Bloodshot eyes and a case of laughter,
a Waffle House fix is what we are after.
Find a booth and all pile in,
waitress comes up and the mayhem begins.
Oh but she is a pro,
done this a time or two,
pretty soon here comes our food.
Scraping of the forks and clatter of the plates,
we look like it's been weeks since we ate.
We got scattered, chunked, covered and diced,
heartburn on a plate and don't even think twice.
Well no more thumping head and eyes cleared up a bit,
all we needed was a Waffle House fix!

not every poem is about beauty
too caught we are in the moment to write about it
that is what makes it beautiful
pain clings long beyond instants
prolongs and window reflections
engulfing our bones
masticating our stomachs
from slow drip bile coffeemakers in our chest
the line from that one song starts the burning
and the eyes of a stranger flavored with reminders
i wish i could tell him i finally got to ____
my blood is chunked with tomato slices
acidic clots and stagnant passions
float me in melancholy perplexities
a minute of oddity where emotions
are unidentifiable

Marmalade,
Tangy orange heaven.
Chunked to the max
Smothers toast.
A bite, a crunch.
That citrus burst.
A sigh,
A slurp of coffee.
Ready to tackle the day.

    ©  Nick Strong 2014

Hey Mom,

I just wanted to tell you about the amazing day I am having. First, I woke up to water dripping on me, as if the leaky roof were trying to improve the lumpy bed by giving it a good soak- when the brochure said I “would feel closer to nature more than ever,” I didn't think it meant so literal. After salvaging some semi-dry clothes, I went outside to realize my car window had been broken into. It was dumb of me for leaving my laptop bag in the car when I got in last night, I was just so exhausted from the drive. Well, you know how I get when I get upset, so I chunked my phone, as if it was the one causing my great morning. It landed in some bushes, and after wrestling with the branches for a bit, I finally saw him. Not even ten feet away from my phone did I see the most beautiful pelican. Something about his simple eyes, looking at me with some mixture of boredom and apathy, made me realize where I was. The cool air filled my lungs, leaving smell of salt in my nose. The sand I was sitting in was warm from the sun, feeling like that cozy quilt grandma made for me years ago.
So yeah, today was an amazing day.

With Love,

Chris

No more broken within feelings
Lacking empathy for others
Able to look in the mirror and say looking good
Im proud of mt efforts others might try to kick me down but im not staying down
Im smiling because the world ***** but im awesome
I laugh because I have a sense of humor others dont appreciate
Im glad to have an honest grandma shes so honest it hilarious ive never laughed so hard in my life
Hanging with my cousin his parents threw him out hes an outcast like me thats we get along so well.
Not dating because its not for me I love women but they dont love themselves so they dont have time for me since they are figuring it out
Im enjoying my books its fresh perspective hoping to find my writing style I feel something is missing
The gym is my escape Im getting my body back I chunked up working on my gut and soft core

Clouds of white March mornings
Surf inside this smokechamber I call a brain.
I was twelve and you were thirteen
Both separate rigid crystals growing
In the back of Mom’s awful red minivan.
We stained our fingers with Oxnard cherries
And got high on orange and eucalyptus.
Sand behaved like molasses.
My Walkman was full of ants
Who hated Third Eye Blind with a vengeance.
I had a pimple on my chin
Which I tried to hide with makeup
And I really hoped you’d notice
My cotton candy body splash
I got it because you like
Juicy Fruit gum and
That smells like cotton candy to me.
I chunked down short white shanks
On the red crabbed beach towel
Hoping you wouldn’t notice the ricotta billows
Developing on the upper thighs
Between slushy rivers of purple lightning stretch marks.
I couldn’t deal after ten minutes so I got in the water.
I laid myself across submerged tidal-pool boulders
Near-floating on the frigid little water-pyre
Congealing my skin like vanilla pudding
Bogging me down like a sea sloth.
It took me a halflife to figure out
That while I miss those mornings,
I do not miss you.

There's ***** on the train ride home
and I'm sitting next to it.
It's not on purpose, of course.
Mind you though, I cannot say,
for sure, that it isn't mine.

Putrid, 2am wetness
rises into my nostrils.
From floor, this airborne form
lacks the blacked-out, bile-wine color,
but the stench more than makes up for it.

I'm in and out of consciousness.
"I'm just tired," I swear to the ticket-ticker,
"and my memory mind haunts me."
That's why I truly do not know
whose what this belongs to.

I should bag it and take it home.
With cooled hand on warm, glass cup,
gulp it down and let it simmer.
Chunked broth, swished bitter,
headached pieces puddled on the floor.

I'm not home yet, I've got an hour to go.
Seat reeks, I smell. Hands tremble and a girl laughs.
The train begins moving and I without it.
Can you taste the sickness?
I still do, my mouth fills out with it.

Preach the way to live;
how much more should we give?

This sermon fed on lies will be behind your demise;
a loss to the reprise of fading disputes,
uniforms and suits dragging us away
from our dreamt pursuits.

Pulling up buried roots, yet still convert new recruits.
It makes sense naught, perhaps I’m dense,
or better yet, you simply recoil in defense
at the wrongs humans allow to commence,
but there’s a slip on your grip of suspense
for the boredom is so **** immense
and still in rolls the chunked cents
with our thoughts as expense.

Proclaiming yourself lyrical, it’s hysterical;
in truth, you’re nothing more than satirical
of an industrial percent you so vainly represent,
******* about those you resent with a dubbed accent;
you’re long past the extent of accepted discontent;
**** on your consent to understand torment.

