"cassette" poems
Trapped in a time loop
where all that happens is you
coming to me, kissing my feelings with your smile,
then crashing me
and leaving me there
with my naked hopes
hiding in the deepest grounds of my heart
again and again.
I am the prisoner of my own deathly wishes,
of the same repeating illusions,
and your voice in my head
is singing the same song on repeat
like a broken cassette
stuck in this old, rusty radio that is my mind.
I am trapped in a time loop
and all I do
is getting lost
somewhere on the paths of your soul
where my dreams get born
just so they can go to die.
Mar 1, 2017
Mar 1, 2017 at 10:05 AM UTC
I want to love you like the 90´s,
back when making a playlist
meant dubbing you a mixtape
I want love you like cassette,
the kind of love that even when it gets tangled
we just have to stick a pencil into the spool
and reel it back to normal
I want to love you like portable Sony CD players,
the kind of love that even when it gets scratched
we just have to blow wipe it on our sleeves
because, love,
love just needs a little touch to make it move
Apr 12, 2018
Apr 12, 2018 at 2:47 PM UTC
claude: battles tabletop.
reaches for maple syrup, into breakfast,
& breaks down puking.
the girlfriend/abortion situation.
the cash
& cream corn.
smells of deeper spring.
grandma & her bible.
to pray.
to eat lunch.
to television &
honey blunt the relief of a sunday night.
lily: into decay.
into dark days of her america.
detox: she breathes on vapor. sweet leaf.
sweats the heat & dead-dreams off. off on wavelengths &
resonance::: sound therapeutics,
at 528.111 hz,
enhanced dream frequency. she falls
into bliss. into
unopened codons & the rigor
of vibrational analog.
love cassette.
achilles: wheelchair-bound & boning
still. gripping ***
the girl & couch.
the couch & modern warfare.
old warfare: harvest of limbs.
he crawls across the lawn to pick strawberries.
thumbs the dirt for entrance
to another world. smokes a jar
of roaches, as monument
to his second generation revival.
cool.
wallace: & the zebra jeep.
red rock monkeywrenched billboards & the ****** of flame upon milk factory.
chemical factory.
fertilizer bomb///return/
to town & grotto.
porch-light wood & breath of bong-rotation.
the babylon journeyman,
embroiled in plots against the order.
to simply disappear.
to portal away.
Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 7:29 PM UTC
Real love lives in your eyes,
It lives in your smile.
It's even shared through the extension
Of your hand.
Real love is exceptional & phenomenal,
Much like a cassette tape wound up
In emotion.
Real love is realistic & finds a way
to communicate, no matter
How hard the emotion.
Real love travels with you.
Real love lives & breathes the same
Breath as you.
The beat of your heart divine &
Echos mine.
Real love remembers the day
my heart met yours,
Although it's been quite a while,
Real love still remembers your name
& Although cassette tapes are a bit
Outdated.
I still remember staying up all night
Listening to the sound of your
Voice.
No matter the instrument,
Real love finds a way
Jun 29, 2021
Jun 29, 2021 at 10:44 AM UTC
I found my soul at 300 baud
in a world the world would one day come to adore
before there were webs
we were the spiders
before there were laws
nothing could be denied to us
we were wardialling before cybercrime
we were a virus before virii became a fake news byline
but if busted I'll deny I ever tried to
break a trunk through MCI jamaica
sat on ************ station for days
raking in creds like a madmuhfuhn rap master
with nothing greater than a pair of headphones
and a cheap cassette tape deck to take me there
kids today dont respect what they play with
back in the day we had to be outlaws
to connect to todays day to day bandwidth
Sep 30, 2017
Sep 30, 2017 at 4:30 PM UTC
Thrown away carrom men
Hunting for the queen
Grey white turqoise marbles
a spinning top on the table
an electric motor a gadget then
bifid nibbed fountain pen
Cassette wheels and a chip of steel
ran faster than ritzy hotwheels
tazos and trumps spurred triumphant jumps
peacock clay in redolent sandalwood
I collected and carry in the treasure of childhood
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 4:40 AM UTC
Retail-hunter gatherers pick
clean processed bones, digging graves
with their shiny teeth, studious in
their reveries as they drone
past worlds dumped in the thresher;
the trucked-in fields of film-wrapped
gore splayed lustily before the managers
wound tight in Machiavellian design.
