Why am I even smoking?
I quit five years ago, so why even put this in my body?
Where is the logic in that?
Because I like what it does to me
I like the relaxing hush it puts over me
But god **** it!
These five little cartomizers full of nicotine ain’t compatible with the battery because they’re for the rechargeable e-cigs
The ***** at 7-11 didn’t tell me that, why would she?
It’s her gain and my loss.
That’s her logic “this clueless kid doesn’t know any better, he just wants his nicotine fix.”
**** just ****
So now I either go buy the rechargeable kit for another twenty dollars
Or I just buy another disposable one for ten dollars and make the twenty I already spent completely worthless
Well
I’m not spending the other twenty, forget that right now!
I’m gonna buy another disposable one, then smoke the five nicotine cartridges, then the one it will come with then the first one I bought if it still has some juice left in it
All before the battery runs out and I gotta buy another one
Goodbye lungs!
Logic
Feb 12, 2014
Feb 12, 2014 at 11:35 AM UTC
Land lines, phonographs, telex and hat racks,
Pagers and zip drives, typewriters, ****
Cassettes and telegraphs, tape reels and 8-tracks,
Floppies and slide shows, mainframes that sang.
Boom boxes, slide rulers, portable TVs,
PDAs, Walkmans, the reel-to-reel spin,
Laserdiscs, cartridges, glowing CRTs-
All relics, all memories, fading within.
Yet in this museum of things left behind,
You stand beside me, astonishingly, real.
The world keeps on changing, erasing its kind,
But you, love, remain-what I touch, what I feel.
May 24, 2017
May 24, 2017 at 8:24 PM UTC
I'm really sorry
That I broke your atari
You look at me with ****** brewing in your eyes
And a boiling rage that you just can't disguise
You mutter "Mint condition 1977"
And how you had it since you were eleven
You hold your game cartridges lovingly in you hands
And say that know one understands
I'm gonna be sleeping with one eye open tonight
May 26, 2012
May 26, 2012 at 11:55 AM UTC
The night tilts as the heat shifts
Drilled and funneled in shafts
The heathen sprawl and pawn
On a tunneled road, all is caught
My city lights lifts, in stoop steeps
Clouds pour out sorrowful hearts
Colorific rhythms ensemble chants
Palpably a wave to awaken saints
Lugubrious, prosaic,tame and lame
Cushioned in dejected cartridges
Ejected from alchemical cartilages
Wrecked from ships, colonies in hives
Squeezed through the eye of a needle
Dreams of unthinkable hearted thoughts
Blinded by the bagged and oppressed sacks
Hammered and pounded on a narrow middle
Apr 28, 2016
Apr 28, 2016 at 1:27 PM UTC