Now dig deep into your thesaurus;
again, it’s time for that written chorus,
day through day saying the same old thing,
Benjamin controlling you by a string;
to the table nothing new you bring,
just over and over again ******* us
with your pseudo-cynical sting.

dirt clods, actually
there were few stones
in the creek that separated
their apartments from ours

a creek, and income gap even we,
barely double digits old, could see
as clearly as the stream
between our worlds

in our battles, I missed
on purpose, as did most
of the Manor marines--never
did a clod hit me

our general, Rex, connected often
inviting obscenities from our opponents
but never did they cross the creek

if they had, it would have been
for naught, for we had won the war
before the skirmishes began

our pool, tennis courts, and club
were the arsenals that gave us the edge
and the Stuart Manor soldiers knew this
but chunked the dirt valiantly
all the same

Warm liquid running down my ribs
Down to my legs where my flesh is chunked in gibs
I waste my last potassium on a final lib
Tire do I of being society's *****
Time between hugs will be measured in years no more
Clocks matter not, neither do I
Silence the speaker of the meek and shy
No longer will I be kissed with a knuckle
Nor will anyone else have control of my belt buckle
Taken so much from this dying earth
Robbing it blind since my errant birth
Give back or give up is a relative term
The wording can be selected by the feeding worm
Celebrate what you find and catch my fleeting dream
May it spark you to travel up stream
Never again will you spot me on the shore
Forever yours aquatically, he who is no longer yours

Then comes the day...
cracks thrown across,  my gaunt old face;
and strength gives way...
these bones are tired, cannot keep pace.

What's that you say?
"How much time here?" "How did you place?"
I couldn't say...
but won't be long, finished this race.

And chunked to clay...
marble stone laid, runes carved on base;
then all will say...
I was called home, by the Lord's grace.

i love your versatility
you pair as charitably as a free agent
i want your bold bits and knobby
ends on my tongue mid-conversation
i like you soft or solidly
jealous green or dark hibernation
I admire your growth's autonomy
with capacity for toleration

i always cook it sloppily
blinded by the destination
i like to go for quantity
when i'm feeling most impatient
i know that it's an oddity
to get off on steamed inflation
i have considered that possibly
it's just about my own temptation

it's not worth the vagrant comedy
to divulge that hot equation
i'll cycle back to ecology
since i don't want medication
i can believe in botany
and your scents of motivation
i can't explain it audibly
just that it's instant gratification

i'm lucky that gastronomy
is so easy with your engagement
i think your critics are a monstrosity
to the spirit of entertainment
i don't think you need a recipe
you're good fuzzy, chunked or shaven
i'm a hungry wanton holly
firmly stalked in imagination

I used to remember in images,
Movies, flipbooks, flying across my eyes,
But then I saw haze,
And the foggy screens became thicker,
So the grime and dust became darkness,
And through the darkness became words,
Disconnected, discolored, disjointed
Streams of words,
And so all my memories lost
Vision, became nothing but recalled statements,
So I could tell you yes it happened,
But how or why or what was sifted through a blender,
Chunked into a garbage disposal, and lost somewhere,
yes, the memory exists as a statement,
A declaration it occurred but oh so loosely,
You can’t be sure of it.

And just like that, it's over -
like it didn't even happen.
Traded the rest of his life
for a half a gram - went out
noddin' like he was nappin'..
My heart cries for the family,
Aaron, I miss you, fam.
And, if I could, you know I'd
buy you back for that half a gram.

Just like that, gone forever..
Like he was never here,
a sudden change of weather
we often see this time of year.
My heart cries for your kid,
I'll never forget you, man.
Why men would rather ****
than build, I'll never understand..

Just like that, forgotten..
The girl had gotten sober
Bought some birthday
presents and ******
and just like that - its over.
My heart cries for your baby
Carrie's never coming back.
I wonder if she wore the
bracelet I gave her when
she faded into black.

Just like that, we're praying..
for God to heal our hurt..
a few words about his life and
then we chunked him in the dirt..
I tried to tell you, Bill David..
That girl would get you killed..
Look to God to do the healing
You just be the one who's healed.

Sometimes I feel like the biggest loser
It ***** being unable to trust
I feel like my heart has been ripped out my chest
And chunked
I don’t know what to do
Where to turn
Or who I can vent too
That’s what happens when you lack trust
If I was trapped in a burning building
I don’t believe anyone would come to my aid
I don’t even believe I deserve to be saved
I know I shouldn’t feel this way
But sometimes I feel I’m as useless as a worm
I’m just everyone else’s bait
And the thing is
I’ve tethered myself to the line

bathed in a beam of distant light, i'm
dangling from the mouth of
the sun today. it won't come like
Fante. it won't come like Bukowski.
it won't come at all. it's rusted
chunked blood calving off from
graveled glaciers onto dead sea beds.
it's a joke, it's far away, it's not
meant for me. and so it seems...yet
there still exists a tiny heart somewhere
under all that pumping away almost
imperceptibly.  funneling what blood
is there to send life to these
fingertips. i don't know if it will
ever reach the page though. odds
are good that death will take me
before those veins reach any words
with weight.
but in the writing they have a
chance to stretch and feel and
find their way through the
labyrinth of time and being
human. they have a chance to
beat the odds. a trickle becomes
a stream. a stream becomes a
river. and a river becomes an
ocean. these dead seas will fill
once more whether i am: the glacier,
the trickle, the stream or the
river. my blood runs to that future
ocean...one way or another.

my morals have been tested
a lot.
for the most part i haven't failed,
unless i was taken advantage of
by extraneous forces.

now, to better armor myself
against circumstances chunked through.