A shepherd herds his flock of
wreathed iron back to its pen, its
skeletal tangle lit in riotous gold by
swords flung from lambent eyes of
pre-dawn’s shunting chariots
Cages shunt and bobble like tugboats
chugging stoic up swimming pool lanes
of nondescript tile, cheered on by shouting
colours to float through archipelagos of
paper towel and chocolate blocks past
the vegemite diaspora, and the arctic
wastelands cased in sliding glass fields of
perfect steady storms as wraiths baked in halogen
ask silent questions of the silverbeet, while
Lana Del Ray’s voice falls like
nightshade—slutty and serene—coating
shelf stackers in a Piaf sadness as the
shelves reach their arms out for more.
The check out chick hatches
a sense of déjà vu as carrots
and biscuits drone towards her
mind berEFT of any twitching
sense of POSsibility that wised
up and flew this leering coop and
deep in her catalogue of grey folds
something stillborn and waxen is
perched on gleaming steel, reeling
out her guts like cassette tape with jerky
nightmare arms and laughing like a
banker watching ***** films, mornings
dull cerise an invocation through
auto-jaws as she bursts out to warble
with magpies in car park’s climbing fire.
Jul 25, 2013
Jul 25, 2013 at 9:23 PM UTC
Atari clouds are digital ziggurats,
and rather minimal at that.
The sounds are Amiga.
Welcome to the eighties.
Your hair is big,
your clothes are odd,
and Nagel is a minor god.
Welcome to the eighties.
There is a plague
and ACT UP's rage,
but Reagan will not act his age.
For six years, he will say nothing.
Generation X gives birth to Y,
future hipsters to vilify.
All music is vinyl or cassette.
Rocks stars still wear epaulets.
There are two Coreys, podded peas.
Terrorists stay overseas.
Boy bands aren't quite yet in vogue.
Menudo carries a heavy load.
Ricky Martin is still straight.
Cimino ***** with Heaven's Gate.
Cindy Sherman is everyone.
Johnny Hinckley got his gun.
Welcome to the eighties.
Nov 23, 2014
Nov 23, 2014 at 11:09 PM UTC
o halogen light with CD
and cassette holder
how your ribs they envelop
a promise of symphony
as you stand tall and straight
like a guard at the gate
you relieve all my troubles
with your blinding light bubbles
you brighten my day
keep the shadows away
though your color is lightless
you make me so nightless
your a wiry lifeline
steals perception of time
how quick the hours fly by
i'll never know
top of your glow
to the tip of my toe
your electric insides
could frizzle the tides
and your mental effect...
well...
it gives me good rides
May 6, 2015
May 6, 2015 at 9:11 AM UTC
i would take the first train back to the 90's,
when my lungs were nicotine-free
and there was always something worthy on TV.
i would wear my chucks in bed,
and have cereals for dinner.
i would not have heard of ****
i would have used the internet to find
the exact words to the songs on Nevermind,
because cassette inlays haven't got enough
space for Kurt's lyrics.
and if i were you, i wouldn't call this a poem.
-khai
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 9:02 AM UTC
ghosts of slumber parties past.
just a haunted betamax & a stack of oreo sandwiches.
sisters braiding eachother’s hair far past the witching hour,
contemplating life without supervision.
blue house. yellow lawn.
silverback gorilla in one garage.
two garage: empty.
three garage: a woman entombed in exhaust.
[her bloated tongue]
a gang of bmx boys pizza-fed and friday-high,
hopped up on mountain dew and trading card collectible rituals ‘n rhythmics.
they conjure a demon just to **** and dismember it.
for funsies.
for keepsies.
a fang for the shrine at the foot of the old oak tree.
history on the skin, long history, long thoughts, long in the nod like a calm dead frog.
bubbled, boiled, toiled, and troubled.
the woods aren’t haunted.
you are haunted.
you are the conduit through which the darkness displays its vivid colors.
[treefort aflame]
the seasons furrow/
/ the leaves fall.
little plots of land etched out – subdivision and sprawl.
on the avenue, heaven
& hell made tame and tangible.
built, re-built, and refurbished – a lawn and a lantern.
a mortgaged glory of sparkle and decay.
[dead cat is a new cat is the old cat ran away]
pictograms of morning light display on mom’s face
as she instructs us on the gusts of love [scrambed eggs]
& teaches us the truth of nettles sprung
from violent pine.
[toast with raspberry jam]
the television.
the microwave.
the blender beverages.
hymnals of an electric kingdom.
one mom dances, the other expires.
[restless armless girls in orange sunsets]
girl with a gun at the edge of her lawn and selling lemonade.
girl in an old wicker chair.
save her horror story for another day.
boy with a bent frame bicycle limps his way home
from one end of the avenue to the other.
his pockets full of sparkly rocks found in the lime quarry pit.
one boy in a long line of lost planets.
the driveway.
the refrigerator.
the hum of a saturday night commercial-free cassette.
where’s dad?
the glow of an eerie crystal
(continued…)
Oct 20, 2015
Oct 20, 2015 at 6:18 AM UTC
My fantasies turned blonde in ‘seventy-six.
Bjorn, Benny, flickas, sailed from East to West.
Santa Lucia never shone so blessed
as she did in my private Euro-mix.
Perfect pop longs for that feminine fix.
Cassette wheels whirred – branding, then impressing
grooves upon the brain; my thrall confessing
love for Nordic light (in Disco metrics).
The names still strike flames, kindling bright renown:
Frida, Agnetha – your longships linger
Your Viking faces sacked my harbor town.
portaging hope to this shipwrecked singer,
enwreathing smiles to reach our further shore.
I Do… (times five – and will forevermore).
Jan 30, 2016
Jan 30, 2016 at 5:53 PM UTC
Bedded soul in the soil
Casket cassette spins
Tears in Heaven
Ripples into waves
I turn my head in the bed I lay
Now I become Death in his name
While Eric Clapton plays
I light travel dark vivaciously
Garnering the souls in the soil
Feb 8, 2022
Feb 8, 2022 at 10:04 PM UTC
I’m thinking of the faded checkered pattern that has been
smoothed away by time on the dark cloth seats of a Nissan Pathfinder
driving down Ryan Road on a hot day in June.
My mother, in the front seat, singing along to a Spice Girls cassette.
I’m thinking: red, plastic, crab-shaped sandbox and
McDonald’s Happy Meal toys.
I’m thinking: light princess pink, seafoam green, and robin’s egg blue.
I’m thinking of a framed cheetah cross stitch, hanging on the wall of what
used to be our bedroom at my grandparent’s house.
I’m thinking: Barbie doll houses and Hot Wheels and a cul-de-sac at
the end of the street.
The sweet smell of cigar smoke. The ice cold splash of the garden hose. The pop of a bubble. The sting of soap in the eye. Dreams by The Cranberries. As Long as You Love Me by The Backstreet Boys. A HelloKitty boombox slowly spitting out vapor when the deck builders hit a power line while digging. The deer in the backyard looking for corn. The faded wood of a playset that was never really played on.
My father: sitting alone on a splintered bench by the firepit at the edge of the woods, empty beer cans at his feet, chain smoking cigarettes, and humming along to a song that is stuck—forever stuck—on the tip of my tongue.
I do not know if this happened. I cannot ask him.
(I’m not sure if I would want to ask him.)
But I can make an educated inference that that line of
fiction is really nonfiction.
A memory that feels like a phantom limb.
Sounds like the sharp crinkle of static.
Covered in a gossamer, dreamlike haze.
There is a distinct otherness to this memory, to who
I think I was before the trauma.
We are two different people. A yin and a yang. A day and a night.
The hermit crab is soft beneath its hard shell.
The asbestos is not apparent within the insulation.
You cannot see the lead in the paint.
The mold inside the fruit.
May 5, 2021
May 5, 2021 at 2:46 AM UTC
i met him in 1989 in a study hall class
and haven't forgotten him since.
a month ago,
i found out he had died in 2014.
the girls liked him
he'de tell me what was playing on his walkman
so i listened, learned, put a penny in an envelope
and mailed it off to columbia house
some weeks later i received my 12 cassette tapes.
i quit eating and got creative with eyeliner.
i memorized a lot of cure lyrics and went to study hall
prepared.
the semester ended and we weren't in the same
study hall class anymore. he ended up transferring to another school.
but i still had hope.
i had memorized so many lyrics.
i had gotten my hair cut into an inverted bob
and learned how to dye it black.
it felt like anything was possible
and it felt so good.
the next year
i transfered to the other school, but he wasn't there anymore.
the year after that
i transfered to an even worse school
he was there
finally.
soon after that,
emily became his girlfriend
one day, i ran into them at the park and ride
as i was getting off the bus
we spent the night on the sidewalk
outside of emily's dad's house.
none of us were allowed to go inside,
not even emily.
but emily managed to sneak inside
and stole a jug of homemade alcohol,
which we did not call moonshine.
emily fell asleep with her head in his lap
while we talked, smoked three packs of cigarettes (all mine), and drank the homemade alcohol that her dad had made.
emily wanted to be a fashion designer.
he really believed in emily and her drawings.
the sun came up
and i caught a bus home.
we both ended up
dropping out of highschool.
Jun 27, 2017
Jun 27, 2017 at 8:05 AM UTC
And again my heart pounced
over skin cold; that pleaded singleness,
with hypocritical beats I bowed to,
to her highness; to her petite shrill,
a debut in partial denial; unpleasant,
as i withdrew with foul felony,
thoughts raced through judging ethics,
while simplicity ****** away the soul,
into a contagious six holed drain...
And I locked myself behind blue bars,
losing the wall I built with sweated palms,
danced did I over viscous black waters,
embracing the world's false desires,
smashed them pretty birds withing their cage,
lost all sense of peace, I go hidden,
in awe of that ever pleasant voice;
I bow again; in silence I ask me
to plant me in her backyard,
water me with her sour scents,
sing me her sweet lilting lullaby,
and embrace me into our little concord!!
Where did the wisdom lay that moment?
that moment when I tasted drops of sweat...
Why would I **** that clown in me?
that played tunes from a gleeful cassette...
When will I lose my two shadows?
that followed me even while I'd regret...
(a puff o' smoke and some silence)
And again my heart, it pounced!!
Apr 25, 2012
Apr 25, 2012 at 5:20 AM UTC
Why don't I just throw it all in your face
And see if I can escape this ******* place
Use a diversion to escape
Drive away listen to that old cassette tape
Can't I get away for a little while
The site of you is getting quite vial
A get away sounds like a good thing
A vacation is the best thing
Before I set up this battle and war
I need to know and reassure you of the score
You lead by exactly one
So its in your best interest to turn and run
I will kick your ******* skull in
I can guarantee the win
I don't where to start or where to end
Cause even know I don't know what is around the bend
Can't I get away for a little while
The site of you is getting quite vial
A get away sounds like a good thing
A vacation is the best thing
I recall a time once ago
Where you were an angel not a ***
Back then we were together
With hopes of it being forever
Ha, when I think of that now
I can see why it came crumbling down
Oh! Oh! Oh!
Can't I get away for awhile
The site of you is getting quite vial
A get away seems like a good thing
A vacation is the best thing
Dec 10, 2011
Dec 10, 2011 at 10:10 PM UTC
There’s maybe a million of unspoken words I’ve already put into poetry,
When clouds were shrouding the skies above me and all I see is darkness,
When I felt dejected, and when I felt like I’m being surrounded by an air of melancholy,
No poem was ever written because of gratitude and happiness
Writing is what I do when on the verge of breaking down,
But you came and changed the game, the gloomy days are gone
I used to write sad poems before, all that’s found in my face is a frown,
Now I cannot contain my joy, like beautiful sunflowers dancing in the lawn
You are the sun that shone on me after dusky days,
The happy song that finally played on the cassette
You are the guy every actor on romantic movies portrays,
I chose you, that, I won’t regret
I love the warmth of your fingers, entwined around mine
I long for your embrace, craving your lips pressed against my cheek
But just by knowing you feel the same way, I’ll be just fine
Hoping you’ll stay for good because I may not admit it, but without you sweetheart, I’ll be weak
You made me believe in the impossible once more,
You told me distance is never a hindrance, yes I believe you,
Because even when we're miles away, you’re the one this heart beats for
I won’t be writing sad poems ever again, there’s no reason to
In your arms, it feels a lot like home,
In this mad world, you're my happy place, that’s true
After a long wait, finally here’s a happy poem,
This is an ode to my source of happiness, for you my love, I love you
Jan 29, 2016
Jan 29, 2016 at 8:26 AM UTC
there is an old persian legend of a man who falls in love
with a woman and goes insane when he cannot have her.
even after she is married to someone else, he spends his days
composing love songs in the dirt, building sandcastle hearts
just to watch them collapse again when the tide rolls back in.
years pass, and the girl never writes anything back.
i still wonder if she was ever given the chance to.
i was twenty-seven when i learned that you could fashion a
stethoscope out of a cassette tape, broadcast the sounds of your
heart to a double guitar riff that screamed desire. you pressed
play and in an instant, i was priest to your deepest confessional.
i never asked about how you looked at me on the days that my
husband was too busy finding god to join me in bed at night.
i never wanted to know that you sinned in the color of my eyes.
i never thought i’d be remembered for the moment that i traded
krishna for ******* and the thousand days that followed:
day 176: we mix love and self-destruction in an old hotel room
until they go down my throat as easily as sweet red wine.
day 472: you turn watching me get ready for a party into an
excuse to make love to my reflection with the windows open.
day 894: you spend the entire morning restringing your guitar
but i can still recognize another woman’s voice in its tone.
day 1000: i loved you but never had the instruments to prove it.
we’ve both realized that obsession is a drug best left to legend.
to this day, they still call me the greatest muse of rock and roll,
but each switch of the radio dial is just another reminder that i
once tasted like music in the mouths of men, that their words built
me up like a flower-child mona lisa in all the permanence of three
minutes of vinyl, that though i inspired the most beautiful lyrics
ever written about love, they never called me onstage to sing them.
i was once told that if you love a woman to the point of madness, she
will become it. but any insanity i have remains etched on the insides
of my veins; i walk beaches now, much too old for sandcastle-building.
years pass, and the girl has never written anything back.
i still wonder if she will ever be given the chance to.
even the world’s greatest muses sometimes want to hold the pen.
Oct 7, 2013
Oct 7, 2013 at 8:47 PM UTC
Repeat my name in each verse
Flowing within melodies
Sing me to sleep
A lullaby or a love verse
Take me into a new universe
Every time you say my name
Repeat this tune
And play it all-day
Until the day comes
We could be in each other's arms
Feb 11, 2022
Feb 11, 2022 at 12:11 PM UTC
Rattle the cassette
with the biro etched “Car Mix”
grab the keys from mum’s bag
“Fill up what you use!”
“…Ok, can I have a fiver then?”
scuff to the car in unsuitable boots
slump in, adjust mirror, checking stupid fringe
which then existed
snap in the tape so the first bars
of G-Funk, grunge or B*Witched pulse
then it’s off to pick up
shotgun
Nov 20, 2021
Nov 20, 2021 at 4:18 AM UTC
We couldn't save John Lennon
Cars with fins, or rock and roll
Change comes with time, ah, that's a given
We can't even save our soul
TV shows we all grew up on
All the poster girls we love
They all have disappeared
That's just the thing I feared
It happened when push came to shove
I keep my eyes open when I kiss you
I just have to see you near
Yours are closed,
that's the way it goes
I don't want to see you disappear
That's why I keep my eyes wide open
This may be a dream we're in
I have to see you there beside me
I could not live this life again
Cassette tapes and all those eight tracks
In the garbage they all went
They're with the comic books,
The one's your mothers took
To have them now is heaven sent
Fatty foods and concert movies
You can't find them any more
The food has gotten thin
The movies....in the garbage bin
The good times aren't just like before
I keep my eyes open when I kiss you
I just have to see you near
Yours are closed,
that's the way it goes
I don't want to see you disappear
That's why I keep my eyes wide open
This may be a dream we're in
I have to see you there beside me
I could not live this life again
Where are the good old games of pinball
Not the pacman sort of games
You know the ones I mean
You played them as a teen
And you still know all their names
Whatever happened to the music?
The ones we loved are in the ground
Elvis, he was the King,
the great ones all could sing
There's just so few of them around
I keep my eyes open when I kiss you
I just have to see you near
Yours are closed, that's the way it goes
I don't want to see you disappear
That's why I keep my eyes wide open
This may be a dream we're in
I have to see you there beside me
I could not live this life again
Jan 11, 2014
Jan 11, 2014 at 9:38 PM UTC
You are the early 2000s playlist in my memories
A poster big black and faded, advertising a white face
Pictures of the past I struggled to survive
The words which I spewed on a dime
I still dream of the things I want to say
I want to be your good time
But also your whole life
You see, this is the dilemma in my own weird way
But I don't want to fall back and die
Or live beside the ocean
Because that would be the same as all my other days
Lonely
May 6, 2015
May 6, 2015 at 12:44 AM UTC
I Wanna Be A Poet
My writing is very strange,
no one has more range.
I've got my pen, in hand,
my poems are, in demand.
I use paper, it's my source,
I'm a pppppoet, of course.
I wanna be a poet,
and you can be my poetess,
I'm the best you all must confess.
Writing on the paper,
planning my next caper.
Follow me on Twitter,
on Facebook, I'm a heavy hitter.
Writing in my notebook,
figuring my newest hook.
I feel so **** *****
can't help but being flirty.
I wanna be a poet,
and you can be my poetess,
writing will always be my business.
Feeling like a here,
I used to be a zero.
Six pens on my side,
in case some get dried.
Smoking my favorite cigarette,
listening to music on cassette.
Blowing rings with the smoke,
how it ***** being so broke.
Somewhere over the rainbow,
is a *** filled with green dough.
Other poets on the warpath,
because they always feel my wrath.
I wanna be a poet,
and you can be my poetess,
my rhymes have been known to cause dizziness.
My name is Fred,
and one day, I'll be dead yo yo.
Boys Don't Cry, was a one hit wonder,
I just gave that song some poetic thunder.
I used to love that silly song,
Youtube the video, and tell me I'm wrong.
I wanna be a poet,
and you can be my poetess,
my only goal is to simply impress.
Dec 20, 2013
Dec 20, 2013 at 11:21 AM UTC